WWE News: Weekly RAW YouTube Report (6/4/18)

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, 6/6/18):

1. Roman Reigns & Seth Rollins vs. Jinder Mahal & Elias – 1.4 million views
2. Finn Balor vs. Kevin Owens – 841k views
3. Roman Reigns & Jinder Mahal interview/brawl – 771k views
4. Seth Rollins interrupts Elias’ performance – 682k views
5. Nia Jax vs. Natalya – 679k views
6. Tag Team Battle Royal –  589k views
7. Braun Strowman vs. Bobby Roode – 587k views

Before I get to the number one spot, these numbers are just absolutely stank this week. It’s pretty unusual because last week’s RAW viewership on cable was the second lowest in the show’s history, however the YouTube numbers were still solid. This week, RAW viewership saw a slight increase, but YouTube is down, as this more resembles a weekly SmackDown Live YouTube report in terms of total views.

After a week off, Roman Reigns returns to his usual top spot in the opening match of the night. The tag team bout saw a mash-up of Money In The Bank opponents with Roman pairing up with fellow YouTube titan, Intercontinental Champion Seth Rollins. Three out of our top four are comprised by one or both of these men, although you would think that combining the forces of these Monday Night RAW mainstays might lead to at least a slightly higher number of views (Rollins is typically at least a million on his own, while Roman hovers around the 1.5/2 million mark roughly).

The only top four spot that doesn’t include ‘The Kingslayer’ or ‘The Big Dog’ was the main event between Men’s Money In The Bank Ladder Match participants, Finn Balor and Kevin Owens. Despite being at the end of the show, which generally draws the lowest cable viewership, Balor and Owens remain around their usual marks.

I think it’s fair to say that number five could be much higher had a different photo or headline been used that included Ronda Rousey. If she’s featured, I guarantee that Nia Jax vs. Natalya would leapfrog a couple of spots. As I’ve said before, she’s arguably the company’s biggest draw for men or women and anything she touches hovers near the top of our YouTube reports.

In my opinion, one of the more prominent matches of this show was the Tag Team Battle Royal, as it had MITB implications and also had a full week of advertising. Personally, I feel like RAW’s Tag Team Division is easily the weakest booked on the entire main roster, including 205 Live, however The B-Team do make me laugh. I don’t think I’m alone on that either, as their B-Team BBQ last week had similar numbers, but didn’t crack the top seven. On a down week, roughly the same amount of views is good for sixth.

Lastly, another real puzzler here with the consistent Braun Strowman dropping well below his usual digits. We’ve seen ‘The Monster Among Men’ pull at least in the 750-800k range regularly, but much like the overall YouTube numbers, I’m a bit stumped as to what has happened this week. Was this week’s RAW a bit of a weak show? I thought so, but we’ve seen it in the past and YouTube has been able to hold up.

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