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, 8/9/18):

1. Shinsuke Nakamura vs. R-Truth – 974k views
2. Daniel Bryan crashes The Miz on set – 756k views
3. Randy Orton vows to destroy WWE’s top stars – 541k views
4. AJ Styles responds to Samoa Joe’s comments – 427k views
5. Becky Lynch & Charlotte Flair vs. The IIconics – 373k views
6. Lana vs. Zelina Vega – 360k views
7. The New Day vs. The Bar – 339k views

On a week where SmackDown Live’s ratings took a pretty significant drop, the blue brand’s YouTube numbers do a bit of the same. Coming in at number one is Shinsuke Nakamura vs. R-Truth, which fails to reach a million views. To be honest, I haven’t got a clue as to why this match tops the list. It’s nothing more than what I refer to as a “glorified squash”, a match where you know who’s going to get the win even though there’s not your quintessential jobber involved. Overall, SmackDown Live was pretty lackluster this week and I think that’s reflected in our list.

At number two is SmackDown Live’s hottest rivalry where Daniel Bryan finally got his hands on The Miz this week. If I was to prognosticate what clip would have topped our list, I would have figured this would be it due to a lack of interesting segments this week. At this point, I’m just ready for them to finally step into the ring at SummerSlam.

Sliding in at the third spot is Randy Orton with another promo, basically some of the same things he’s said the last couple of weeks. Had this segment involved some other guys like last week, I’d have to think the views would be higher. Unfortunately, this was just Orton by himself. We see some of the same at number four with our WWE Champion AJ Styles responding to Samoa Joe’s comments from last week. Two pretty basic promos.

For the last three spots on our list, we get the rest of the matches from this week’s episode of the blue brand. Number five was the most promoted match this week as Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair took on The IIconics, the opening contest of the show. Next at number six is a rematch from last week with Lana facing Zelina Vega again, another affair that was a little rough to watch no matter how easy on the eyes these ladies are. Lastly, the best match of the night rounds out our top seven as The New Day defeated The Bar to earn their shot at The Bludgeon Brothers’ SmackDown Tag Titles at SummerSlam. Great match, but if I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again…great wrestling doesn’t constitute ratings or YouTube views (unless there’s a title change). It’s about name value here and as good of a contest as it was, The New Day’s popularity has definitely waned while The Bar just don’t provide it.

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