Deciphering WCW Buyrates

One of the great advantages of WWE being a public company is that it's possible to decode their financial filings into concrete numbers regarding attendance, TV Rights fees and PPV buys. Alas, things are never quite as clear for poor WCW (World Championship Wrestling)

That isn't to say there isn't any information out there -- it's just scattered and sometimes contradictory.

Attendance
Dave Meltzer collects monthly stats on major wrestling federations which supplies us with WCW House Show Attendance 1991-2001:

TV Rights

Television Rights Fees were much less of "a thing" for pro wrestling back in the 1990s as compared to today.  Still, WCW was owned by a media network (Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.) and they were trying to grow the product base and make money through additional broadcasting.  They added a third hour to Nitro in 1999, launched Thunder, held internet-only audio broadcasts and created other specialized broadcasts such as WCW Live all which no doubt were designed to gain money through advertising and promoting the PPVs.  

Sadly, information from public filings only scantly mention World Championship Wrestling; there are random notes on ventures such as the Nitro Grill in Las Vegas, delicious Trimfast WCW Bars, nWo t-shirts, and WCW Action Figures.  WCW was rarely mentioned in Turner Public Filings -- usually just listed as one of the many, many assets of a major media and entertainment corporation.

PPV
Scattered across the web, there's a few places that have some WCW PPV numbers. But since it's about the mid-1990s, you're stuck in the world between buyrates (percentage of capable homes that purchased an event) and buys (the number of homes that bought the event).

Some of the data sources I have used:

• PWH: Jason Campbell's Pro Wrestling History (Excel spreadsheet)
• old broadcast and cable industry articles
• PWO: this prowrestlingonly thread ("Demand for a Comprehensive PPV Buyrate List") 
• GER: an old german website (archive of Genickbrunch's "WCW buyrates PPVs 1991-2001" page)
• Wrestling Observers Archives

The final column is CDH Estimate which is basically my formulaic guess at what might be plausible.

