McGuirk Wrestling Territory: 1976 Jan-Jun Recap

Now that we're halfway through the year, I wanted to take a look back at the first 6 months of the McGuirk wrestling territory in 1976.

I looked at the SPOT Ratings on a week-to-week basis for the full time wrestlers in the territory to put together a list of the top stars for the first six months. As a reminder, SPOT Rating stands for Statistical Position Over Time. SPOT is a numerical representation of a wrestlers' average position (or spot) on the cards and is expressed as a number between .00 and 1.00.

A wrestler with a SPOT Rating of .80 and above is considered a Main Eventer, between .60 and .80 is an Upper Mid-Carder, between .40 and .60 is a Mid-Carder, and .40 and below is a Preliminary Wrestler. Furthermore, there is an additional 'unofficial' category of a .90 and above; we'll call that a Top Draw. 

Here are all the regulars who were Top Draws, Main Eventers, or Upper Mid-Carders at some point in the first 6 months of 1976. I used their highest weekly SPOT Rating to put together this list.

TOP DRAWS

Babyfaces: Bill Watts, Dick Murdoch, Gorgeous George Jr., Grizzly Smith

Heels: Bob Sweetan, Buck Robley (turned face in June), Buddy Roberts, Jerry Brown, Ken Patera, Killer Karl Kox, Scandor Akbar, Waldo Von Erich

MAIN EVENTERS

Babyfaces: Danny Hodge, Greg Valentine, Sonny King, Tom Jones

Heel: Bob Slaughter

UPPER MID-CARDERS

Babyfaces: Bob Griffin, Jay Clayton, Nelson Royal, Ted DiBiase

Heels: Bobby Jaggers, Randy Tyler, Ron Starr, Siegfried Stanke

The following chart shows the weekly SPOT Ratings for the above wrestlers. They are sorted by average weekly SPOT Rating from highest to lowest. SPOT Ratings for babyfaces are shaded in blue, heels in orange. The higher the SPOT, the darker the shading. This allows you to see how they moved up or down the cards over time. It should be noted that I added some events to my database since the beginning of the year; as such, some of the weekly SPOT Ratings here don't match up with ones previously published.

