Thursday 28 September 2017

How Kambi's Wrestling Observer Star Ratings Specials For No Mercy 2017 Will Be Graded

The current issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter - which features Dave Meltzer's review of WWE No Mercy 2017 - has now been published. This means that a plethora of Observer star ratings themed betting markets are due to be settled by the oddsmakers at Kambi imminently.

In this post, I'll go through all the Wrestling Observer markets that were available for last weekend and point what the winning selections were.

Over/Under Markets
The first markets that I'll concentrate on are the over/under specials. Unlike recent PPVs with these markets, the oddsmakers added a third option where customers could bet on a match being rated exactly on the line that was set.

WWE Intercontinental Championship
The Miz's victory over Jason Jordan was given two-and-three-quarters in the review of the match. Based on the betting, the gamblers were backing it to get more than three stars as the price went from 6/4 to 27/20 within the first day and was then cut to 23/20 by Sunday morning.

Wrestling Observer Star Ratings Over/Under Betting For Jason Jordan .vs. The Miz At No Mercy 2017

The winning wagers - as it pertains this market - landed on the 'Under'.

Finn Balor .vs. Bray Wyatt
Another market where the betting landed on the wrong side was in the over/under for Finn Balor's win against Bray Wyatt.

The match received three-and-a-quarter stars. The line was set at three, so the 'Over' would have been the winning play.
Wrestling Observer Star Ratings Over/Under Betting For Finn Balor .vs. Bray Wyatt At No Mercy 2017

I was one of the punters who took the 'Under'. I did so because, the last time Balor and Wyatt wrestled on PPV, the match received 2.75 stars. It was a tactical bet that went down in flames.

WWE Raw Tag Team Championship
The Raw Tag Team Championship bout was another market that I bet on, but wasn't comfortable enough to put it up as a 'lean' in the post where I went through the lines and odds. It's a good job that I didn't because I would have had that one wrong as well. 0-1 looks slightly better than 0-2.

This bout received four-and-a-quarter stars. Dave Meltzer said it was the best match of the night (read on if you've bet on the highest rated).

As you can see in the table below, the majority of wagers appear to have sided with the 'Under' as it was cut from 6/4 into 5/4 by Sunday morning. It remained at this price for the rest of the day.

Wrestling Observer Star Ratings Over/Under Betting For Raw tag team Championship Match At No Mercy 2017

WWE Raw Women's Championship
The fatal five-way market was fairly easy to follow as it didn't change for the entire time it was available.
The line was set at three stars. Anyone looking to back the 'Over' were offered 8/5, the 'Under' was 9/10 and the selection to back 'Exactly 3 Stars' was 7/5.

Wrestling Observer Star Ratings Over/Under Betting For Raw Women's Championship Match At No Mercy 2017

The match was given three-and-a-half stars. Therefore, the 'Over' at 8/5 was the correct play. 

John Cena .vs. Roman Reigns
The over/under market for the John Cena versus Roman Reigns match was first published on September 8th. The line was set at four-and-a-quarter stars.

Wrestling Observer Star Ratings Over/Under Betting For John Cena .vs. Roman Reigns At No Mercy 2017

The bettors focused on backing the 'Under' here. Within the first three days, the oddsmakers had cut 'Under' from 5/4 into 11/10. Then, when the market was republished on the Friday before No Mercy, the traders had cut into even money. It should be also worth noting they also moved 'Exactly 4.25 Stars' down at this time.

The 'Under' had fallen to 17/20 by Sunday morning and stayed that way for the rest of the day.

This is the first time a rating landed right in the middle. It was given four-and-a-quarter stars by the newsletter's editor. 

As you can see in the table above, the 'Exactly' option did see action by Saturday morning as it was cut from 5/4 into even money. Then, by Sunday, it had been pushed up to 6/5 (I forgot to highlight the 6/5 into green in the table).

WWE Cruiserweight Championship
Enzo's Cruiserweight Championship victory against Neville was given one-and-three-quarters in this week's issue.

Wrestling Observer Star Ratings Over/Under Betting For The WWE Cruiserweight Championship Match At No Mercy 2017

As you can see from the betting, the punters had backed the 'Under 2.75' by the markets' close on Sunday night as it dropped from 9/10 into 17/20. Anyone who took the under will have their bets graded as winners when they're settled.

WWE Universal Championship
I mentioned that the John Cena .vs. John Cena market was published weeks before the event. The same can be stated of the Universal Championship. It too was released on September 8th.

The line was set at four stars. It took a while for the market to show any activity. When it did, the odds for the Under were cut from 6/4 into 5/4.

Then - following the bets coming in on the under - other punters them gambled on the match receiving over four stars because it was trimmed from 8/5 into 6/4 by September 23rd. The prices remained this way right up to Sunday evening.

Wrestling Observer Star Ratings Over/Under Betting Brock Lesnar .vs. Braun Strowman At No Mercy 2017

The clients that sided with the 'Under 4 Stars' were the winners here because the match received two-and-a-quarter stars.

Highest Rated Match Of The Night Betting
The second kind of match market that was available to customers over the weekend was one where the bookie was taking bets on the match that received the most stars in Meltzer's review of the show. There were four options - 'John Cena .vs. Roman Reigns', 'Raw Tag Team Championship', 'Universal Championship' and 'Any Other Match'.

If you've been following along, you'll notice that both John Cena .vs. Roman Reigns and the Raw Tag Team Championship were tied. This will mean that - per the terms - the match will be settled under dead heat rules. To cut to the chase, your stake will be divided by the number of winners. In this case, it'll be halved but you will get the odds that you took.

The betting went as follows:

WWE No Mercy 2017 Top Rated Match Betting

The customers evidently had a go at the John Cena versus Roman Reigns bout as it went from EVS (1/1) to 7/10 across the weekend.

Speculative punts on 'Any Other Match' were also placed sometime between the Friday and Saturday because the oddsmakers snipped this price from 10s into 8/1.

For clarification, the bout that was the highest rated out of the 'Any Other Match' was the fatal 5-way for the Raw Women's Championship.

Any Match To Receive 5 Stars Or More
The third and final special on the board for the weekend was a bet where customers could take 6/1 odds on Meltzer giving one of his famous five stars or more ratings to any of the matches. This will obviously be graded a loss.

And that's all for now. I usually end these posts by writing 'If they publish odds for <Insert PPV here> I'll do a similar post next time'. Well, I know I'll cover Hell in a Cell star ratings results in two weeks because the oddsmakers have already released one market for HIAC 2017 already. You can read about the odds for the Hell in a Cell main event in this post.

These Wrestling Observer Newsletter specials were published by the Kambi Group. Don't fall for imitations that are done for 'Entertainment Purposes'. A number of websites with Kambi's WWE lines can be found below:



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