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 (2:30 PM EST, 8/16/18):

1. Jeff Hardy vs. Shelton Benjamin – 678k views
2. AJ Styles is held back from attacking Samoa Joe – 502k views
3. The birth of Daniel Bryan and The Miz’s rivalry in NXT – 501k views
4. Samoa Joe sets off AJ Styles – 500k views
5. Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch and Carmella come face-to-face-to-face – 427k views
6. Charlotte Flair & Becky Lynch vs. Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville – 344k views
7. Rusev and Lana claim they will be victorious at SummerSlam – 216k views

This week’s episode of SmackDown Live was essentially a two hour long advertisement for SummerSlam and today’s YouTube report is a complete reflection of that with no clips succeeding in reaching a million views…or anywhere close to it. The most popular Superstar to compete on Tuesday night takes the number one spot easily in a match that did nothing other than give Jeff Hardy a victory heading into Sunday. Another case of what I refer to as a “glorified squash match” because it was pretty obvious Hardy wasn’t going to lose. I still don’t understand why Randy Orton hasn’t been added to the US Title match at SummerSlam either.

The majority of this week’s rankings are all promos or segments at numbers 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7. As I stated, the blue brand was just an advert for Sunday and an overall disappointing show. We see AJ Styles and Samoa Joe taking up two spots, one portion of the three part video package for Daniel bryan and The Miz sliding in at number three, the opening segment for the SmackDown Women’s Title match at number five and then Rusev and Lana with a post-match promo on Andrade ‘Cien’ Almas and Zelina Vega at number seven. Not much to write home about.

With so little going on this week, the only other match to make out top seven was what I’d refer to as another “glorified squash” with friends and SummerSlam opponents Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch teaming up to defeat Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville. I really wish I could offer more opinion, but quite frankly there’s just not a whole hell of a lot to say about this week’s episode of the blue brand.

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