EA’s Weekly RAW YouTube Report (12/3/18)

A look at the YouTube performance for this week’s WWE RAW!

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, 12/5/18):

1. Ronda Rousey & Ember Moon vs. Nia Jax & Tamina – 2.2 million views
2. Dean Ambrose subdues Seth Rollins – 1.9 million views
3. Dolph Ziggler interrupts Drew McIntyre Appreciation – 957k views
4. Dolph Ziggler vs. Drew McIntyre – 860k views
5. The Riott Squad sends Natalya through a table – 590k views
6. Ronda Rousey vows to get retribution on Nia Jax & Tamina – 552k views
7. Loser Gets Fired: Heath Slater vs. Rhyno –  534k views

While this week’s RAW had some brutal ratings numbers (see more on that here), it has no affect at all when it comes to YouTube and in a sense, may even boost it. The RAW Women’s Champion is once again in our top spot this week as she continues to be the top draw for the brand with Roman Reigns out and Brock Lesnar off. With three spots in our top seven (number five still revolves around Ronda), her dominance on YouTube is well established at this point. On the other hand, clearly she has little to no affect on ratings like some people think, seeing how she was a major focal point of this week’s historically low-rated show.

Back at number two this week is Seth Rollins, but mostly Dean Ambrose as their feud continued on with the next possible tweak to Ambrose’s character. I’ve called for Dean to turn heel for a very, very long time now, but I haven’t been as satisfied with it due to how it’s been handled. I don’t want Ambrose making jokes or trying to be funny because…quite frankly…he’s not. This week felt like more of a step in the right direction, I’d like to see the siren incorporated into his music moving forward and if he were to continue wearing the gas mask during his entrance would be a cool change. Still though, he needs to stop with the wise cracks. Be the vicious son of a bitch you should be.

In the third spot this week is RAW’s unquestioned rising star, Drew McIntyre, as the partnership with Dolph Ziggler officially came to an end. I think there’s a couple factors in play with regards to the amount of views for this breakup, one of which is the breakup itself. Any clip that has something of significance storyline-wise usually will do better than say, a random match of little importance. Plus, I think that we’re seeing the ascension of McIntyre as a main event player and if he can keep numbers up like these, it may translate over to the casuals in the long haul.

Finishing our list could be considered “best of the rest”, but my aforementioned point about clips with storyline significance doing better than others is shown here again. Make any jokes you want about Heath Slater and Rhyno’s usage, but the fact is that any Superstar getting “fired” is a significant storyline. If more people tuned into a clip of Bobby Lashley showing us his favorite pose again did better, I’d be worried.

What do this week’s YouTube results for RAW tell you? Let us know on social media @theCHAIRSHOTcom and always remember to use the hashtag #UseYourHead!