Who Is The Greatest 3-Timer Of The Wrestlestat Era - Gable Steveson Edition

[Wrestleknownothing]

I created this graphic aboutr a year ago, but figured it was time to up date it for the presumption that Gable Steveson would become a three timer.

Since I used wrestlestat data for things like the average time for a techfall or pinfall and the rank of defeated wrestlers, I limited the analysis to 2014 - present.

With the exception of Alex Dieringer, whose career began in 2013. For him I dug around to get win and bonus totals, but used the 2014 - 2016 wrestlestat data for time and rank. So, perhaps those are a little better than they should be.

For Steveson I assumed he would run the table, but maintain his historic bonus rates and finish with 23.5 NCAA points (he had 24.5 and 22.5 in his two title years).

 

Reducing that number salad to rankings per category we can get a better idea of relative career ranks.

Using these metrics Steveson ranks third best, behind Jason Nolf and Bo Nickal, but just ahead of Zain Retherford.

Of course this ignores gold medals won while still having college eligibility remaining. Reasonable minds might not want to do that.

[headshuck]

I appreciate the work but it’s just numbers. Spencer Lee will go down in history as one of the worst 3-timers in history with this approach.

But to play along, you could add more data, say a 1st period tech fall count. Points given up? Bonus losses? Hodge award count. Strength of competition?

[BAC]

12 minutes ago, headshuck said:

I appreciate the work but it’s just numbers. Spencer Lee will go down in history as one of the worst 3-timers in history with this approach.

What's wrong with that?  It sounds like you're asking WKN to goose the numbers with in a way that somehow helps Lee so that his ranking matches your perceptions. That's sort of the opposite of a data driven approach.

Who do you think he should be ranked higher than, and why?

[headshuck]

You said it yourself. Perception. If Lee hadn’t melted down and finished wrestling he would probably finish 1,1,1,3 in dominating fashion. Every guy on the list probably has a similar whatif.

Gable hasn’t even wrestled his final season so we could revisit this in March, no? Kerk could beat him.

[JeanGuy]

35 minutes ago, headshuck said:

You said it yourself. Perception. If Lee hadn’t melted down and finished wrestling he would probably finish 1,1,1,3 in dominating fashion. Every guy on the list probably has a similar whatif.

Gable hasn’t even wrestled his final season so we could revisit this in March, no? Kerk could beat him.

I can't count the Hodge as a real factor. It is so subjective. Is Jason Nolf a lesser wrestler because he never won a Hodge?

It is interesting looking at the data.

I am not sure where I would rank Lee using my own eye test. As dominant as he was, he is also a guy that was caught staring at the lights multiple times.

[Wrestleknownothing]

1 hour ago, headshuck said:

I appreciate the work but it’s just numbers. Spencer Lee will go down in history as one of the worst 3-timers in history with this approach.

But to play along, you could add more data, say a 1st period tech fall count. Points given up? Bonus losses? Hodge award count. Strength of competition?

The first period TF is already captured by the average time to tech fall.

Bonus losses would hurt Spencer Lee the most.

Strength of competition is already captured by the average rank stats.

And I am pretty sure the Spencer Lee / Gable Steveson Hodge tie was as a direct result of Bo Nickal winning the Hodge over Jason Nolf.

[wrestle87]

3 hours ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

I created this graphic aboutr a year ago, but figured it was time to up date it for the presumption that Gable Steveson would become a three timer.

Since I used wrestlestat data for things like the average time for a techfall or pinfall and the rank of defeated wrestlers, I limited the analysis to 2014 - present.

With the exception of Alex Dieringer, whose career began in 2013. For him I dug around to get win and bonus totals, but used the 2014 - 2016 wrestlestat data for time and rank. So, perhaps those are a little better than they should be.

For Steveson I assumed he would run the table, but maintain his historic bonus rates and finish with 23.5 NCAA points (he had 24.5 and 22.5 in his two title years).

 

Reducing that number salad to rankings per category we can get a better idea of relative career ranks.

Using these metrics Steveson ranks third best, behind Jason Nolf and Bo Nickal, but just ahead of Zain Retherford.

Of course this ignores gold medals won while still having college eligibility remaining. Reasonable minds might not want to do that.

I'd just like to say, not everyone will appreciate the level of excel-ing that's going on here.  But I see you.  Much respect for your sheet enthusiasm.

