(Re)Introducing the SPOT statistic: What it means & how it's calculated
This blog is going to continue to focus on the McGuirk/Watts territory, but I'm going to do it a little differently.
Every week I will take a look at four different years, starting with 1961, 1968, 1975 and 1982. For the first week in July, I will look at the first week in July for 1961, the first week in July for 1968, etc. SPOT ratings will be calculated every week for each of the years. This way, I can focus more on week-to-week changes for wrestlers and look at how wrestlers move up and down the cards over time. I will also list the matches that occurred most often, as well as the wrestlers that teamed up most often.
I think this is way of presenting the data will be of more interest to wrestling fans:
1) It will lead to more frequent updates of the blog, as I will be making four updates each and every week.
2) By covering multiple time periods, fans who may be more interested in the Mid-South years will have something to look at every week. Fans who are more interested in the 60s will also have something every week.
As such, I want to offer a quick refresher of the statistic I use, which is my own creation:
SPOT (short for Statistical Position Over Time) is a number between .00 and 1.00 that measures a wrestlers' average spot on the cards for a given period of time. A SPOT of 1.00 would mean that wrestler was ALWAYS in the main event for the given time period. While the order of matches on a modern wrestling card is often done in a "peaks and valleys" method, in the territorial era it almost always built from preliminary matches to the mid-card to the main events. Using the SPOT rating enables me to create a "pecking order" for all the wrestlers in a territory at a given time.
Technically, I will be using a 5-week weighted average for the calculations. So for a given week "X", I am using data from week X, the two weeks prior and the two weeks after. The matches that occur in week X will be given more weight, the matches occurring one week before or after will be given slightly less weight, and the matches occurring two weeks before or after will get further less weight. This will allow me to have a large enough sample size while keeping an emphasis on the current week. For a given week, I generally only list wrestlers who are full-time in the territory with appearances in that week. Touring attractions (the NWA World Heavyweight champion women, midgets, Andre the Giant, etc.) and other wrestlers of note who weren't full-timers will be noted separately.
I will not be bouncing around from year-to-year; I chose years that are evenly spaced out and we will go forward from there. I am starting in 1961 because that marks the territory's first attempt at expanding into Louisiana; they started running several cities in the state between late June and early July. The end point will be in March of 1986, when Mid-South was renamed the Universal Wrestling Federation and became a national promotion.
Every week I will take a look at four different years, starting with 1961, 1968, 1975 and 1982. For the first week in July, I will look at the first week in July for 1961, the first week in July for 1968, etc. SPOT ratings will be calculated every week for each of the years. This way, I can focus more on week-to-week changes for wrestlers and look at how wrestlers move up and down the cards over time. I will also list the matches that occurred most often, as well as the wrestlers that teamed up most often.
I think this is way of presenting the data will be of more interest to wrestling fans:
1) It will lead to more frequent updates of the blog, as I will be making four updates each and every week.
2) By covering multiple time periods, fans who may be more interested in the Mid-South years will have something to look at every week. Fans who are more interested in the 60s will also have something every week.
As such, I want to offer a quick refresher of the statistic I use, which is my own creation:
SPOT (short for Statistical Position Over Time) is a number between .00 and 1.00 that measures a wrestlers' average spot on the cards for a given period of time. A SPOT of 1.00 would mean that wrestler was ALWAYS in the main event for the given time period. While the order of matches on a modern wrestling card is often done in a "peaks and valleys" method, in the territorial era it almost always built from preliminary matches to the mid-card to the main events. Using the SPOT rating enables me to create a "pecking order" for all the wrestlers in a territory at a given time.
Technically, I will be using a 5-week weighted average for the calculations. So for a given week "X", I am using data from week X, the two weeks prior and the two weeks after. The matches that occur in week X will be given more weight, the matches occurring one week before or after will be given slightly less weight, and the matches occurring two weeks before or after will get further less weight. This will allow me to have a large enough sample size while keeping an emphasis on the current week. For a given week, I generally only list wrestlers who are full-time in the territory with appearances in that week. Touring attractions (the NWA World Heavyweight champion women, midgets, Andre the Giant, etc.) and other wrestlers of note who weren't full-timers will be noted separately.
I will not be bouncing around from year-to-year; I chose years that are evenly spaced out and we will go forward from there. I am starting in 1961 because that marks the territory's first attempt at expanding into Louisiana; they started running several cities in the state between late June and early July. The end point will be in March of 1986, when Mid-South was renamed the Universal Wrestling Federation and became a national promotion.
