AEW: 5 stats/analytics the promotion should implement

Pin attempts per match

During night 13 night of NJPW’s 30th G1 Climax last year, fans witnessed a tremendous match between eventual winner Kota Ibushi and menacing veteran Minoru Suzuki.

If you’ve seen any Ibushi or Suzuki match over the last 2-3 years or so, you pretty much knew what to expect from the two when they clashed, and they didn’t disappoint. For nearly 17 minutes, the two battered one another with an array of strikes while mixing in their own signature styles until Ibushi ended the proceedings with the Kamigoye for the clean pinfall.

An interesting note about that deciding pinfall: it was the only time either man went for a cover in the match.

NJPW announcers were sure to note this on the very next G1 broadcast and while it seems like little more than an interesting anecdote, but it said so much about who Ibushi and Suzuki were as wrestlers, at least for that night: two prideful men who kept hitting each other as hard as they could until one eventually relented. This is something AEW could regularly track, too.

Again, this wouldn’t impact records or the rankings, but it is a small way for the company to show that no match looks the same, which is how it should be when you have a roster as diverse style-wise as AEW does.