WCW Event	Date	PWH Buyrate	GER Buyrate	PWO buys	CDH Estimate
Starrcade 1987	11/26/1987	3.30		20,000	20,000
Bunkhouse Stampede	1/24/1988	3.50		200,000	200,000
Great American Bash 1988	7/10/1988	2.20		190,000	190,000
Starrcade 1988	12/26/1988	1.80		100,000 to 150,000	150,000
Chi-Town Rumble	2/20/1989	1.50			130,000
WrestleWar 1989	5/7/1989	1.30			120,000
Great American Bash 1989	7/23/1989	1.50			140,000
Halloween Havoc 1989	10/28/1989	1.77			175,000
Starrcade 1989	12/13/1989	1.30			130,000
WrestleWar 1990	2/25/1990	1.60			175,000
Capital Combat	5/19/1990	1.40			160,000
Great American Bash 1990	7/7/1990	1.70			200,000
Halloween Havoc 1990	10/27/1990	1.30			160,000
Starrcade 1990	12/16/1990	1.30			165,000
WrestleWar 1991	2/24/1991	1.20	1.20		160,000
Superbrawl I	5/19/1991	1.04	1.04		150,000
Great American Bash 1991	7/14/1991	1.00			145,000
Halloween Havoc 1991	10/27/1991	0.80	0.80		120,000
Starrcade 1991	12/29/1991	1.00	0.70		155,000
Superbrawl II	2/29/1992	0.96	0.70		160,000
WrestleWar 1992	5/17/1992	0.61	0.60		105,000
Beach Blast 1992	6/20/1992	0.40	0.40		70,000
Great American Bash 1992	7/12/1992	0.40	0.40		70,000
Halloween Havoc 1992	10/25/1992	0.90			165,000
Starrcade 1992	12/28/1992	0.50	0.50	95,000	95,000
Superbrawl III	2/21/1993	0.50	0.50	85,000	95,000
Slamboree 1993	5/23/1993	0.50		110,000	100,000
Beach Blast 1993	7/18/1993	0.50	0.50	100,000	100,000
Fall Brawl 1993	9/19/1993	0.46	0.46	95,000	95,000
Halloween Havoc 1993	10/24/1993	0.50	0.50	100,000	100,000
BattleBowl	11/20/1993	0.27	0.27	60,000	55,000
Starrcade 1993	12/27/1993	0.55	0.55	120,000	115,000
Superbrawl IV	2/20/1994	0.50	0.50	110,000	110,000
Spring Stampede 1994	4/17/1994	0.53	0.50	125,000	115,000
Slamboree 1994	5/22/1994	0.48		100,000	105,000
Bash at the Beach 1994	7/17/1994	1.02	1.02	225,000	225,000
Fall Brawl 1994	9/18/1994	0.53	0.53	110,000	115,000
Halloween Havoc 1994	10/23/1994	0.97	0.97	220,000	210,000
Starrcade 1994	12/27/1994	0.60	0.60		130,000
Superbrawl V	2/19/1995	0.95	0.95	215,000	180,000
Uncensored 1995	3/19/1995	0.96	0.96	200,000	180,000
Slamboree 1995	5/21/1995	0.57	0.57	100,000	110,000
Great American Bash 1995	6/18/1995	0.51	0.51	90,000	100,000
Bash at the Beach 1995	7/16/1995	0.82		180,000	160,000
Fall Brawl 1995	9/17/1995	0.48	0.48	85,000	95,000
Halloween Havoc 1995	10/29/1995	0.60	0.60	120,000	120,000
World War 3 1995	11/26/1995	0.43	0.43		90,000
Starrcade 1995	12/27/1995	0.36	0.36		75,000
Superbrawl VI	2/11/1996	0.60	0.60		210,000
Uncensored 1996	3/24/1996	0.70	0.70		250,000
Slamboree 1996	5/19/1996	0.44	0.44		155,000
Great American Bash 1996	6/16/1996	0.48	0.48		170,000
Bash at the Beach 1996	7/7/1996	0.71			250,000
Hog Wild 1996	8/10/1996	0.62	0.62		220,000
Fall Brawl 1996	9/15/1996	0.65	0.65		230,000
Halloween Havoc 1996	10/27/1996	0.70	0.70		250,000
World War 3 1996	11/24/1996	0.55	0.55		200,000
Starrcade 1996	12/29/1996	0.95	0.95		345,000
Souled Out 1997	1/25/1997	0.47	0.47		170,000
Superbrawl VII	2/23/1997	0.75	0.75		275,000
Uncensored 1997	3/16/1997	0.89	0.89		325,000
Spring Stampede 1997	4/6/1997	0.58	0.58		210,000
Slamboree 1997	5/18/1997	0.60	0.60		220,000
Great American Bash 1997	6/15/1997	0.60	0.60		220,000
Bash at the Beach 1997	7/13/1997	0.89	0.89	500,000	325,000
Road Wild 1997	8/8/1997	0.65			240,000
Fall Brawl 1997	9/14/1997	0.53	0.53		195,000
Halloween Havoc 1997	10/26/1997	1.10	1.10		405,000
World War 3 1997	11/23/1997	0.56	0.56		205,000
Starrcade 1997	12/28/1997	1.90	1.80	625,000 to 650,000	700,000
Souled Out 1998	1/24/1998	1.02			380,000
Superbrawl VIII	2/22/1998	1.10	1.10		415,000
Uncensored 1998	3/15/1998	1.10	1.10		415,000
Spring Stampede 1998	4/19/1998	0.72	0.72		275,000
Slamboree 1998	5/17/1998	0.72	0.72		275,000
Great American Bash 1998	6/14/1998	0.75	0.80		290,000
Bash at the Beach 1998	7/12/1998	1.50		600,000	580,000
Road Wild 1998	8/8/1998	0.93	0.95		365,000
Fall Brawl 1998	9/13/1998	0.70	0.70		275,000
Halloween Havoc 1998	10/25/1998	0.78	0.78	500,000	310,000
World War 3 1998	11/22/1998	0.63	0.70		250,000
Starrcade 1998	12/27/1998	1.15	1.15		460,000
Souled Out 1999	1/17/1999	0.78	0.78		330,000
Superbrawl IX	2/21/1999	1.15	1.10		485,000
Uncensored 1999	3/14/1999	0.77	0.73		325,000
Spring Stampede 1999	4/11/1999	0.60	0.60		255,000
Slamboree 1999	5/9/1999	0.45	0.48		195,000
Great American Bash 1999	6/13/1999	0.43	0.43		185,000
Bash at the Beach 1999	7/11/1999	0.40	0.39		175,000
Road Wild 1999	8/14/1999	0.54	0.55		235,000
Fall Brawl 1999	9/12/1999	0.29	0.35		130,000
Halloween Havoc 1999	10/24/1999	0.52	0.52		230,000
Mayhem 1999	11/21/1999	0.45	0.45		200,000
Starrcade 1999	12/19/1999	0.32	0.23		145,000
Souled Out 2000	1/16/2000	0.26	0.25		115,000
Superbrawl X	2/20/2000	0.15	0.15		70,000
Uncensored 2000	3/19/2000	0.13	0.13		60,000
Spring Stampede 2000	4/16/2000	0.25	0.27		115,000
Slamboree 2000	5/7/2000	0.14	0.14		65,000
Great American Bash 2000	6/11/2000	0.19	0.20		85,000
Bash at the Beach 2000	7/9/2000	0.22	0.25		100,000
New Blood Rising	8/13/2000	0.18	0.18		85,000
Fall Brawl 2000	9/17/2000	0.16	0.16		75,000
Halloween Havoc 2000	10/29/2000	0.15	0.15		70,000
Mayhem 2000	11/26/2000	0.12			55,000
Starrcade 2000	12/17/2000	0.11			50,000
Sin	1/14/2001	0.17	0.10		80,000
Superbrawl Revenge	2/19/2001	0.15			70,000
Greed	3/18/2001	0.10			50,000

One thing that has been exceptionally hard to track down is "total number of PPV capable homes" so there is some basis to try and convert a 1.0 buyrate into something meaningful. You can read some of my notes on what I learned last time I tried to do that.

