How Kambi Settled Its Forbidden Door 2022 Observer Star Ratings Markets

With the July 4 2022 issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter - which included Dave Meltzer's review of the AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door PPV - published last week, Kambi's oddsmakers were able to grade the star ratings markets they had created for the show.

Going into the weekend of the event, customers were able to bet on a variety of Observer-themed markets. The most topical one being the Over/Under specials that were made for most of the matches on the June 26th card.

The results table below shows the lines and stars for the matches that Kambi put markets out for. 

Two bouts received the most stars in the review. The first match to receive the highest score of four-and-three-quarters was the main show opener which saw Chris Jericho, Sammy Guevara and Minoru Suzuki beat Eddie Kingston, Shota Umino and Wheeler Yuta in a trios match.

Will Ospreay's successful IWGP US Championship defence over Orange Cassidy was the other match to score four-and-three-quarter stars from Meltzer.

With two contests receiving the highest number of stars, Kambi settled its 'Joint Winners' proposition market with 'Yes' as the winning selection.

Customers were asked if Dave Meltzer would have two or more matches tied for the highest number of stars in the review. The eventual winner was 5/4 when I came across the market at 4PM BST on June 24th. It had lowered into 27/25 by the night of the event.

'No' was an 11/20 favourite, but had increased to 4/6 when the 'Yes' was lowered.

Another prop, this one named 'Margin of Victory', was also impacted by the tie at the top.

In it, customers were asked whether there would be a gap of half-a-star or more between the top rated match and the next best. 'No' was graded as the winner because of the rule which stated that 'Any 2 or more matches as highest rated will settle as NO'. Even if that rule was not in place, 'No' would have won either way due to the many matches rated a quarter of a star less than the two winners.

Coincidentally, the top two matches in the report met in one of the three head-to-head markets Kambi had created ahead of the event.

The rule of a head-to-head market is simple: customers wager on which, of two specific matches, will be rated higher than the other in Meltzer's review. 

The winning selection turned out to be the one which covered the possibility of both bouts scoring an identical number of stars - 'Same Star Rating'.

Kambi priced the eventual winner at 2/1, but it had reached 9/4 by the night of the event due to interest coming in on Will Ospreay versus Orange Cassidy potentially doing better than its opposition.

It wasn't the only win for 'Same Star Rating' in a head-to-head for this event. More on that later.

Even though there were two matches tied for the highest rated match of the night, there was no dead-heat settlements made in Kambi's 'Highest Rated Match of the Night' outright market. That's because the two matches of note would have both qualified as the 'Any Unlisted Match' selection.

The four-selection market offered the eventual winner at 11/4 initially. It had fallen into 43/20 by the following evening.

The other selections available were: 'IWGP World Heavyweight Championship', 'Zack Sabre Jr. .vs. Mystery Participant' and 'Hiroshi Tanahashi .vs. Jon Moxley'. All three contests received four-and-a-half stars in the report.

Four-and-a-half stars was the score which came in for all of the remaining matches in other Forbidden Door head-to-head markets.

As you can see above, the Interim AEW World Championship decider between Hiroshi Tanahashi and Jon Moxley was up against Jay White's IWGP World Heavyweight Championship defence against Kazuchika Okada and the two Adams.

With both receiving the same amount of stars, 'Same Star Rating' won at 2/1.

Claudio Castagnoli's debuting victory over Zack Sabre Jr. and PAC's claiming of the AEW All-Atlantic Championship also both received four-and-a-half stars from Meltzer meaning the head-to-head for those contests saw 'Same Star Rating' yet again graded as the winner. 

As you'll be able to see above, the odds for the eventual winner were snipped from 2/1 into 19/10. As was the price for 'ZSJ .vs. Mystery Opponent' because it dropped from 19/20 into 7/10 within the first day of betting.

With so many matches rated four-and-a-half stars or higher, 'Yes' turned out to be the correct play in a prop which asked customers whether or not six or more matches would receive 4.5 stars or higher.

In this case, eight was the magic number. 'Yes' had started out as a 5/4 underdog to the 11/20 for 'No'. It had risen to 7/4, with a stop at 6/4, after the 'No' was backed into 4/9 and then 2/5 by the morning of the event.

The first Observer proposition market for Forbidden Door was released in early June. It asked whether any of the matches would receive five stars or more in Dave Meltzer's review.

There was somewhat of a back-and-forth over the three weeks of betting. In the end, the odds dropping indicate that some felt that there would be a five star match because the late odds shift saw 'Yes' - which was 19/20 to start off with on June 5th - fall into 4/5 on the evening of the event. 

The winning selection, which had started out as a 3/4 favourite, was 9/10 on the evening ahead of its close.

The next issue of the Wrestling Observer, which should be out tomorrow, will have the review of WWE Money in the Bank 2022. I aim to look over those results once the markets have been settled.

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