With this Saturday, Feb 29th being AEW Revolution, the first AEW Pay Per View event of the year (and decade), I thought it would be appropriate to put together a data-centric analysis of AEW matches leading up to the event along with some interesting statistics and findings from AEW history. This project enables me to combine two things I really enjoy: professional wrestling and data analysis and visualization. The motivation behind this project is to utilize match data to provide an overview of things like how your favorite wrestlers are performing in terms of wins and losses, how often wrestlers are used on specific programs, and how wrestlers are being featured in in-ring competitions. The analyses and visualizations can also be used to assist in developing storylines among wrestlers.

Feedback and comments are always welcomed. Send me an email at visualizingtheelite at gmail dot com.

This map displays all the cities that have hosted AEW events since its official inception in May of 2019.

The majority of AEW’s live event market has primarily been in the Eastern half of the U.S.

AEW has held 26 live events so far, with the most visited states being Florida (4), Illinois (3), and Texas (3).

How to use the map:
Hover over the markers to view event details for each location.

AEW claims that wins and losses will matter. How did they fare leading up to AEW Revolution? Let’s take a look at the win/loss singles records from all AEW events leading up to Revolution. Based on the chart below, Jon Moxley is the clear number one singles contender for the Men's World Champion Title. In the women's division -- excluding Riho, who lost the title to Nyla Rose -- Kris Statlander and Hikaru Shida are tied as number one contenders (2-1) in singles competition. This satisfies the claim that wins and losses matter in AEW as Moxley and Statlander will be challenging for titles at AEW Revolution.

* Note: All matches aired on Pay Per View events, Dynamite, and Dark are counted in the data. This includes unsanctioned matches, battles royal, and unofficial matches. Singles matches are classified as one-on-one matches involving at most two wrestlers. Non-singles matches include all other matches involving more than two wrestlers, such as tag team matches, battles royal, and three-way and four way matches. Future work would involve classifying the matches in greater detail.

• Biggest Winner (Singles):
  Jon Moxley takes the lead the highest percentage of wins as well as the greatest number of singles matches. He's never lost a singles match and only faced a time limit draw once during a match against PAC on Dynamite on Oct 23, 2019. In fact, he's only been on the losing side once, and that was during a tag team match the week before on Dynamite on Oct 16, 2019, where Jon Moxley and PAC lost against Kenny Omega and Adam Page.


• Female Divison (Singles):
  Riho and Nyla Rose have the greatest number of wins in singles matches and have only incurred one loss and that was to each other.

• Biggest Winner (Overall):
  Kenny Omega takes the lead with 18 wins out of 25 matches.


• Biggest Losers (Overall):
  When looking at total matches, Peter Avalon and Brandon Cutler are both 0 for 9.


• No Win Club (Singles): Brandon Cutler (0/6) and Leva Bates (0/4) leads with most losses and zero wins in singles matches for male and female division, respectively.

How to use the chart:

• By default, the chart shows the records since January, 2020. Use the slider to choose a different timeframe and look at previous records.
• Filter results by event show (PPV, Dynamite, Dark).
• Filter results by singles, non-singles, or all matches.
• Sort results by total wins, total losses, or total number of matches.

This chart identifies key players in AEW, along with up-and-coming wrestlers, enhancement talents, and occasional featured wrestlers. It can be used to answer questions like: Who has never been in a singles match in 2020/all-time? Which wrestlers with similar win/loss stats would be interesting to go head to head with?

• Most Matches (Overall):
  Kenny Omega has been in the most number of matches in the ring.


• Most Matches in Men's Division (Singles):
  Jon Moxley have been in the most singles matches to date.


• Most Matches in Women's Division (Singles):
  Riho, Nyla Rose, and Kris Statlander have been in the most singles matches to date.

• Most Matches on Dynamite:
  Kenny Omega, Trent, Santana, Ortiz, Jon Moxley, and Adam Page


• Most Matches on Dark:
  Kip Sabian, Shawn Spears, Marko Stunt

How to use the chart:

• By default, the chart shows the records since January, 2020. Use the slider to choose a different timeframe.
• Filter results by event show (PPV, Dynamite, Dark).
• Sort results by total matches, total singles matches, or total non-singles matches.