I am incredible grateful to the hard work of everyone who has labored to keep track of these archaic statistics for stat hounds like me. I don't believe that what I published here is correct, but I do think it's in the ballpark of accurate.  I look forward to continuing to learn more so I can refine techniques and learn more about what are the true WCW Buys vs Buyrates.

A word about ROH and TNA Draws 2009-2013

I pulled Wrestling Observer stats June 2008-Jan 2014 from the results section so I could look at WWE Draws:

Switching over to ROH, the dataset is obviously far more limited (than WWE)

June 2008-Dec 2008: 18 shows (632 avg) and 3 other shows (no attendance listed)
Jan 2009-Dec 2009: 30 shows (740 avg) and 16 other shows (no attendance listed)
Jan 2010-Dec 2010: 20 shows (593 avg) and 15 other shows (no attendance listed)
Jan 2011-Dec 2011: 16 shows (528 avg) and 3 other shows (no attendance listed)
Jan 2012-Dec 2012: 16 shows (481 avg) and 2 other shows (no attendance listed)
Jan 2013-Dec 2013: 27 shows (497 avg) and 2 other shows (no attendance listed)
Jan 2014: 2 shows (900 avg)

So, from this perspective, they've been fairly flat since 2010, but you could argue by running more shows and actually increasing their average attendance over the prior year, they were actually up.

When you look at it in terms of total annual attendance (avg x # of shows)...

Total ROH Attendance
2009: 51 shows x 740 avg = 37,740
2010: 41 shows x 593 avg = 24,313
2011: 28 shows x 528 avg = 14,784
2012: 29 shows x 481 avg = 13,949
2013: 33 shows x 497 avg = 16,401

(To count ROH shows for this final calc - which you'll see is higher than the # of WO results -- I looked at the combination of The History of WWE and the WO Results. Note: some NJPW/PWG/1PW/AIW shows are in the ROH results, so I took those out of my count. I used the History of WWE count for 2009-2012 but their 2013 results are incomplete, so I used the cross-referenced the two sources and came up with 33 shows.)

For comparison, TNA average (using WO results) is a lot higher - more shows, and more people per show.

June 2008-Dec 2008: 36 shows (1188 average) and 35 other shows
Jan 2009-Dec 2009: 61 shows (1198 average) and 49 other shows
Jan 2010-Dec 2010: 67 shows (1284 average) and 51 other shows
Jan 2011-Dec 2011: 74 shows (1314 average) and 58 other shows
Jan 2012-Dec 2012: 58 shows (1064 average) and 69 other shows
Jan 2013-Dec 2013: 60 shows (1493 average) and 30 other shows
Jan 2014-Feb 2014: 13 shows (1723 average)

So, we're looking at at least twice as much per show, and twice as many shows.

Total TNA Attendance
2009: 131,769 (110 shows)
2010: 151,556 (118 shows)
2011: 173,416 (132 shows)
2012: 135,102 (127 shows)
2013: 134,325 (90 shows)

This was based completely on WO Results for TNA Shows and may be missing some PPVs.

House Show Main Eventers

As a follow-up to summarizing WWE House Show Tours (June 2008-Feb 2014), I was also looking at who wrestled in the main events on the WWE Live Events (f.k.a. House Shows).

Methodology:

• Isolate the WWE Events that were not TV Tapings
• Flag wrestlers that are in the last three matches per show at least 70% of their matches
• Filter for wrestlers that average in the last quarter of the card for that month

WWE Live Events - Daniel Bryan versus John Cena

When we looked at Raw Viewership changes by quarter-hour cross-referenced with WWE Superstar, it was garnered a lot of discussion about whether it "proved" Daniel Bryan could be a draw.  As Dave Meltzer has noted, the major elements that WWE is looking when they're judging whether they believe someone can make money is their effect on television ratings, their ability to move merchandise and their ability to draw (PPV buys, live event houses, etc).

I was challenged a few weeks ago to look at how do Daniel Bryan house shows draw compared to John Cena house shows.  I took a stab at it and found the domestic, non-televised Cena tour outdrew the Daniel Bryan tour by an average of about 1,000 over the few months both Cena & Bryan were active.  However, it wasn't a satisfying analysis. Not only was there only a very small dataset to compare, we weren't comparing the same cities. It seemed like we could produce some better #wrestlenomics.

