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Welcome to a brand new series to coincide with the rapidly oncoming New Year!
While WWE doesn't release its quarter-hour ratings anymore, YouTube viewership numbers is known to roughly mirror them. By paying attention to the YouTube videos, you can get a keen clue as to what's popular and what isn't. If the total viewership is down, as it has been recently, you can tell that something is wrong. Indeed, the YouTube decline of late mirrors Raw's recent woes. The highest segment of this particular week did 2 million views.
So, who was drawing on this week before Christmas? Unsurprisingly, coinciding with the boost in ratings, the McMahon family videos did pretty well. Let's take a deep dive into all of the clips uploaded this week.
#10 Eight-Woman Gauntlet Match for a Raw Women's Championship Opportunity (979k views)
The women's gauntlet match lasted for the final hour of Raw and was a nice showing from the division after it once again stole the show at TLC the night before. Competing in the contest were, in order of entry, Bayley, Alicia Fox, Dana Brooke, Mickie James, Ember Moon, eventual winner Natalya, Ruby Riott, and Sasha Banks.
Natalya picked up the victory to earn a shot at her BFF Ronda Rousey on the Christmas Eve edition of Monday Night Raw.
#9 Raw's Top 10 moments: WWE Top 10, December 17th, 2018 (1m views)
Recap clips usually do well compared to most of the segments on a show. This one was no different as it went over the most notable parts of the McMahon-centric episode of the show.
Baron Corbin getting his second comeuppance in 24 hours as the thumbnail may have drawn some people in, considering he was part of some of the other high-drawing videos this week.
#8 Lynch and Flair want the next SmackDown Women's Title match (1.1m views)
It was unsurprising to see Charlotte, Becky Lynch, and Asuka's promo do the best for the active superstars on the blue brand this week. Asuka's title win at TLC was easily the biggest story heading into the show.
Vince McMahon was also a part of this clip, so that might also be a reason why it did so well. There, he taunted Flair and Lynch, daring them to go after Ronda Rousey for what she did. In the meantime, a title match was made that night, with Asuka defending her newly-won championship against Naomi.
On a related note, this segment helped to cement the fact that the automatic rematch clause is, blissfully, a thing of the past. If there's anything that can truly "shake up" the product, it's ditching that plot device so that new matches can more easily form.
#7 Paige is relieved of her duties as SmackDown General Manager (1.2m views)
Oh, Paige, it's so sad to see you go. You were easily the best main roster authority figure we've had in years.
In keeping with the trend of the "shake up" the McMahons promised though, it isn't surprising to see that this video did well, though Shane McMahon is such a common figure these days that the novelty of his act has long passed, and his overall viewership is normalized as a result.
This clip also basically had almost the entire SmackDown roster on hand, so perhaps they had some part of the final number as well.
Paige is still supposedly going to be around in a different role. It remains to be seen what she ultimately winds up doing, though with her movie coming out soon, she probably won't be fading into the background all that quickly.
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#6 The McMahons to control Raw and SmackDown LIVE as a united front (1.362m views)
The return of Vince McMahon after many months of absence to "shake things up" resulted in an announcement that many said fell flat. Still, it was an almost unambiguous admission that the product wasn't in the place where it needed to be, and the novelty told in the view count.
We were promised new ways of doing things and more of the things we wanted to see with less of the things we didn't want.
Well, we'll see. Things look positive so far, but we've been here many times before. Raw certainly wasn't all that it could have been this past week, up to the gauntlet match, anyway.
Once the New Year comes and the Royal Rumble rapidly approaches, we'll get the real test of how committed the higher-ups really are to the words they delivered throughout this segment.
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#5 Angle, Roode, Gable, & Crews vs. Corbin - No Disqualification Handicap Match (1.367m views)
After Triple H made this a handicap match, we got the second comeuppance for Baron Corbin in 24 hours. His habit of constantly making handicap matches came back to haunt him as he found himself facing a four on one situation.
Perhaps it was frustration with the Corbin angle in general that gave this video such a high view count. In that regard, it's almost a shame that he's being removed. If only he weren't put into the done to death authority figure role, because he's improved a lot with his current character.
It was also a good way for lesser-known figures like Chad Gable and Apollo Crews to get a lot of exposure. If it was this high in the YouTube figure, it was probably one of the highest rated segments on Raw that night.
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#4 Ronda Rousey's Open Challenge becomes a high-stakes Gauntlet Match (1.526m views)
Ah, yes, a McMahon was to be found here, too, but Stephanie wasn't the driving force of this segment. Ronda Rousey has proven herself a YouTube draw throughout the year. It shouldn't be surprising that her segment was the second-highest rated on regular TV this week. She's usually at or near the top, particularly with the worse than normal doldrums Raw has been in this fall.
Ronda Rousey came to the ring and said she wanted to create a tradition where a champion defends her title immediately after a pay per view. While Asuka would do just that on SmackDown the following night, her opponent was to be decided in a gauntlet match.
Natalya won the bout and the two will have a match on tomorrow night's Christmas Eve episode. We'll see how the unfortunate timing affects the numbers next week.
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#3 Most shocking moments of 2018: WWE Top 10, Dec. 22, 2018 (1.545m views)
Uploaded just yesterday, this top 10 video has quickly become the third most watched video of the week. Braun Strowman and Nicholas are prominently featured in the thumbnail, and Braun usually does well in YouTube drawings. The less said about Nicholas, the better.
Ronda Rousey's WrestleMania debut and Daniel Bryan's shocking WWE title win are also parts of the video, along with Dean Ambrose's turn on Seth Rollins and Johnny Gargano being revealed as Aleister Black's attacker.
Beginning the list at #10 is Rey Mysterio's Royal Rumble return, which was actually the top drawing video of that night, even doing better numbers than Ronda Rousey's arrival in the company on the same pay per view.
Yearly roundup lists should always do high figures, so it isn't surprising to see it rise so quickly compared to other segments.
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#2 Rousey & Natalya vs. Jax & Tamina vs. Morgan & Logan: WWE Tribute to the Troops, Dec 20, 2018 (1.9m views)
Ronda Rousey doing this many views compared to the rest of the Tribute to the Troops show, where the rest of the videos are all well under a million views, speaks a lot about the comparative attention that she gets. It will be very interesting indeed to see how well she does during the biggest months on WWE's calendar as the champion heading into WrestleMania. It isn't a stretch to say that the women's division is the hottest ticket in the company heading into its annual Show of Shows, which speaks well about the rumored main event.
In the meantime, this was a fun segment that was pre-recorded before TLC, so it isn't surprising to see that Nia Jax and Tamina were kept strong and the Riott Squad girls again took the fall.
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#1 The McMahon family gives Baron Corbin a chance at redemption (2m views)
The McMahon streak continued this week, as the segment where Baron Corbin was formally relieved of power - but with a twist, was the highest viewed video at 2 million views. The novelty of the situation certainly had a lot to do with the high rating.
Or maybe everyone was just relieved to see the Baron Corbin storyline finally coming to an end, and hoping for a better start to 2019 for the red brand, which has had a horrible 2018, long before even Baron Corbin ascended onto the scene.
If the McMahons want to improve the product, they'll need to do a lot more than this. One change alone won't solve anything. Hopefully, things will pick up very soon with one of the biggest shows of the year a month away. Onward to the Royal Rumble!
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