WWE News: SmackDown Live’s Weekly YouTube Report (6/12/18)

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 (2:30PM EST, 6/14/18):

1. 10-Woman Tag Team Match – 921k views
2. Rusev vs. Samoa Joe w/Special Referee The Miz – 798k views
3. Jeff Hardy vs. Shinsuke Nakamura – 770k views
4. Women’s MITB Match Summit – 732k views
5. Daniel Bryan vs. Shelton Benjamin – 582k views
6. Asuka & The Miz make demands to Paige – 462k views
7. Jerry Lawler interviews WWE Champion AJ Styles – 174k views

For the second week in a row now, none of SmackDown Live’s YouTube clips reach the million mark, although they edged a little closer at the top. With this week’s RAW drawing huge numbers and having six of the its top seven reach at least one million, this has to be classified as a big disappointment.

Last week’s number one spot pulled 907k views, which was the MITB contract signing between Styles and Nakamura. This week, the blue brand’s main event featuring the entire Women’s Division in a 10-Woman Tag Team match claims the first spot with 921k views. Time and time again I’ve spoken on interest for MITB helping segments to a degree and while I think that’s the case here, as well as with the opening segment at number four, the fact that other matches in our top seven couldn’t beat this out is shocking to me.

Numbers two through five are the rest of the action we got on SmackDown Live, plus our opening segment, but certainly not in the order you would anticipate or what some people have tried conditioning me to believe. The blue brand’s top babyface, Daniel Bryan, falls all the way to number five this week and doesn’t come anywhere near his rough average of a million views. Is it the opponent? Is it lack of interest in the product in general? It definitely wasn’t because the match was less than stellar.

Number three is also what I’ve been told is a “heavy hitter” in Jeff Hardy, but what’s the story here then? It’s a first-time ever match between two bonafide Superstars, so all the ingredients are there. “Jeff Hardy has consistently drawn big numbers since his return”. That’s what I was told when I gave credit a few weeks back to Daniel Bryan for being the reason their match drew so well. So again, what happened here?

Lastly, another week brings more low numbers for WWE Champion, ‘The Phenomenal’ AJ Styles. ‘The House That AJ Styles Built’ has been without its architect (all due respect to Seth Rollins) in the ring for a number of weeks now, which has seemingly destroyed his YouTube views. For a man who is arguably the best wrestler in the world and one of the WWE’s most profitable Superstars, hopefully it’s sooner rather than later we get to see him back where he belongs on this list.

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