So, we started with a much larger dataset:

WWE Event Results from Wrestling Observer Newsletters (6/11/08 to 2/10/14): 1,686 events.
Isolate WWE Results with Attendance Numbers Available: 1,263 events.
Isolate WWE Results w/ Attendance Numbers that were not TV Tapings: 976 events.
Isolate non-TV Taping WWE Results w/ Attendance Numbers held in USA/Canada: 666 events.

• Jun 2008-Dec 2008: 43 live events (baseline)
• Jan 2009-Dec 2009: 86 live events (baseline)
• Jan 2010-Dec 2010: 112 live events (baseline)
• Jan 2011-Dec 2011: 127 live events (baseline)
• Jan 2012-Dec 2012: 136 live events (baseline)
• Jan 2013-Dec 2013: 143 live events (compare)
• Jan 2014-Feb 2014: 19 live events (compare)

Let's take Jun 2008-Dec 2012 and establish that as our baseline. This gives us 504 shows and a baseline attendance average for 234 cities (ranging from one visit to five/six visits).  Trivia: the eight cities with the most complete data were for Youngstown Ohio, Evansville Indiana, Salt Lake City Utah, Asheville North Carolina, Hidalgo Texas, White Plains New York, Augusta Georgia and Peoria Illinois.

Meanwhile, in our Jan 2013-Feb 2014 dataset we have 162 shows covering 144 cities (of which 120 cities are in our baseline.)  We'll look at these 136 non-televised live WWE events and compare which how they drew compared to the 56 month baseline.

Furthermore, events were split into four categories:

1. Shows with both John Cena and Daniel Bryan wrestling (BOTH) = 26 shows
2. Shows with John Cena but not Daniel Bryan                  (CENA) = 31 shows
3. Shows with Daniel Bryan but no John Cena                  (BRYAN) = 39 shows
4. Shows with neither John Cena or Daniel Bryan             (NEITHER) = 40 shows

Let's look at an interesting (and extreme) example: Syracuse, New York

Baseline (2008-2012)

August 9, 2008: 3,000 people

December 30, 2009: 13,000 people

June 10, 2011: 5,400 people

May 12, 2012: 5,500 people

Average: 6,725 people

Median: 5,450 people

Comparison (2013-2014)

March 3, 2013: 6,100 people (CENA) = -625 versus average; +650 versus median

October 4, 2013: 3,700 people (BRYAN) = -3,025 versus average; -1,750 versus median

Going through all 120 cities/136 events and adding up the results, here's what we find:

RESULTS

Type	SHOWS	Difference vs Baseline Avg	Difference vs Baseline Median	Avg
1. CENA AND BRYAN	26	800	746	5,458
2. CENA ONLY	31	(177)	(140)	5,916
3. BRYAN ONLY	39	(791)	(671)	5,138
4. NO BRYAN/NO CENA	40	(899)	(769)	4,080

Commentary

• Essentially, if the expected house was about 6,000 people, not having John Cena could mean things would be about 10% lower.
• There's not a huge difference between using median and using averages.  That implies that while some of the baseline datapoints may be inflated (such as tours during popularity swells such as Christmas-New Years), overall that isn't what's driving the results.
• While I compared almost 14 months of data, the major discussion of Daniel Bryan as a drawing card has been since his ascension in Summer of 2013.  Let's look at the data on a timeline basis:

You'll observe that Cena really stopped working non-televised house shows for several months from the Summer 2013 through end of the year as he recovered from his injury.  Bryan's city-by-city results were a mixed bag with some notable wins in major cities (Boston, Dallas, Vancouver) and some under achieving in other cities (Washington DC, Denver, Indianapolis).  The "Bryan & Cena" dates were all beginning of 2013 before started treating Punk & Bryan as the headliners for the B-tour.

Additional Considerations

A. Change the Time Frame to look at Bryan's Ascension

If you limit the time-frame for comparison to just June 2013-Feb 2014, we lose a lot of the "Cena Only" show data but interestingly that pretty much erases the deficit between the two wrestlers.  In that scenario, the 31 Bryan only shows are down -1,180  versus the average and the 17 Cena only shows are down -1,023 versus the average.  They'd be essentially tied, but neither are providing WWE with upward momentum.

B. What about Int'l Results?

This is only looking at WWE "Domestic" (US/Canada/Puerto Rico) tours.  WWE historical did much stronger internationally and tour lineups on international shows would seem to be more heavily scrutinized by fans for their favorite stars. Average European house show was 7,800 from 2008-2010 but things really cooled off in the last three years down to 6,200.  Meanwhile, "domestic" live events have actually warmed up a bit from 4,800 to 5,00 in that period.  I would attribute some of that rise to the changes we've seen over the last five years.  For instance, WWE used to tour as Smackdown and Raw brands which had a notable difference in strength: Domestic Raw drew 5,400 average while Domestic Smackdown drew 4,200 average hence the decision to move to an all "Supershow" routine.(There was a much smaller difference internationally since they often beefed up talent on the cards and only sent over touring crews periodically.)

