By Harrison Chase and Henry Johnson

With SummerSlam 2015 around the corner, it’s worth stating the obvious: WWE is complicated.

Professional wrestling is stuffed with backstories, rivalries, and plot twists so numerous that Christopher Nolan would need a second viewing. Take, for instance, the longtime feud between Randy Orton and Triple H.

The kayfabe fight between these legends has spanned countless matches and more than a decade. They’ve battled 1 v. 1, with mutual enemies in the ring, and with teammates at their side.

The feud has even taken some personal turns, like when Randy Orton stole a kiss from Stephanie McMahon, or when Triple H broke in and Jazzed Randy Orton from his own house.

It’s easy to pick out classic moments from this rivalry; a much harder task is picking a winner. Triple H has had success against Randy Orton in direct matchups, notably at Unforgiven in 2004 and Wrestlemania XXV. But it’s also important to look at their records in other matches. Scissors might conquer paper, but paper beats rock, which beats scissors. The direct contest doesn’t capture the power balance in the game or in WWE, which is long on standoffs and short on transitivity. To paraphrase Ric Flair, to be the man, you either have to beat the man or beat some men who beat him.

Luckily, we have a better way of determining who in the blue hell is best: the Elo rating system. The system, originally designed to rank chess players, looks at a competitor’s victories and the strength of his competition. In WWE terms, that means if an unknown beats a world champion, you can expect the underdog’s Elo rating to jump substantially.

The data we used are from profightdb.com, which catalogs wrestling matches over various associations. Worth noting is that we used data strictly from WWE—the WWF years (which ended in 2002) aren’t factored into these calculations. For 2 v. 2 matchups, we created two “teams”, then split the winning team’s gains and losing team’s losses, meaning we assumed that teammates contributed equally.

Ranking Name Elo Rating Matches 1 Randy Orton 2227.108 1153 2 John Cena 2225.473 1445 3 Roman Reigns 2202.128 527 4 C. M. Punk 2098.638 667 5 Ryback 2098.263 561 6 Daniel Bryan 2088.586 817 7 Edge 2043.372 557 8 Seth Rollins 2004.443 467 9 The Undertaker 1985.05 299 10 Chris Jericho 1969.91 590 11 Sheamus 1957.662 879 12 Batista 1953.927 468 13 Brock Lesnar 1953.608 123 14 Nikki Bella 1945.057 398 15 Rusev 1939.599 227 16 Big E. Langston 1921.344 148 17 The Big Show 1918.298 1135 18 Bobby Lashley 1904.311 161 19 Cesaro 1871.577 387 20 Eve Torres 1869.777 223 21 Jeff Hardy 1850.639 285 22 Christian 1832.615 471 23 Bray Wyatt 1812.788 285 24 Dolph Ziggler 1808.094 854 25 Triple H 1805.832 465 26 Wade Barrett 1802.945 387 27 Kurt Angle 1790.823 220 28 Shawn Michaels 1790.447 334 29 Rob Van Dam 1782.759 463 30 Goldberg 1781.919 51 31 Hornswoggle 1770.651 132 32 Alexander Rusev 1769.249 29 33 The Great Khali 1763.639 487 34 Chris Benoit 1761.072 414 35 Santina 1755.655 34 36 Adrian Neville 1745.339 90 37 Booker T. 1744.377 278 38 Luke Harper 1743.274 302 39 Rey Mysterio 1742.362 759 40 A. J. Lee 1727.603 221 41 Ric Flair 1723.084 175 42 Mr. Kennedy 1715.682 108 43 Mark Henry 1714.502 608 44 Finn Bálor 1714.35 21 45 Neville 1708.949 96 46 Trish Stratus 1703.804 190 47 Bradshaw 1690.658 73 48 Mickie James 1688.905 225 49 Jerry Lawler 1679.803 63 50 Ted DiBiase 1679.094 85 51 Juventud Guerrera 1678.741 27 52 Ashley Massaro 1672.366 60 53 Sean O’Haire 1672.075 26 54 The Rock 1670.486 26 55 Sami Zayn 1667.207 78 56 Natalya 1665.608 647 57 Bill DeMott 1665.078 36 58 Viscera 1659.556 101 59 John Bradshaw Layfield 1656.578 150 60 Charlotte 1644.671 58 61 The Boogeyman 1641.854 38 62 Michelle McCool 1640.826 189 63 Eddie Guerrero 1640.622 209 64 Bad News Barrett 1637.387 157 65 Dean Ambrose 1633.185 602 66 Kelly Kelly 1630.84 263 67 Snitsky 1630.209 57 68 King Booker 1629.596 60 69 Paige 1622.854 269 70 Mr. McMahon 1619.987 38 71 Montel Vontavious Porter 1619.714 269 72 Test 1619.683 107 73 Umaga 1618.61 114 74 Jr. 1613.09 76 75 Sin Cara 1612.154 532 76 Garrison Cade 1609.412 68 77 Lita 1609.001 70 78 Muhammad Hassan 1602.108 25 79 Skip Sheffield 1601.824 51 80 Big E 1600.273 326 81 Shelton Benjamin 1599.379 389 82 Ken Kennedy 1598.62 6 83 Big Daddy V 1596.593 29 84 AJ 1595.044 66 85 Lord Tensai 1591.761 7 86 Ron Simmons 1589.683 14 87 Stardust 1589.167 187 88 El Torito 1586.837 122 89 John Morrison 1585.785 314 90 Beth Phoenix 1580.198 233 91 Rodney Mack 1580.19 49 92 Candice Michelle 1580.042 94 93 Vito 1578.035 27 94 Scott Steiner 1577.703 51 95 Lance Cade 1577.518 119 96 Johnny Nitro 1577.085 122 97 Matt Morgan 1576.054 12 98 Finlay 1575.298 224 99 Kevin Owens 1573.87 49 100 Alberto Del Rio 1573.219 619

According to the Elo ratings, Randy Orton is the greatest wrestler in WWE history. If we use Elo (and suspend disbelief regarding scriptedness), we would expect Randy Orton to have a 91.9% win probability against Triple H. His stiffest competition comes from John Cena, whom the system grants a 49.8% chance of victory against Orton. Heavyweight World Champion Seth Rollins isn’t as formidable as Orton quite yet—historical performance suggests Orton would have a 78.2% chance of beating the young star. Rollins may be the best there is, but Randy Orton is the best there was.

We can also see how the system thinks SummerSlam will pan out. According to the ratings, Cesaro has an 84.7% probability of beating Kevin Owens. Broken-nosed John Cena (78.1%) is favored to take the belt from Seth Rollins. And in one of the most talked-about rematches in WWE history, The Undertaker (54.5%) is predicted to avenge his loss to Brock Lesnar.

These predictions shouldn’t be taken too seriously. To begin with, Elo ratings are designed for one-on-one matchups, which the WWE strays from frequently. Our methods also don’t properly credit WWF success. Most importantly, Vince McMahon’s team may not feel any obligation to obey historical probability. But as facebreakers and bodyslams go, it’s as close as we can get to quantitative truth. The real answers will come Sunday.

And that’s the bottom line.

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If you’re interested in seeing the match data or the full rankings, check out our GitHub account. Think your favorite wrestler isn’t getting proper credit? Leave us a comment or send an email. And, as always, keep up with the club on Twitter.

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