Thursday, December 21, 2017

TH Prediction Watch: Grading 2017 Twitter Predictions for Accuracy

I got this reunion right and not much else
Photo Credit: WWE.com
Predictions are a tricky thing. Because the future is unwritten and volatile, few can read the tea leaves and come out accurately 100 percent of the time. However, that doesn't stop anyone from trying. I try not to engage in the practice, but last year, I did one of those "one like, one prediction" gimmicks for wrestling. I made somewhere close to 100 predictions, and while many of them were wrong, some of them were right! I'm going to list all the predictions I made here and then catalog how correct they were.

Well, ya boy TH was wrong right out of the gate. Omega did not defeat Kazuchika Okada, even though the match did get six stars from Dave Meltzer.

I choose to ignore everything after the first comma and claim victory on this. The Shield reunited in an official capacity before the TLC pay-per-view, although Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, and Dean Ambrose did not wrestle an official match together until after the event, thanks to Reigns catching a mean case of the mumps.

The current surname-less wrestler did win the Ring of Honor Championship, but he failed to capture any of the other titles, so this prediction is a dud.

LOL she didn't even compete. Princesa Sugehit was the Mexican emissary, and she lost in the second round. Dud.

The Hardy Boys weren't with TNA/Impact long enough last year to get themselves a pay-per-view, let alone one at their compound. Dud.

This prediction was a swish. Dijak signed the papers in the summer, and he's currently rolling around the Florida loop, waiting to get his call onto NXT television.

So this one was half right. Nakamura lost the Big X to Bobby Roode in the main event of Takeover: San Antonio, but he ended up getting his return match at Takeover: Orlando and waiting on his Smackdown debut until two nights after Mania.

The Empress of Tomorrow didn't lose the title to anyone, forfeiting it upon her arrival to RAW. So this one was doubly wrong. DUD DUD.

Oh god, this one was a real dud, even though Cross and Moon did have critically acclaimed matches with Asuka for the title. By transitive property, maybe I'm right but transitive property don't work here, brah.

Pete Dunne didn't work a single date for EVOLVE, and Thatcher dropped to Zack Sabre, Jr. well in advance of Mania. DUD. To add even more salt to the wound, Big Stoke remained faithful to him all the way through.

Again, this prediction was half-right. Dunne didn't win the tournament, but Tyler Bate did. Oops.

The first half of this prediction was right, but the second remains up in the air. Leaving his ring gear behind to end Mania was a huge sign of retirement, but he never officially announced, and people are insisting he's not done. So who knows.

This one remains to be seen as well if just for technicality. Cena took more roles in 2017, but none of them outside of perhaps Ferdinand would generate Oscar buzz. Ferdinand may only get a nomination in the animated category, which doesn't have separate voice acting. I'm gonna call this one a DUD for now.

This prediction was three-out-of-seven, or under half. DUD.

This one may seem like a whiff on the surface, but it may just have been a year premature. She's training at the Performance Center, and she's in negotiation for a contract. Still, she didn't wrestle either McMahon or Flair at all, let alone to close the show, so DUD.

Again, I am going to lop off the second half of this prediction as I got way too specific in an attempt to be cute and claim this one as a victory. McGregor didn't appear in WWE, and I don't think he will until his star really falls through the floor.

This one didn't happen, but in a way, it was good that it didn't. Cesaro and Sheamus was a goddamn bomb-ass tag team all year.

Punk didn't even have a second MMA fight, and he's still trying to fuck that chicken. So double DUD.

Thankfully, this one was a dud. They did name it after Mae Young, who's only slightly problematic a historical figure instead of Moolah who was an actual pimp.

Had the Hardys stayed in TNA, I believe this would have happened. However, you don't get credit for extrapolation, so DUD.

Oh man, this one was such a whiff, I think it chain-reacted to cause a Pacific Ocean cyclone this year.

WWE did try to snag the Hardys and hey, it was successful. It didn't snare Lashley though. Calling this a dud.

