Who's #1 at picking winners at Who's #1? That is what the contest we ran leading up to last week's epic event was designed to tell us. And after the dust had settled and the contest results were tabulated, we have a clear winner. 

This event's contest was a straight-up pick 'em -- no point spread, no odds -- just who do you think is going to win. And, in your humble blogger's estimation, the fact that that task was so difficult to do was one of the big reasons why this year's edition was one of the most exciting in history. 

At a typical NCAA Championship, you could expect the average fan to accurately pick about seven or so of the champions going into the final session of the tournament. Some years maybe it's easier to pick the winners, other years there are more upsets and it's more difficult, but seven out of 10 bouts correct is about average (I made these numbers up but they sound right to me. YMMV). At the year's Who's #1, the average number of correct picks of the 2,316 entries in the contest was 6.5 out of 14 bouts. 

I was feeling pretty sorry about only getting six picks correct until I saw that stat. I guess I still feel pretty sorry, but it takes a little of the sting out of doing worse than flipping a coin when you know most people did just as poorly.

Speaking of FloWrestling employee picks, let's see how the so-called experts did. 

I would say JD and Bratke are looking pretty expertly right now.

Now how about the so-called wisdom of the crowds? Here are the numbers from all the pick 'em contest entries. 

And now, because I made one in google sheets, let's look at those numbers in graph form.

No one picked every match correctly and no one got skunked. The vast majority got between three and 10 correct. Only one person picked 13 of 14 correct. A free Flo T-shirt is the reward for that incredible feat of prognostication!

To see where the so-called experts and laypeople got tripped up, I'll paste the results from the night, with the wrestler picked by the majority of the contestants bolded and underlined. 

138: Jesse Mendez (Indiana) DEC Jordan Williams (Oklahoma), 3-2 

145: Kylie Welker (Wisconsin) injury def. Skylar Hattendorf (New Hampshire), 0:56

182: Lenny Pinto (Pennsylvania) DEC Rylan Rogers (Washington), 7-5

126: Dean Peterson (New Jersey) DEC Jordan Titus (New York), 9-8

152: Victor Voinovich (Ohio) DEC Jagger Condomitti (Pennsylvania), 4-3

285: Chase Horne (Georgia) DEC Kyonte Hamilton (Maryland), 10-6

220: Nick Feldman (Pennsylvania) MD Kyle Haas (Kansas), 13-5

145: Cody Chittum (Tennessee ) DEC Wyatt Henson (Pennsylvania), 8-5

195: Tate Picklo (Oklahoma) DEC Seth Shumate (Ohio), 3-1

112: Mia Palumbo (Illinois) DEC Sage Mortimer (Utah), 11-6

160: Paddy Gallagher (Ohio) DEF Travis Mastrogiovanni (New Jersey), 2:58

138: Jesse Mendez (Indiana) DEC Joel Vandervere (Illinois), 6-4 SV

120: Drake Ayala (Iowa) DEC Richard Figueroa (California), 5-3 SV

170: Alex Facundo (Michigan) DEC Cael Valencia (California), 6-5 UTB

Six underdogs is pretty amazing, especially when you consider that Figueroa and Shumate were the two biggest favorites of the evening (according to the picks). 

Indeed, it was a wonderful night of wrestling all made possible by the courageous high schoolers that agreed to put it on the line and decide who is #1. And congratulations to our contest winner. Check your email for a notification!