Partly because of the rise of fantasy sports, and competitors' need to have as much data as possible, and partly because we live in the age of unrelenting information at our fingertips at all times (thanks, internet!), advanced statistics have become a vital part of the sports experience. Such numbers provide fodder for our sports arguments — sure, Michael Jordan may have scored more points than LeBron James, but what's his "win over replacement"? The one sport that's resisted the rise of Moneyball-style numerical deep dives: pro wrestling. But not AEW. According to a press release (via Ringside News) it plans to give the fans what they want by introducing statistics to wrestling "for the first time ever." The company hopes that this will "Raise the stakes for its matches and deepen fan engagement by tracking each competitor's wins and losses as the wrestlers pursue championships, analyzing their moves, assessing damage to their opponents, and providing insights into their winning streaks."
Why haven't wrestling associations offered up statistics? Because wrestling is more often than not "sports entertainment" as opposed to pure sport. In other words, it's at least partially staged. By going fully transparent and on the record about exactly what happens in the ring, AEW implies that its matches are real, or at least more real than the ones in WWE. That's a subtle but shocking call-out of Vince McMahon's way of doing business.
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