C. Can we "fix" the baseline?

There's more we could do to control for the baseline.  We could look at which touring entity came first, and establish a formula for what a "joint" show ought to draw.  We could look at the time between when WWE returned to cities and what day of the week they were touring.  We could look at who was headlining and what time of year it was.  All of these factors are no doubt influential in the attendance for the show. 

There's a lot more to learn but at least we have an interesting framework to start the comparisons.

-Chris Harrington (@mookieghana)

chris.harrington@gmail.com

2013 Monday Night Raw Ratings

Monday Night Raw on USA ratings were from a combination of tvbythenumbers and the Wrestling Observer newsletter.

WEEK	SHOW	Hr1 Viewers	Hr2 Viewers	Hr3 Viewers	Avg Rating	Avg Viewers
12/30/2013	RAW	4,141,000	4,204,000	4,040,000	2.96	4.13
12/23/2013	RAW	3,893,000	3,959,000	3,610,000	2.66	3.82
12/16/2013	RAW	4,417,000	4,297,000	3,886,000	2.93	4.20
12/9/2013	RAW	4,218,000	4,177,000	4,062,000	2.84	4.15
12/2/2013	RAW	3,620,000	3,560,000	3,450,000	2.64	3.54
11/25/2013	RAW	4,318,000	4,292,000	3,796,000	2.93	4.14
11/18/2013	RAW	3,770,000	3,970,000	3,670,000	2.73	3.80
11/11/2013	RAW	3,867,000	3,834,000	3,603,000	2.73	3.77
11/4/2013	RAW	4,069,000	3,951,000	3,643,000	2.75	3.89
10/28/2013	RAW	4,315,000	4,185,000	3,965,000	2.98	4.16
10/21/2013	RAW	3,914,000	3,802,000	3,759,000	2.71	3.83
10/14/2013	RAW	4,114,000	4,146,000	3,716,000	2.88	3.99
10/7/2013	RAW	3,694,000	3,685,000	3,739,000	2.65	3.71
9/30/2013	RAW	3,605,000	3,530,000	3,616,000	2.68	3.58
9/23/2013	RAW	3,603,000	3,795,000	3,820,000	2.81	3.74
9/16/2013	RAW	3,865,000	4,162,000	4,012,000	2.96	4.01
9/9/2013	RAW	3,800,000	3,900,000	3,950,000	2.91	3.88
9/2/2013	RAW	3,690,000	4,146,000	3,974,000	2.85	3.94
8/26/2013	RAW	4,129,000	4,291,000	4,151,000	3.07	4.19
8/19/2013	RAW	4,076,000	4,485,000	4,333,000	3.24	4.30
8/12/2013	RAW	3,743,000	4,273,000	4,317,000	2.95	4.11
8/5/2013	RAW	3,973,000	4,381,000	4,182,000	2.96	4.18
7/29/2013	RAW	3,660,000	3,900,000	3,750,000	2.86	3.77
7/22/2013	RAW	3,922,000	4,162,000	3,933,000	2.95	4.01
7/15/2013	RAW	3,926,000	4,108,000	4,268,000	3.05	4.10
7/8/2013	RAW	3,790,000	4,308,000	4,403,000	3.09	4.17
7/1/2013	RAW	3,720,000	4,135,000	4,012,000	2.89	3.96
6/24/2013	RAW	3,743,000	4,287,000	3,910,000	2.89	3.98
6/17/2013	RAW	4,154,000	4,027,000	4,263,000	3.05	4.15
6/10/2013	RAW	3,893,000	4,085,000	3,992,000	3.05	3.99
6/3/2013	RAW	3,620,000	3,620,000	3,800,000	2.65	3.68
5/27/2013	RAW	3,993,000	3,950,000	3,891,000	2.80	3.94
5/20/2013	RAW	4,080,000	4,300,000	4,310,000	2.97	4.23
5/13/2013	RAW	3,790,000	4,100,000	4,250,000	2.91	4.05
5/6/2013	RAW	3,970,000	3,870,000	3,910,000	2.89	3.92
4/29/2013	RAW	4,287,000	4,311,000	4,257,000	3.06	4.29
4/22/2013	RAW	4,190,000	4,650,000	4,360,000	3.13	4.40
4/15/2013	RAW	4,185,000	4,236,000	4,026,000	3.07	4.15
4/8/2013	RAW	4,490,000	4,780,000	4,560,000	3.43	4.61
4/1/2013	RAW	4,030,000	4,480,000	4,400,000	3.10	4.30
3/25/2013	RAW	4,580,000	4,690,000	4,580,000	3.21	4.62
3/18/2013	RAW	4,252,000	4,415,000	4,114,000	3.08	4.26
3/11/2013	RAW	4,980,000	4,890,000	4,570,000	3.34	4.81
3/4/2013	RAW	4,968,000	5,239,000	4,847,000	3.52	5.02
2/25/2013	RAW	4,860,000	4,700,000	4,560,000	3.43	4.71
2/18/2013	RAW	4,818,000	4,674,000	4,493,000	3.28	4.66
2/11/2013	RAW	4,350,000	4,250,000	4,180,000	3.15	4.26
2/4/2013	RAW	4,863,000	4,857,000	4,711,000	3.54	4.81
1/28/2013	RAW	4,860,000	5,270,000	4,930,000	3.67	5.02
1/21/2013	RAW	4,370,000	4,419,000	4,162,000	3.03	4.32
1/14/2013	RAW	4,500,000	4,680,000	4,470,000	3.19	4.55
1/7/2013	RAW	4,290,000	4,320,000	4,650,000	3.15	4.42

