2017 Match of the Year: Statistical Analysis

Last week, we rolled out the much-anticipated Voices of Wrestling 2017 Match of the Year countdown starting on Monday with our honorable mentions and finishing Friday with the best of the best: our Top 10.

Now with a few days to process everything (and a little help from our friend and Wrestlenomics Radio co-host Chris “mookieghana” Harrington) we can analyze trends and look at standout individual performers, promotions and focus on any trends or interesting facts to come out of this year’s list. Included in this post is the promotion with the most matches represented, which wrestler appeared in the most matches, which wrestler had the most overall points, highest average as well as analysis on which month reigned supreme and much more.

I’ve included a full listing of our 2017 Match of the Year at the bottom of the post so if you find any trends or stats not included, be sure to share it with us on Twitter at @VoicesWrestling.

2017 Match of the Year Archives

• Introduction, Voters & Honorable Mentions: voicesofwrestling.com/2018/01/29/voices-wrestling-2017-match-year-introductions-honorable-mentions/
• 150-101: voicesofwrestling.com/2018/01/30/2017-match-year-150-101/
• 100-76: voicesofwrestling.com/2018/01/31/2017-match-year-100-76/
• 75-51: voicesofwrestling.com/2018/01/31/2017-match-year-75-51/
• 50-26: voicesofwrestling.com/2018/02/01/2017-match-year-50-26/
• 25-11: voicesofwrestling.com/2018/02/01/2017-match-of-the-year/
• 10-1: voicesofwrestling.com/2018/02/02/2017-match-of-the-year-10-1/

Voices of Wrestling Match of the Year Archives

• 2016: voicesofwrestling.com/category/vow-latest/columns/2016-match-of-the-year/
• 2015: voicesofwrestling.com/category/vow-latest/columns/2015-match-of-the-year/
• 2014: voicesofwrestling.com/category/vow-latest/columns/2014-match-of-the-year/
• 2013: voicesofwrestling.com/category/vow-latest/columns/2013-match-of-the-year/
• 2012: voicesofwrestling.com/2012/12/20/top-10-matches-of-2012/

Most Matches (By Promotion): NJPW (37)

NJPW was (and continues to be) king:  this the fifth consecutive year a NJPW match was voted Voices of Wrestling Match of the Year. What’s most telling this year is just how far away NJPW was from the competition. If we put WWE NXT and WWE together, they would still be nine matches short of NJPW’s tally this year.

The most surprising promotion on this list is Dragon Gate. Ask any devoted Dragon Gate fan and they will tell you the company had a down year (relative to their standard), yet DG had the second most matches represented at 16. Compared to other promotions near the top of our list, the highest-ranked Dragon Gate match (Masaaki Mochizuki vs Susumu Yokosuka) came in at 46, just barely in our Top 50.

The Rest: Dragon Gate (16), WWE NXT (14), WWE (14), CMLL (11), PROGRESS (10)

Most First-Place Votes (By Promotion): NJPW (84)

This wasn’t even close as NJPW had 84 total first-place votes, good for 77.8% of all first-place votes. Wow.

wXw was the next closest at just four (3.7%).

Matches from NJPW to receive first place votes were Okada vs. Shibata, Okada vs. Omega (x3), Omega vs. Naito, Naito vs. Tanahashi, Ospreay vs. KUSHIDA, Elgin vs. Naito and Okada vs. Suzuki

The Rest: wXw (4), WWE NXT (3), WWE (2), BJW (2), Bacaral (2)

Most Matches (By Individual): Zack Sabre Jr. (12)

Can someone be underrated and still have the most matches represented in our Match of the Year poll? I think so. The reason is: I never once saw Sabre’s name come up in any legitimate discussions for Wrestler of the Year. Why not? Dude worked everywhere and had great matches on multiple continents against a variety of opponents. I wasn’t surprised when he emerged as the man with the most matches represented. Sabre’s 2017 was great…but was just overshadowed by a few more high-profile, all-time great years.

Sabre’s 12 matches just narrowly beat out Kenny Omega’s 11. The key difference being Omega finishing with our #2, #3 and #4 matches while the best Sabre match (Will Ospreay vs Zack Sabre Jr. from November 10) finished #24.

The Rest: Kenny Omega (11), WALTER (10), Will Ospreay (10), Kazuchika Okada (9), Tyler Bate (8), Matt Riddle (8)

Highest Individual Average: Katsuyori Shibata (408)

There was little surprise here as Shibata—with only two matches total on this year’s list—was in our #1 and #29 (vs. Hirooki Goto) matches. Those placements helped Shibata average 408 points per match, almost double his next closest competitor, ironically enough, his Match of the Year mate Kazuchika Okada (256).

The Rest: Kazuchika Okada (256), Kenny Omega (176), Tetsuya Naito (130), Ilja Dragunov (112), AJ Styles (66)

Overall Points (By Individual): Kazuchika Okada (2304)

Okada had nine matches make the list this year—fourth most of any wrestler—and made each and every count amassing 2,304 total points.

Okada finished with the unprecedented trifecta being apart of our #1, #2 and #3 matches this year. The Rainmaker was also apart of our #6, #14 and #22 matches. Yeah, he had a year for the ages.

Omega—who Okada battled in three of the nine matches—finished second with 1940 overall points over 11 matches.

The Rest: Kenny Omega (1940), Katsuyori Shibata (815), Tetsuya Naito (779), Tyler Bate (400), Pete Dunne (386)

Most Matches (By Month): August (29)

This should come as little surprise given the scheduling of NJPW’s annual G1 Climax but August 2017 was the most represented month on this year’s MOTY list with 29 total matches.

August 2017 made its presence felt on the Top 25 as our #4, #6, #14, #17 and #21 matches all took place during the month.

The Rest: March (28), July (22), April (21), May (20), September (20)

Highest Ranked Month: January (77.3)

This was a bit of a surprise as I broke down the data. January, not August, saw the highest average rank thanks in part to only 15 matches from the month and spots #2, #10 and #11 in our Top 25.

The Rest: October (97.7), May (100.5), November (103.2), March (111.3), July (113.6)

Other Monthly Analysis:

The prevailing thought about many who participate in our annual Match of the Year poll is that matches taking place more recent to our voting period (January 2018) will do better than those that happened at the beginning or middle of the year.

This year, that was not the case as the total matches per month dropped considerably in the final few months of the year. While March and August (WrestleMania Weekend and G1 Climax, respectively) are bound to skew the data heavily in those months, we see October, November and December with lower numbers than a bulk of the year. Equally interesting is the low output at the beginning of the year. This may lend some credence to the idea that matches from 10+ months ago are harder to remember or harder to keep in someone’s top 10 while matches from the heart of the year remain strong. One of these days I’ll study our past years Match of the Year data and see if this trend was a one-year thing or more common.

Overall Point Distribution

This chart shows off just how dominant our top two (Okada vs. Shibata & Okada vs. Kenny Omega from January) matches were. Look where even the remainder of the top five are — they aren’t even close. This was a year led by two dominant matches and a bunch of pretenders.

Dispersal of First Place Votes

Speaking of those top two matches, they garnered an impressive 30.7% and 26.7% of all first-place votes. The third place match (Kazuchika Okada vs. Kenny Omega from June) received 13 first-place votes — 12.9%.