FiveThirtyEight article on WWE

[kelvsyc]

FiveThirtyEight has published four articles on WWE, including one today on how it seems that talent with extensive Japanese experience is at the forefront of "the new era", and that booking of Japanese wrestlers (either wrestlers purported to be from Japan or wrestlers with extensive Japanese experience) have been booked to win more often as of late.

Do you think data-driven booking may become a thing in the future?

[Christian Small]

I know guys like Finn Balor & AJ were getting big pushes to top spots but I don't think it's solely because of their Japan experience. If this was true then Anderson & Gallows would be doing so much better then they have, those guys have lost more then they won. Even AJ is only now getting a big push, they made him lose a lot at first. I do think the time in New Japan helps guys a lot as it's easily the 2nd company right now and produces shows that are just as big as WWE.

[kelvsyc]

Right; the article doesn't put a lot of emphasis on foreign wrestlers acquiring Japanese experience (ie. the Balor, Styles, Anderson, Gallows archetype), but Japanese wrestlers specifically. The article makes note of the fact that the winners at SummerSlam and NXT TakeOver Brooklyn II generally had more experience in Japan compared to the losers (predictably, Nakamura, Asuka, Balor, and Anderson are notable outliers, and if Itami-Aries was considered a "match", Itami would also be an outlier); The Miz was the only notable exception.

The other infographics, using Cagematch.net data, talks about net wins of Japanese wrestlers (trying to point out that Nakamura, Itami, and Asuka are a far cry from Funaki and Tajiri in the 90s), suggesting different attitudes in booking over the years. Additionally, there is an argument that Nakamura and Asuka are having historically big pushes, which may translate into similarly big pushes once either makes the main roster. (Interesting how they quantify pushes as well, as they define a "push" in terms of hard data as "number of matches between a championship win and their first clean loss after winning the championship"; fittingly, Nakamura and Asuka are extreme outliers.)

The article concludes with the fact that the influx of Japanese wrestlers being booked well is a better "invasion storyline" than actual invasion storylines.

The other three WWE-related articles on FiveThirtyEight:
* One article talks about the most heavily-edited articles on Wikipedia; seven WWE-related articles make the top 100 (including the #2 entry), and is the most heavily-edited single "topic" overall
* The other two articles talks about the death rates of WWE talent during the pre "Get the F out" era, compared to the general population, as well as other sports leagues.

[deezy]

Taking anecdotal evidence and making a story of it.....thought that was strictly for medicine.