For comparison for fiscal year 2000 (May 1999-April 2000), according to their annual report, two hour program of WWF Monday Night Raw on USA average 6.2 rating, 6.7 million viewers.

Meanwhile, in 2013, three hour program of WWE Monday Night Raw on USA averaged 4.16 million viewers and a 3.00 rating from Jan 2013 to Dec 2013.  (If you chose to "cherry-pick" the best two hours in 2013 for every single episode, it's still only 4.24 million viewers; this isn't a case where you can just argue that one certain hour is killing them.)

- C. Harrington (@mookieghana)

WCW Wrestlers who made singles matches better/worse

I've been interested in expanding a project that I started on Isolating the Best Singles Wrestlers using the latest Dave Meltzer's Star Ratings for WCW PPVs and Clash of the Champions Events.

One reason I think this is important is because just looking at average star ratings per wrestler can be quite deceiving.

Wrestlers with 5+ Singles/Tag Matches

Your top fifteen WCW Singles wrestlers (based on highest average singles match star ratings) would include: Jushin Thunder Liger, Ultimo Dragon, Ricky Steamboat, Rey Mysterio Jr, Eddie Guerrero, Vader, Chris Benoit, Ric Flair, Too Cold Scorpio, Terry Funk, Juventud Guerrera, Dean Malenko, Syxx, Psychosis and Chris Jericho.  All fine performers but they each worked with different opponents with different strengths and weaknesses. What I'm trying to get at is how these wrestlers impact their opponent -- do they raise their average rating or hurt them?  In other words, which wrestlers seem to be making singles matches better?

Here's the methodology that I used, and illustrate the process, let's look at someone with a middle-of-the-pack singles average: Lance Storm.  While his star rating average (1.55) is hardly impressive, an alternative view will show that his score is largely due to his opponents.

Lance Storm Singles: 1.55 average

• NEW BLOOD RISING Storm vs. Awesome        DUD
• FALL BRAWL 2000 Storm vs. Gen Rection **1/4
• MAYHEM 2000 Storm vs. Gen Rection     *3/4
• STARRCADE 2000 Storm vs. Miller        *3/4
• SUPERBRAWL 2001 Storm vs. Miller        **

So, Lance had one match against Mike Awesome and two each against Hugh "General E. Rection" Morrus and Ernest "the Cat" Miller.  Let's look at each of those men:

Mike Awesome
Mike Awesome Singles: 1.50 average

• SPRING STAMPEDE 2000 Awesome vs. Miller **1/4
• SPRING STAMPEDE 2000 Scott Steiner vs. Awesome *
• SLAMBOREE 2000 Awesome vs. Kanyon ***1/4
• GAB 2000                               Awesome vs. DDP **1/4
• BATB 2000                          Scott Steiner vs. Awesome ***1/4
• FALL BRAWL 2000 Jarrett vs. Awesome ***
• HH 2000                                 Awesome vs. Vampiro -**1/2
• STARRCADE 2000                 Awesome vs. Bigelow *
• NEW BLOOD RISING         Storm vs. Awesome DUD

Mike Awesome Singles w/o Lance Storm: 1.6875 average

Difference: (0.1875) [ 1 match ]

Hugh Morrus

Hugh Morrus Singles: 1.25 average

• SOULED OUT 1997 Morrus vs. Big Bubba 1/2*
• GAB 1997                 Konnan vs. Morrus 1/2*
• SLAMBOREE 2000 Scott Steiner vs. Gen. Rection **1/4
• FALL BRAWL 2000 Storm vs. Gen Rection **1/4
• MAYHEM 2000         Storm vs. Rection *3/4
• STARRCADE 2000         Douglas vs. Rection 3/4*
• SIN                                 Gen Rection vs. Douglas *1/2
• SUPERBRAWL 2001     Morrus vs. Wall 1/2*