Ryback didn't work anything closely resembling a familiar prestige indie at all. Dud.

Miz held the Intercontinental Championship for most of the year, the feuds were hot, and the WON crowd resented the shit out of it. One could even argue that the IC title was the top title on RAW when Miz had it because Brock Lesnar was an absentee Universal Champion for most of the year. Your mileage may vary for this one.

AJ Styles won the top spot on the TWB 100 quite easily. This one was the most inside baseball prediction, but hey, it counts.

I may not have been 100 percent serious when I made this prediction, but it was wrong anyway.

Season four was not announced until late this year and won't air until next year, so this prediction was dead on arrival.

Aries actually had a marquee run in the cruiserweight division and then left the company, so this one was a dud.

The G1 Finals pitted Tetsuya Naito and Kenny Omega against each other, so I'd say no, this one wasn't accurate at all.

Another half-right prediction, Danielle Moinet was future endeavored, but she's shown no signs of continuing on in wrestling, at least yet.

I was right. This one WAS a layup.

Henry hasn't been the most active wrestler, but he hasn't officially retired yet. Call this one a dud.

Mike Quackenbush had quite a few matches in 2017, and Gran Akuma came back towards the end of the year. I nailed this one.

Man, this one was proven right almost right out of the gate, as Angle was announced for the Hall of Fame quite early on in the year. He's spent the year since WrestleMania as the RAW GM, and he's even wrestled twice. A slam dunk.

Even though WWE totally has the roster to do this, fans of beefy wrestlers have been left out in the cold by the company named after gigantic beings (Titan Sports).


That's the only time he's ever mentioned hot dogs on Twitter. Technically, this one is wrong, but man, he's had awful opinions on scads of other topics, like Star Wars and net neutrality, so maybe this one is right in spirit.

Nope, Luger was left out of this past year's class. Will he get in this year? Maybe, maybe not. Who knows. Who cares. Aside from Luger, of course.

Nope, regardless of one's opinion of it, 205 Live is still ongoing, and WWE is emboldened enough to put it on tour in the coming year. Dud.

Apparently, CZW had one at the time of this prediction. ROH is in the process of doing one, but I don't think they have it set up yet? I don't know? I don't feel like looking it up? I'll take a L on this anyway, especially since I mentioned FloSlam and FloSlam is dead as a doornail.

Shaq vs. Big Show didn't happen, and I am confident that even so, it was better than Triple H vs. Seth Rollins, so I'm taking credit for this one.

I'm not even sure Scott was rumored to join the proceedings at any point outside of my own cheerleading. Dud.

This one's another stillborn opinion, since the Women of Honor title won't be decided until next year. Leon, however, did get more than a few head-scratching big wins in the STARDOM Grand Prix round robin tourney, including one over Io Shirai. Where smoke rises, it comes from fire...

I don't care if it fell apart because Jarrett's alcoholism ruined everything. I nailed this one. Impact and Global Force Wrestling were a merged entity for about a month.

Trump has been talking shit on North Korea, a nuclear power with capability to hit the United States. Even though I have no concrete evidence that McMahon talked Trump out of preemptively firing a nuke, well, it's entirely plausible that he did. Gonna call this a push.

Sabre held the title until he dropped it to Chuck Taylor, who the last time I checked was from Kentucky. While "UK" is shorthand for both the University of Kentucky and United Kingdom, well, that's about as close as I got with this one.

Wrong on the first account, since WWE released Emma, Darren Young, and Summer Rae at least. AS for someone big quitting, Neville tried to quit, but WWE wouldn't let him. He's still being held hostage. Free Neville!

WWE sure didn't sign him, but Ring of Honor did, and New Japan started using him, so while this was wrong, good for Chuckie T.

Another dud, WWE announced this upcoming Mania to happen in New Orleans.

The first half was right, but the second half was a divergence. However, SHIMMER is sort of under the umbrella of the RISE/Wrestling Pipeline family of entities right now so it seems I just got the benefactor wrong.

