WWE News: SmackDown Live Weekly YouTube Report (5/29/18)

As we all know, social media and other outlets have become a huge means of drawing in interaction and viewers for WWE. Most people will point to television ratings like they did during the Monday Night Wars in the late 1990’s, however that can be skewed with so many various means of watching today that do not include cable television.

As you’ve become accustomed to, here is this week’s SmackDown Live YouTube Report (2:30 PM EST, 5/31/18):

1. MITB Qualifier: Daniel Bryan vs. Big Cass vs. Samoa Joe – 1.2 million views
2. Lana vs. Naomi in a Dance-Off – 987k views
3. Asuka vs. Mandy Rose – 596k views
4. Big Cass interrupts Samoa Joe & Daniel Bryan – 587k views
5. Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Tye Dillinger – 474k views
6. The New Day vs. The Bar & The Miz – 405k views
7. Paige unveils her plans for Becky Lynch & Charlotte Flair next week – 344k views

Once again, The Yes Movement’s conductor rings the bell as the top view-earner in this week’s main event. Bryan has held strong with numbers in the low-one million range and the only one to do so this week. Just line them up, Big Cass, Samoa Joe, Jeff Hardy…I don’t care who it is. Daniel Bryan brings home the vegan bacon. The only surprise to me is that his other segment only comes in at number four.

The real story of the night here is SmackDown Live’s ladies, taking up three spots in the top seven at 2, 3 and 7. I’ve seen all the complaining before, “Lana’s only where she’s at because of her looks” and yada-yada-yada. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times; if you want just wrestling, then you’re watching the WRONG television show. It does not matter why you’re drawing eyes as long as you’re drawing them. Lana can do that. Period. Same goes for the number three spot, Mandy Rose. Asuka has shown a propensity to bring in solid numbers, but men love Mandy the same way some women love Roman.

The fifth and sixth positions are reserved for the rest of the action from the blue brand as Shinsuke drags Tye Dillinger out from relative recent obscurity to be at number five. Meanwhile, The New Day’s issues with The Miz and The Bar remain around the 300-400k mark per usual, good enough to crack in at number six.

What’s interesting this week is you won’t see the WWE Champion AJ Styles as he was only used for a backstage promo that barely garnered over 110k. Newcomer Andrade ‘Cien’ Almas also falls short of our list again this week as he comes in just over 240k.

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