Hugh Morrus Singles w/o Lance Storm: +1.00 average
Difference: +0.25 average [2 matches]

Ernest Miller
Ernest Miller Singles: 0.769 average

• FALL BRAWL 1998 Smiley vs. Miller -*
• STARRCADE 1998         Miller vs. Saturn DUD
• GAB 1999                 Miller vs. Horace -*
• BATB 1999                 Miller vs. Disco  1/2*
• ROAD WILD 1999         Miller vs. Bagwell DUD
• SS 2000                         Awesome vs. Miller **1/4
• NEW BLOOD RISING Muta vs. Miller *
• HH 2000                         Sanders vs. Miller -1/2*
• MAYHEM 2000         Douglas vs. Miller *1/4
• STARRCADE 2000         Storm vs. Miller *3/4
• SIN                                 Miller vs.Sanders **
• SUPERBRAWL 2001      Storm vs. Miller **
• GREED                          Kanyon vs. Miller *3/4

Ernest Miller Singles w/o Lance Storm: +0.568 average
Difference: +0.201 average [2 matches]

Lance Storm Effect:

• Mike Awesome (-1.875) x 1 match + Hugh Morrus  (+0.250) x 2 matches + Ernest Miller (+0.201) x 2 matches = +0.1429 average effect on singles matches

Basically, we're going to compare how a wrestler does in all of their singles matches besides a specific opponent and see if we can isolate who is involved most often with matches that raise the average star rating for that opponent.

WCW Singles Wrestlers with Largest Improvements (3 or more singles matches)

1. Reno: +0.71 improvement over 3 matches
2. Akira Hokuto: +0.49 improvement over 3 matches
3. Scott Norton: +0.39 improvement over 5 matches
4. Ricky Morton: +0.38 improvement over 6 matches
5. Chris Benoit: +0.30 improvement over 30 matches
6. Shane Helms: +0.30 improvement over 3 matches
7. Ric Flair: +0.28 improvement over 61 matches
8. Dustin Rhodes: +0.26 improvement over 17 matches
9. Vader: +0.25 improvement over 22 matches
10. Mick Foley: +0.24 improvement over 10 matches
11. Juventud Guerrera: +0.22 improvement over 10 matches
12. Terry Funk: +0.22 improvement over 10 matches
13. Hak: +0.20 improvement over 3 matches
14. Ricky Steamboat: +0.17 improvement over 16 matches
15. Billy Kidman: +0.17 improvement over 17 matches
16. The Great Muta: +0.17 improvement over 12 matches
17. Brian Pillman: +0.17 improvement over 24 matches
18. Steve Austin: +0.15 improvement over 16 matches
19. Lance Storm: +0.14 improvement over 5 matches
20. Rey Mysterio Jr: +0.14 improvement over 21 matches
21. Ultimo Dragon: +0.12 improvement over 13 matches
22. Glacier: +0.12 improvement over 4 matches
23. Diamond Dallas Page: +0.11 improvement over 44 matches
24. Barry Windham: +0.11 improvement over 15 matches
25. Jeff Jarrett: +0.08 improvement over 25 matches
26. Chris Kanyon: +0.08 improvement over 9 matches
27. Ice Train: +0.08 improvement over 3 matches
28. Bam Bam Bigelow: +0.08 improvement over 12 matches
29. Lex Luger: +0.07 improvement over 52 matches
30. Ray Traylor: +0.07 improvement over 12 matches

I admit to being surprised by some of these results.  (After all, it isn't every day where you produce a list touting the greatness of Ice Train, Sandman and Lex Luger as singles wrestlers!) However, you can see how quickly we're talking about very minor changes (such as adding less than a tenth of a star when the smallest increment is a quarter)  

Likewise, we can also look at the singles wrestlers who seemed to consistently make matches worse:

WCW Singles Wrestlers with Largest Impairments (3 or more singles matches)