Goldberg didn't officially retire, but he didn't wrestle Reigns, and his most recent match against Brock Lesnar was acclaimed. Gonna call this a dud all around.

I was 100 percent right with this prediction except it wasn't for the reasons I thought I'd be last Christmas Eve.

Flair lost the RAW Women's Title early in 2017 and didn't regain another until recently. She's still a bit aways from eight total reigns, half of what her daddy had.

Again, I added in a bit too much detail to seem cute, but honestly, this one was a home run down to Paige returning only after she broke it off with Alberto el Patron.

Not even close, although it stands to mention that All-Japan Pro Wrestling's comeback in 2017 is one of Japan's best feelgood stories of the year.

Another mighty whiff. Man.

I should've just not made meme predictions like this.

I have no clue if this one's right. They headlined a few indie shows, but I guess the closest they might have done in Mexico would have been for The Crash.

This show hasn't really gotten off the ground yet enough to have storylines other than "Wow, British wrestling is innovative and no we haven't heard about Ring of Honor from the Mid-Aughts, why would you ask that?"

He hasn't wrestled again, but he's back as Defiant Wrestling's authority figure. SO this one's wrong, but it might end up coming to fruition later than expected.

As much as I wanted this to be true, nope, WWE is stuck with him.

All I needed was one, and what do you know, Drew Galloway showed up at Takeover: Orlando. All he had to do was miss a WWN Live Supershow booking to be there, but hey, fucking over paying customers wasn't a condition of being right on this one.

Another hit!

This one was wrong, because the Bucks ended up losing the titles to the Lucha Bros.

Seeing as though the ending of Takeover: Brooklyn III was all about Cole making his big NXT debut and accruing his big stable, I'd say I was pretty wrong on this one, what do you think.

Matt Riddle is not the Champion, but Zack Sabre, Jr. is. DUD.

Cabana is calling matches for the current ROH Champion, who is Dalton Castle. DUD.

Ricochet has less than one degree from Ospreay, but he's not Ospreay. DUD.

I wonder if I might prefer Cody! over the current Impact Champion, Eli Drake. DUD.

Not only is this prediction dead wrong, it's dead depressing.

I'm pretty sure this one's only right because I spoiled myself on Ultima Lucha Tres and didn't think LU would switch the title early in season four, not knowing that it wouldn't even begin shooting season four until 2018.

Did Jigsaw even work a single Chikara date in 2017? DUD.

Honestly, I'd be a lot happier if it were Strowman and not Brock fuckin Lesnar.

This one's also depressing, although for different reasons than Shibata's was.

Nope, but she'll probably have the RAW one in tow by the night after the Rumble, I gather.

I had no idea Cena would have a foot-and-a-half out the door for Hollywood by now, or else he might've been the one to end Jinder Mahal's reign of terror.

He never even got a fighter's chance.

Again, she'd have had to have signed first to do that.

Well, I was right on the first part, but Big E is still just doing tag shenanigans, so this is another one that's ruined by getting too cute with things.

Sadly, DUD.

Perhaps my biggest miscalculation here was that the Democratic party would offer any kind of real resistance to Trump at all and act like a real live opposition party instead of just talking a big game and basically letting him and congressional Republicans roll over the country. Hell, Chuck Schumer actually actively helped Trump make things worse in the Middle East! Ugh.

The only thing saving this prediction in technicality is that his WWE signing hasn't been announced yet.

LOL no.

Two Money in the Bank matches happened, but they were both Smackdown-branded and one was for the women's title. But to be fair, two men did end up winning them...

You can't lose what you don't have.

Well, I was right on Naito winning the G1, so yay?

I'm not even going to go back and calculate my success rate because it's bad. Real bad. I won't want to demoralize myself anymore than I already am. Check back here next year at the same time, when I'll have double the predictions to type DUD after for how wrong they are.
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