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 (8:20 PM EST, 8/2/18):

1. Randy Orton & Shinsuke Nakamura leave Jeff Hardy laying – 1.2 million views
2. Charlotte Flair returns to Becky Lynch’s aid – 991k views
3. Charlotte Flair vs. Carmella – 833k views
4. Daniel Bryan addresses The Miz’s actions from last week – 637k views
5. Samoa Joe sends a message to AJ Styles – 426k views
6. Lana vs. Zelina Vega – 370k views
7. The Usos vs. The Bar – 345k views

For the second week in a row now, ‘The Viper’ Randy Orton takes the top spot in the SmackDown Live YouTube Report. Like I said last week, Orton is just one of those names, a bonafide Superstar who’s been one of the company’s top names for over a decade. He’s the only guy to crack a million views for the second week in a row too, likely the additions of Jeff Hardy and Shinsuke Nakamura helping to get there.

At numbers two and three is the returning Charlotte Flair and basically the big focus of the entire show. I had totally forgotten this was the week she would be getting cleared, even after she openly said it would be July 31st. A lot of fans aren’t happy with how she’s used here though, thinking Becky Lynch should be getting a singles match for Carmella’s title at SummerSlam. The company knows it too, since that’s the angle they’re going for and it makes the whole story much more interesting. We’ll see if that continues to translate into YouTube views in the coming weeks.

Daniel Bryan slides in at number four with a pretty big drop from last week of nearly 300,000 views. I don’t think it’s so much an indictment on Bryan or even this angle with The Miz. We’ve all been waiting for it, so the interest is there. It just seems like there’s only ever 1-3 segments tops on SmackDown Live to do well on a given week. Maybe had they announced their match for SummerSlam (that we all know is coming) then things would have been a little different.

The remaining 5-7 spots on SmackDown Live fall into my “Best of the Rest” category, which seems to be a pretty reoccurring theme for the blue brand every week. Samoa Joe with a pretty simple promo comes in fifth, making things more personal for his title shot against WWE Champion AJ Styles at SummerSlam. Number six is our second women’s match of the evening, that I thought might be a trainwreck. That wasn’t the case and it was watchable. Lastly, the next match in the tournament to crown The Bludgeon Brothers’ number one contenders as The Usos faced The Bar in a tremendous match. Unfortunately, the Tag Team Division never pulls numbers (except for the brief Team Hell No reunion), no matter how great the action is.

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