This chart displays all AEW matches sorted by the length of the match. Matches with missing match times were excluded from the analysis. The longest matches tend to be pay-per-view headlining matches. Two exceptions were special attraction matches: Kenny Omega vs PAC Iron Man match on Dynamite on Feb. 26, 2020 and the Kenny Omega vs Joey Janela match on Dark on Oct 9, 2020. The average match lasts about 11 minutes and 37 seconds. The average singles match lasts about 10 minutes and 50 seconds.

• 38 minutes and 46 seconds: The length of the longest singles match in AEW history -- between Jon Moxley and Kenny Omega at Full Gear.


• 31 minutes and 26 seconds: The length of the longest tag team match -- between The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson) and the Brotherhood (Cody & Dustin Rhodes) at Fight for the Fallen.


• 14 seconds: The length of the shortest match in AEW history -- between Jon Moxley and Alex Reynolds on the Dec. 11 episode of Dynamite.

• 17 minutes and 18 seconds: The length of the longest singles match on AEW Dynamite -- between Cody Rhodes and Darby Allin on Jan. 1, 2020.


• 30 minutes 58 seconds: The length of the longest singles match on AEW Dynamite -- between Kenny Omega and PAC on Feb. 26, 2020. It was an Iron Man match with a 30 minute time limit that went to sudden death over time.

How to use the chart:

• Use the slider to choose a different timeframe.
• Filter results by event show (PPV, Dynamite, Dark).
• Filter results by singles, non-singles, or all matches.
• Hover over the bar to see the date and event where the match occured along with the match duration.

This chart shows which wrestlers are given the most time for matches.

• Most In Ring Time:
  Kenny Omega has wrestled a total of 7 hours 26 minutes and 14 seconds. Omega also has the greatest total time in singles matches with 3 hours 44 minutes and 52 seconds.


• Average Match Time (Singles):
  Kenny Omega's singles matches on average lasts around 22.5 minutes.
  
  Although Chris Jericho has not been much active in singles competition, he has the second greatest average time per match, suggesting that when he does go in the ring alone, don't expect the match to end quickly. His average match time is just under 20 minutes.

• Most In Ring Time During Dynamite (All Matches):
  Kenny Omega, Adam Page, Nick Jackson, Scorpio Sky, and Matt Jackson.


• Most In Ring Time During Dark (All Matches):
  Jack Evans, Trent, Chuck Taylor, Kenny Omega, and Marko Stunt.

How to use the chart:

• Use the slider to choose a different timeframe.
• Filter results by event show (PPV, Dynamite, Dark).
• Filter results by singles, non-singles, or all matches.
• Hover over the bar to see the wrestler's average match duration (in seconds), total number of matches, and total match time.

AEW's Dynamite debuted on the TNT network on October 2, 2019. Since then, AEW and WWE's NXT have been battling for viewership Wednesday nights with Dynamite airing on TNT and NXT airing on USA Network. While it is debatable how relevant the Nielson ratings are as a performance indicator, there is still interest in comparing the viewership and Nielson ratings between WWE NXT and AEW Dynamite.

WarnerMedia announced on January 15th, 2020 that TNT's AEW Dynamite has been renewed through 2023. In addition, they will also be launching a second series on a second night.

Ratings data obtained from ShowBuzzDaily
Note that AEW Dynamite did not air on December 25, 2019.

Data was retrieved from Cagematch The Internet Wrestling Database. The scraping was performed using Python, Beautiful Soup, and Splinter. The data was then written to JSON files and imported into Tableau for analysis.

All matches aired on Pay Per View events, Dynamite, and Dark are counted in the data. This includes unsanctioned matches, battlea royal, and unofficial matches. Singles matches are classified as one-on-one matches involving at most two wrestlers. Non-singles matches include all other matches involving more than two wrestlers, such as tag team matches, battles royal, and three-way and four way matches. Future work would involve classifying the matches in greater detail. Note that this differs from how AEW officially computes their rankings.