	1/4	1/11	1/18	1/25	2/1	2/8	2/15	2/22	2/29	3/7	3/14	3/21	3/28	4/4	4/11	4/18	4/25	5/2	5/9	5/16	5/23	5/30	6/6	6/13	6/20	6/27
Bill Watts	.83	.82	.84	.88	.90	.93	.94	.95	.97	.97	.98	.97	.95	.95	.95	.96	.96	.93	.92	.91	.96	.97	.99	.99	.96	.95
Dick Murdoch	.92	.95	.96	.96	.93	.90	.88	.88	.87	.86	.83	.83	.84	.86	.87	.88	.89	.90	.90	.89					.63	.70
Bob Sweetan										.89	.86	.84	.92	.96	.88	.80	.75	.76	.80	.84	.87	.85	.82	.80	.77	.80
Buddy Roberts	.73	.74	.73	.74	.74	.78	.82	.87	.88	.88	.87	.86	.90	.90	.91	.86	.83	.79	.77
Jerry Brown	.73	.74	.73	.74	.74	.78	.82	.87	.88	.88	.87	.86	.90	.90	.91	.86	.83	.79	.77
Killer Karl Kox	.88	.93	.93	.92	.87	.84	.79	.77	.75	.75	.73	.71	.69	.70	.72	.74	.79	.81	.84	.84	.85	.85	.87	.90	.93	.96
Greg Valentine	.60	.70	.74	.76	.79	.82	.86	.90	.90	.90	.86	.87	.87	.89
Waldo Von Erich	.66	.66	.67	.73	.80	.87	.89	.89	.90	.91	.90	.87	.79	.79	.79	.86	.89
Grizzly Smith	.77	.74	.73	.75	.75	.73	.72	.70	.74	.76	.81	.77	.75	.74	.81	.85	.89	.87	.87	.85	.88	.91	.93	.92	.90	.88
Tom Jones																.68	.71	.73	.79	.79	.82	.82	.82	.81	.79	.81
Bob Slaughter	.71	.70	.69	.71	.74	.76	.76	.77	.80	.85	.85	.84	.80	.81	.80	.77	.75	.71	.71
Danny Hodge	.87	.83	.78	.70	.69	.63	.66	.69	.80	.82	.84	.82
Sonny King	.73	.71	.69	.72	.78	.82	.84	.81	.77	.74	.73	.72	.74	.74	.72	.69	.66
Ken Patera									.36	.38	.40	.51	.63	.74	.77	.79	.79	.81	.86	.86	.91	.89	.93	.89	.91	.88
Buck Robley	.73	.71	.71	.71	.73	.75	.74	.72	.67	.66	.64	.65	.68	.77	.81	.80	.77	.75	.74	.73	.70	.70	.74	.82	.88	.91
Gorgeous George Jr			.38	.44	.53	.68	.80	.89	.90	.91	.86	.84	.81	.81
Randy Tyler																						.71	.73	.74	.72	.69
Scandor Akbar	.90													.63	.62	.65
Bobby Jaggers																						.69	.70	.71	.69	.65
Nelson Royal																			.51	.52	.60	.65	.71	.74	.75	.78
Ron Starr															.58	.53	.52	.57	.61	.66	.66	.71	.73	.76	.75	.74
Bob Griffin	.62	.62	.63	.65	.65	.66	.63	.61	.58	.61	.67	.73	.77	.74	.71	.66	.64	.66	.70	.74	.72	.70	.62	.55	.49	.47
Ted DiBiase	.54	.53	.52	.51	.51	.52	.49	.53	.54	.61	.64	.65	.65	.64	.63	.64	.68	.74	.74	.74	.69	.70	.68	.71	.70	.71
Siegfried Stanke																						.42	.48	.59	.66	.76
Jay Clayton	.58													.52	.51	.53	.59	.60	.58	.50	.46	.44	.50	.55	.61	.58

In addition to SPOT Ratings, the other statistic we use is called a FEUD Score. FEUD stands for Frequent Encounters Using Data and measures the "intensity" of a feud, taking into account the number of times a specific matchup happens and the breadth of when those matches occur. As a general rule of thumb, a FEUD Score of 25 and above indicates a "feud" while a Score of 40 and above indicates a "major feud". The following chart looks at the top feuds of the first six months of 1980, including all feuds with a FEUD Score of 25 or above for at least three weeks. They are sorted by the peak weekly FEUD Score, with darker shading for higher Scores.

	1/4	1/11	1/18	1/25	2/1	2/8	2/15	2/22	2/29	3/7	3/14	3/21	3/28	4/4	4/11	4/18	4/25	5/2	5/9	5/16	5/23	5/30	6/6	6/13	6/20	6/27
Buddy Roberts & Jerry Brown vs Gorgeous George Jr & Greg Valentine					25	43	56	61	62	56	56	51	46	33	17
Dick Murdoch vs Killer Karl Kox	43	54	56	54	44	43	36	39	34	32	25	20
Ron Starr vs Tom Jones																						24	39	49	46	41
Bob Slaughter vs Sonny King		23	32	38	45	40	40	33	33	26	21	15
Mr Ito vs Rick McGraw												26	35	45	39	32	28	24	27	17
Bill Watts vs Waldo Von Erich			17	27	32	33	25	21	22	32	39	41	31	27	25	29	26	15
Bob Slaughter & Buck Robley vs Buddy Roberts & Jerry Brown														28	40	39	25
Killer Karl Kox vs Ted DiBiase									19	23	32	38	39	37	28	26	23	21	15			16	18
Dick Murdoch vs Ken Patera												18	26	36	38	31	28	17
Bill Watts vs Ken Patera																			17	20	27	27	33	31	35	27
Bob Griffin vs Ron Starr																				21	30	29	25	15