WWE News: SmackDown Live Weekly YouTube Report (5/15/18)

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 RAW YouTube Report (2:30 PM EST, 5/17/18):

1. Daniel Bryan gets some revenge on Big Cass – 1.2 million views
2. *TIED* Royal ‘Mellabration & AJ Styles vs. Shinsuke Nakamura – 1 million views
3. MITB Qualifier: Becky Lynch vs. Mandy Rose vs. Sonya Deville – 547k views
4. MITB Qualifier: The New Day vs. The Bar – 432k views
5. Andrade ‘Cien’ Almas debuts – 409k views

One week after coming in at the top, Daniel Bryan does it again with the exact same number of views. He’s clearly the most over man on the roster and outside of Randy Orton, AJ Styles and The Miz, is the most recognized Superstar on SmackDown Live for mainstream purposes. He proves that here, drawing 1.2 million with just a segment. Last week was a match (find that here). This also proves my continued words about Rusev to be more correct as well. He was Bryan’s opponent last week and the beneficiary of that, whereas this week his backstage segment again failed to draw. We saw the same thing in our SmackDown YouTube Report prior to Backlash (check that out here).

After barely being involved last Tuesday, a big match with Money In The Bank implications brings the WWE Champion AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura back towards the top of the pack. What’s surprising to me though, is the fact that SmackDown Women’s Champion Carmella ties them with her ‘Royal ‘Mellabration’. This was the most promoted segment for SmackDown in terms of length of time, being announced last week. Does this play a role? Perhaps, but I think at this point you can’t rule out that this was also a taped episode and those that saw it wanted to see Asuka. Honestly, I’m just spitballing here, but does anybody still think Carmella has “go away heat”? The numbers don’t lie, so read ’em and weep.

Numbers three and four remain consistent with everything we’ve seen since Backlash, as Money In The Bank Qualifying matches continue to become the focuses of RAW and SmackDown Live on a weekly basis, at least right now. Now, the participants in these matches aren’t necessarily what you would consider draws, but The New Day not doing better surprises me. There was a lot of talk among those here at The Chairshot regarding whether New Day should be split during the Superstar Shake-Up. We’ve also seen reports that they aren’t selling merchandise like they used to, so all things are trending in the wrong direction for them.

Lastly at the fifth spot comes the long-awaited debut of Andrade ‘Cien’ Almas. I have to be frank here, I don’t put much stock in what we see here. I’ll give you that a lot of the fans familiar with his NXT work were waiting for his arrival, but it was only a squash match against an enhancement. Not to mention, the only other match left on the card and any ring action almost always outdraws any segments. I’m not ready to say Almas is a draw, it’s way too soon.

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