1. Butch Reed: -0.52 impairment over 6 matches
2. Scotty Riggs: -0.44 impairment over 5 matches
3. Dave Sullivan: -0.37 impairment over 4 matches
4. The Renegade: -0.35 impairment over 4 matches
5. Stevie Ray: -0.28 impairment over 6 matches
6. Dusty Rhodes: -0.28 impairment over 4 matches
7. Steve McMichael: -0.28 impairment over 9 matches
8. Big Josh: -0.25 impairment over 3 matches
9. Jim Duggan: -0.23 impairment over 11 matches
10. Larry Zbyszko: -0.17 impairment over 5 matches
11. Vampiro: -0.16 impairment over 13 matches
12. Ernest Miller: -0.16 impairment over 12 matches
13. Van Hammer: -0.16 impairment over 7 matches
14. The Demon: -0.14 impairment over 3 matches
15. Ranger Ross: -0.14 impairment over 5 matches
16. Maxx Payne: -0.14 impairment over 4 matches
17. Bryan Clarke: -0.12 impairment over 5 matches
18. Masahiro Chono: -0.12 impairment over 5 matches
19. Road Warrior Hawk: -0.11 impairment over 3 matches
20. The Wall: -0.11 impairment over 8 matches
21. Konnan: -0.11 impairment over 18 matches
22. Disco Inferno: -0.11 impairment over 13 matches
23. Sid Vicious: -0.10 impairment over 18 matches
24. Mike Sanders: -0.10 impairment over 3 matches
25. Crowbar: -0.10 impairment over 4 matches
26. Rick Rude: -0.10 impairment over 13 matches
27. Prince Iaukea: -0.09 impairment over 8 matches
28. Paul Orndorff: -0.09 impairment over 9 matches
29. John Tenta: -0.09 impairment over 5 matches
30. The Iron Sheik: -0.09 impairment over 3 matches
31. Hulk Hogan: -0.09 impairment over 30 matches

With these numbers, you can almost calculate a "difficulty of schedule" metric for wrestlers - who had the most lummoxes they had to carry?

You can also tell that there is some bias towards wrestlers that only have a few appearances on the list versus those that wrestled many, many, many different people.  The most improvement people would probably be Benoit, Flair, Vader and Rey who proved they could assist a lot of different people.  If I was only taking the top ten improvements for these wrestlers, their average effect would be higher.

Singles Match Improvement Scores (minimum 5 matches; use the top ten results)

1. Chris Benoit: +0.70 improvement in 10 matches
2. Ric Flair: +0.67 improvement in 10 matches
3. Lex Luger: +0.52 improvement in 10 matches
4. Dustin Rhodes: +0.48 improvement in 10 matches
5. Vader: +0.44 improvement in 10 matches
6. Scott Norton: +0.39 improvement in 5 matches
7. Brian Pillman: +0.39 improvement in 10 matches
8. Ricky Morton: +0.38 improvement in 6 matches
9. Billy Kidman: +0.31 improvement in 10 matches
10. Diamond Dallas Page: +0.30 improvement in 10 matches
11. Sting: +0.28 improvement in 10 matches
12. Johnny B Badd: +0.26 improvement in 10 matches
13. Ricky Steamboat: +0.26 improvement in 10 matches
14. Mick Foley: +0.24 improvement in 10 matches
15. The Great Muta: +0.23 improvement in 10 matches
16. Steve Austin: +0.23 improvement in 10 matches
17. Rey Mysterio Jr: +0.23 improvement in 10 matches
18. Juventud Guerrera: +0.22 improvement in 10 matches
19. Terry Funk: +0.22 improvement in 10 matches
20. Jeff Jarrett: +0.21 improvement in 10 matches
21. Barry Windham: +0.19 improvement in 10 matches
22. Ultimo Dragon: +0.15 improvement in 10 matches
23. Booker T: +0.15 improvement in 10 matches
24. Lance Storm: +0.14 improvement in 5 matches
25. Bam Bam Bigelow: +0.14 improvement in 10 matches
26. Eddie Guerrero: +0.13 improvement in 10 matches
27. Mike Rotunda: +0.12 improvement in 10 matches
28. Chris Jericho: +0.12 improvement in 10 matches
29. Dean Malenko: +0.10 improvement in 10 matches
30. Ray Traylor: +0.10 improvement in 10 matches

This is generally a list of highly regarded wrestlers with several hall of famer workers (Benoit, Flair, Vader, Steamboat, Foley, Muta, Austin, Rey, Funk, Ultimo, Guerrero, Jericho).  Certainly, I am surprised to see Luger, Norton, Mero (Badd) fare so well while on the other hand no one should be surprised to Benoit, Flair, Vader and Pillman. Keep in mind that when you're only cherry-picking the top scores, you're going to portray a rosier-than-reality picture.  With Dustin Rhodes recent career renaissance in the Rhodes Scholars tag team in WWE, perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that his WCW work appeared to have the quality where his presence in a match made everything better! Still, I would refer people to the final table in this article and look at both a wrestler's average and median scores.  Some people, such as Butch Reed, have abysmal average singles match impact scores (-0.52) while their median singles match impact score (-0.01) is perfectly normal.  

Lastly, age obviously is going to play a role in this.  Some wrestlers came to WCW in the twilight of their career.  Others were young & budding talent.  Some have matches in this dataset spanning more than a decade (Terry Funk, Ric Flair) and that will heavily impact results as well.  This analysis is pretending that each wrestler had the same potential regardless of their age or gimmick or title position they were in at that time.

- Chris Harrington @mookieghana