Gutteridge’s WWE Statistics Series 2018 – Monthly breakdown (Part 4 of 5)

By Darren Gutteridge, Dot Net Contributor (originally published at FoulEntertainment.com)

In case you missed them, check out the WWE Statistics Series 2018 Part 1, WWE Statistics Series 2018 Part 2, and WWE Statistics Series 2018 Part 3.

Welcome to the 2018 WWE Statistics Series! Over the past 12 months, I’ve compiled stats on every single show WWE produced. I have no real explanation as to why I started, outside of a vague notion that combining my love of spreadsheets (don’t judge me) with WWE may help me re-engage with the product that I had spent most of 2017 avoiding entirely. And while I’m still not a regular viewer of Raw and Smackdown, collating these stats has certainly helped me keep up.

On Monday, we covered wins and loses, followed by overall matches on Tuesday and “who beat who” on Wednesday. Today, we’re shifting gears by looking at the months of the year.

I’ll explain some of the nuances of the stats as we go (you can explore the entire spreadsheet on Google Docs), but I’d first like to thank Cagematch.net for their exhaustive record keeping that helped me start, maintain and double check this mammoth undertaking. Also everyone on ProWrestling.Net for the easy to skim TV reports, which I used in place of watching the shows when my free time was short.

And now, the breakdown.

The following stats are, to the best of my knowledge, accurate. They were taken from every televised WWE show between episode 1284 of Raw on January 1st and episode 1336 of Raw on December 31st. Matches were only counted if they aired on TV or the WWE network, and only if they aired during 2018 (this discounts any events taped in 2018 that won’t air until 2019). Also, any wins or losses that occurred whilst a wrestler wasn’t under WWE contract were not counted (this largely effects NXT UK talent). They had to appear on the roster pages of either the WWE website or Wikipedia (or both) to be counted.

100%-ers

Here are the marathon men and women that managed to wrestle at least one match a month for the entirety of 2018. That may not sound like a lot, but of the 231 members of the WWE roster in 2018, only 37 of them managed this feat – a lowly 16% of the total roster. This point is best driven home by the fact that not a single NXT superstar managed it. Kairi Sane fell at the last hurdle in December, and only Dakota Kai (March) and Roderick Strong (September) can match her 11 months out of 12.

Raw

Smackdown

205 Live

Of these superstars, Finn Balor (65), Seth Rollins (55) and The Miz (52) wrestled the most, and Hideo Itami (20), Jack Gallagher (25) and Mandy Rose (26) wrestled the least.

One Monthers

On the flip side of this, we have the 18 members of the roster that only managed to wrestle in one month of the year. There are mitigating circumstances for most of them, be that injuries (Jason Jordan, Samir Singh), primarily being a manager (Stephanie McMahon, Drake Maverick), or being, you know, “retired” (Shawn Michaels).

Raw

Smackdown

NXT

NXT UK

205 Live

Missed Time and Injuries

Obviously, injuries are unfortunately common in the world of wrestling, so you will see the spreadsheet littered with red cells denoting a wrestler missing a month (or several) to heal. But while most are relatively short, quite a few roster members lost significant stretches of time. Bobby Fish, Dean Ambrose and Epico Colon lost 7 months to injury, while Tamina, Riddick Moss and Tino Sabbatelli lost 8 (and counting for those last two). But no one can hold a candle to Jason Jordan, who has now been on the shelf since January, giving him the unwanted accolade of losing the most amount of time to injury.

A few of these names pop up again when you look at the biggest gaps between appearances. In fact, Tamina and Bobby Fish both share top honours here, having both taken 8 months out between appearances. This betters the 7 months Alicia Fox, Ariya Daivari, Brie Bella and Nikki Bella clocked up, and the 6 months Cezar Bononi, Fabian Aichner and Shane McMahon missed.

Debuts and Departures

It was a big year for debuts. In total, there were 54 new people added to the roster, accounting for almost a quarter of the final roster number (23%). This number was a mix of Performance Centre graduates (Dominik Dijakovic, Fabian Aichner, Marcel Barthel etc.), independent stars joining NXT (Ricochet, Io Shari, Matt Riddle etc.) and the addition of the NXT UK roster (which accounts for more than half of total debuts this year).

There were also a number of returns. 2018 saw the likes of Bobby Lashley, James Ellsworth, Maria Kanellis and Rey Mysterio come back to the main roster, while NXT gained Derrick Bateman 2.0 in the form of EC3. Plus, as much as we wish it didn’t happen, 2018 also marked the post-retirement return of Shawn Michaels, albeit for one match only.

And in a nice piece of symmetry, 2018 also saw the release of 6 TV roster members. We were purged of Enzo Amore back in January, who was followed out of the door by Big Cass and James Ellsworth (the only person to re-debut and be released in the same year). Meanwhile, NXT released Tian Bing and the Ealy brothers. And while Nick Miller was also let go in 2018, thanks to NXT being pre-taped he did feature in a TV match in December, meaning his departure won’t be felt on the spreadsheet until 2019.

Thanks for reading! Tomorrow we’ll wrap things up by looking at titles. Who had the longest reign? Which belt had the most defences? Who went the whole year without a title shot? Find out tomorrow, or look for yourself by checking out the comprehensive set of spreadsheets for yourself. You can also follow me on Twitter – @TheGutteridge

Network Specials include: All Kickoff Shows, Mixed Match Challenge, Mae Young Classic, UK Tournament, Greatest Royal Rumble, Crown Jewel, Super Showdown, Starrcade and Tribute to the Troops.

PPVs include: Royal Rumble, Elimination Chamber, Fastlane, WrestleMania 34, Backlash, Money in the Bank, Extreme Rules, SummerSlam, Hell in a Cell, Evolution, Survivor Series and TLC.

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