[headshuck]

The first period TF is already captured by the average time to tech fall.
Bonus losses would hurt Spencer Lee the most.
Strength of competition is already captured by the average rank stats.
And I am pretty sure the Spencer Lee / Gable Steveson Hodge tie was as a direct result of Bo Nickal winning the Hodge over Jason Nolf.

Well I guess you pretty much have the data covered. I’d still take Gable to war with me though. I’d get matching tattoos.

[Wrestleknownothing]

1 hour ago, headshuck said:

Well I guess you pretty much have the data covered. I’d still take Gable to war with me though. I’d get matching tattoos.

Nothing wrong with that.

[Idaho]

 When a wrestler takes a redshirt is a factor. Gable’s losses were as a true freshman having not taken a redshirt. Nolf and Nickal had redshirt true freshman losses that are not part of this data. 

Edited November 29 by Idaho

[Wrestleknownothing]

1 hour ago, Idaho said:

 When a wrestler takes a redshirt is a factor. Gable’s losses were as a true freshman having not taken a redshirt. Nolf and Nickal had redshirt true freshman losses that are not part of this data. 

Agreed. On the flipside, if Steveson wins this year, as I have assumed, he will do it in his seventh year out of high school where Nolf and Nickal did it in their fifth year out of high school. At this level it is safe to assume that the athletic peak occurs later. So do you penalize Steveson for winning at an older age?

[headshuck]

Sure. Are you going to add the redshirt losses in the model? Or did Idaho get that wrong?

[scourge165]

1 hour ago, Idaho said:

 When a wrestler takes a redshirt is a factor. Gable’s losses were as a true freshman having not taken a redshirt. Nolf and Nickal had redshirt true freshman losses that are not part of this data. 

Good point. I wonder if Cael wins it at a True Freshmen? I'd guess he'd have been at 177. Does he beat Mitch Clark? Does he get to him?

He's not an undefeated 4X Champ. He's "just another 4X Champ!" I'm kidding obviously, 4 is 4, but...that really would take away from Cael's legacy. It's the 159-0 that's elevates what he did. If he's 158-1...

It's all just shades of greatness at that point. 

[Idaho]

29 minutes ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

Agreed. On the flipside, if Steveson wins this year, as I have assumed, he will do it in his seventh year out of high school where Nolf and Nickal did it in their fifth year out of high school. At this level it is safe to assume that the athletic peak occurs later. So do you penalize Steveson for winning at an older age?

Proportionately,  he was at more of a disadvantage wrestling as a true freshman and having his losses count against him in comparison to an Olympic redshirt aiding him in winning a 3rd title. He won an olympic gold medal and would have returned against the same competition he previously had dominated had he not left the sport.   In the case of Steveson, he is actually at a disadvantage having used his two redshirts since he did not use them with the focus of improving his folkstyle wrestling, but instead he was training in pro wrestling, NFL football and MMA. +2 bonus points for Steveson not using his redshirts being full time in a college wresting room honing his skills, whereas the others did. 

[Idaho]

19 minutes ago, scourge165 said:

Good point. I wonder if Cael wins it at a True Freshmen? I'd guess he'd have been at 177. Does he beat Mitch Clark? Does he get to him?

He's not an undefeated 4X Champ. He's "just another 4X Champ!" I'm kidding obviously, 4 is 4, but...that really would take away from Cael's legacy. It's the 159-0 that's elevates what he did. If he's 158-1...

It's all just shades of greatness at that point. 

Given that he lost a match his redshirt season, that is accurate. If he had wrestled his true freshman year as Gable did, Cael would have a loss. On the other side, if Gable had taken a redshirt like Cael, he would have been an undefeated college wrestler - either 3x or 4x depending on what route he may have gone.Perhaps he would have continued on if he knew he could go undefeated and win 4 titles, eclipsing Cael. If things were swapped, we may be talking about Gable being the best of all-time rather than Cael. 

 

[boconnell]

6 hours ago, headshuck said:

You said it yourself. Perception. If Lee hadn’t melted down and finished wrestling he would probably finish 1,1,1,3 in dominating fashion. Every guy on the list probably has a similar whatif.

Gable hasn’t even wrestled his final season so we could revisit this in March, no? Kerk could beat him.

Was it more dominating if he lost more and pinned less than other guys?

[headshuck]

Was it more dominating if he lost more and pinned less than other guys?

Yeah I forgot about the pins.

[scourge165]

6 hours ago, headshuck said:

Well I guess you pretty much have the data covered. I’d still take Gable to war with me though. I’d get matching tattoos.

If I gotta take a guy to War with me, it's probably going to be Wyatt Hendrickson...but, to win a team title, Gable's probably the guy!

[Lleynor]

No matter what Gable does, I just can’t consider him. He’s not a typical Senior. He’s 7 years removed from being a Senior? He’s not a 5th year Senior. He’s a 7th year Man. 
 

Nickal bumping to 197 and still having the same level of dominance says a lot to me. In my book, he’s it of lately. 

[Wrestleknownothing]

3 hours ago, Idaho said:

Proportionately,  he was at more of a disadvantage wrestling as a true freshman and having his losses count against him in comparison to an Olympic redshirt aiding him in winning a 3rd title. He won an olympic gold medal and would have returned against the same competition he previously had dominated had he not left the sport.   In the case of Steveson, he is actually at a disadvantage having used his two redshirts since he did not use them with the focus of improving his folkstyle wrestling, but instead he was training in pro wrestling, NFL football and MMA. +2 bonus points for Steveson not using his redshirts being full time in a college wresting room honing his skills, whereas the others did. 

I was thinking of a physical maturity advantage rather than an advantage from more folkstyle training.

3 hours ago, Idaho said:

Given that he lost a match his redshirt season, that is accurate. If he had wrestled his true freshman year as Gable did, Cael would have a loss. On the other side, if Gable had taken a redshirt like Cael, he would have been an undefeated college wrestler - either 3x or 4x depending on what route he may have gone.Perhaps he would have continued on if he knew he could go undefeated and win 4 titles, eclipsing Cael. If things were swapped, we may be talking about Gable being the best of all-time rather than Cael. 

 

If that is the case then you also have to bring Zain Retherford back into the conversation. While he took a redshirt it was after his freshman year. And Steveson has taken two redshirts after his freshman year. So do you just rank the three best years instead of all four? Or just the last three? Are non-consecutive years better? Or worse?

This also got me thinking about another choice that I implicitly made that no one has called me on yet. Specifically, why should my categories be equal weighted? Why should major decision rate have the same weight as pinfall rate? Ditto for opposition ranks. How do you properly deal with ranks across result types? Lee had fewer pinfalls than Nolf, but they came against tougher competition. How do you adjust for that?

[RockLobster]

3 hours ago, scourge165 said:

... It's all just shades of greatness at that point. 

As this discussion continues, I like this quote better and better.

[1032004]

The ranking seems pretty good but I think Lee is being treated a bit unfairly, mainly by giving major decision % equal weight to pin and tech %.   Changing that would move him ahead of Snyder.

Wins also hurts Lee and Steveson who won during the shortened 2021 season, unless did you include 2020 wins also?

[Idaho]

10 hours ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

This also got me thinking about another choice that I implicitly made that no one has called me on yet. Specifically, why should my categories be equal weighted? Why should major decision rate have the same weight as pinfall rate? Ditto for opposition ranks. How do you properly deal with ranks across result types? Lee had fewer pinfalls than Nolf, but they came against tougher competition. How do you adjust for that?

Why should your categories be equal weighted? Why should major decision rate have the same weight as pinfall rate? Ditto for opposition ranks. How do you properly deal with ranks across result types? Lee had fewer pinfalls than Nolf, but they came against tougher competition. How do you adjust for that?

Edited November 30 by Idaho

[ionel]

10 hours ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

Why should major decision rate have the same weight as pinfall rate? 

pinfalls ... we talkn' bout pinfalls?

[JeanGuy]

22 minutes ago, Idaho said:

Why should your categories be equal weighted? Why should major decision rate have the same weight as pinfall rate? Ditto for opposition ranks. How do you properly deal with ranks across result types? Lee had fewer pinfalls than Nolf, but they came against tougher competition. How do you adjust for that?

What makes Lee's competition tougher? I don't know that you can weight competition by weight. You are only wrestling who is there. I can't say that 125 DURING Lee's years is tougher than Nolf's 157 class. Are you basing or on Lee being beat by other guys? I can argue Lee is lesser for losing to those guys just as easily as I can say it was tougher because Lee lost.