Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/August 28 to September 3, 2022

The Top 25 Report

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Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (August 28 to September 3, 2022) edit

Prepared with commentary by ElijahPepe and YttriumShrew

⭠ Last week's report Next week's report →

ElijahPepe made a views compiler to replace the erstwhile Top 1000 report, so we're back to automated views compilation! Which is great for our time purposes, but it does put an end to my three-month-old Sunday afternoon ritual of obsessively copying data from Topviews and Pageviews into a spreadsheet and then into a Wikipedia table. Which I kind of enjoyed, but... Anyway, to the data itself: The Rings of Power upstaged House of the Dragon (#4) here as well by too topping this list, just ahead of the newly retired Serena Williams. Mikhail Gorbachev's death propelled him to third, which I was frankly disappointed by, but that song has been sung by many a past writer.

Rank	Article	Views	Notes/about
1	The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power	1,564,791	The prequel to J. R. R. Tolkien's novel The Lord of the Rings, set thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit, premiered this week in the form of a television series. Although the first two episodes have received generally positive reviews, the series has received less critical acclaim than Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, and Amazon's marketing for the series has even extended to video games.
2	Serena Williams	1,542,068	After a truly stellar career in tennis, Serena Williams's career ended at the US Open after a loss to Australian player Ajla Tomljanović. She retires as the greatest woman tennis player of her generation.
3	Mikhail Gorbachev	1,481,729	The last leader of the Soviet Union died this week from complications related to a long illness according to Russian media at the age of 91. Gorbachev, widely known for his paradigms of glasnost and perestroika, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and as the subject of "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!", was widely praised in the West, although his reception in Russia and the Balkan states is less positive. A funeral for Gorbachev was held later this week, and although he received elements of a state funeral such as a guard of honor, Gorbachev was not granted a state funeral. Many were there, but current Russian president Vladimir Putin was notably not in attendance.
4	House of the Dragon	1,425,144	The prequel to the hit HBO show Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon's second episode "The Rogue Prince" aired this week with—if Rotten Tomatoes numbers are anything to go by—a slightly less positive critic response than last week's episode.
5	Nanjing Massacre	1,250,999	In 1937 the Japanese Army committed brutal atrocities in the Chinese capital of Nanking after capturing it, which ultimately amounted to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and the rape of tens of thousands. We think it's here because a pawn shop owner from Minnesota found a bunch of photos of the event and it became major news. Hopefully he'll upload them to Commons.
6	2022 Asia Cup	939,057	After a hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this biennial cricket tournament continued this week. I've always found it funny how the tournament is meant to be for all of Asia but is usually just India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. This year, though, something weird happened: Afghanistan beat both Sri Lanka and Bangladesh! Most of the viewers here are probably Indian though, so it likely doesn't bother them as much.
7	Deaths in 2022	926,588	Just a few more weary days and then I'll fly away To a land where joy shall never end I'll fly away
8	Asia Cup	828,554	It's always annoying when two similar articles get split by one other article and we have to do separate comments. It's especially annoying when it's an article we don't even do proper writeups for. I couldn't find a photo of much to do with it, so here's... an Asian Cup! Get it?
9	Liger (film)	816,750	This MMA Bollywood film released last week to an overwhelmingly negative box office performance and critical reception.
10	Manti Te'o	812,067	The release of Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn't Exist, the sixth part in the nine-part Untold series, renewed interest in this linebacker and his clandestine relationship to a fictitious woman.
11	WWE Clash at the Castle	684,478	The WWE continues without Vince McMahon, who retired earlier this year, in this pay-per-view event between Roman Reigns and Drew McIntyre, the first in the United Kingdom since the 2003 Insurrextion [sic].
12	Venus Williams	677,509	#2's older sister hasn't retired just yet, continuing to play in the US Open.
13	Elvis Presley	633,064	After making $277 million worldwide and earning widespread praise, the biopic Elvis hit HBO Max, guaranteeing one more week for the King of Rock n' Roll here.
14	Premier League	628,941	The current Premier League season has been going on for a while, so I presume it got heightened interest due to #18's new record.
15	Nope (film)	594,985	Jordan Peele's third film is a resounding yes, and although it hasn't received quite the same box office performance as #22, Nope still has a strong critical reception.
16	John McAfee	567,356	Netflix released a documentary discussing conspiracy theories about McAfee's death last week, which saw some people claiming that his death in a Spanish prison awaiting extradition to America was a hoax. I mean, it's not like that wasn't already all over the internet last year, but...
17	Cobra (2022 film)	547,463	This Tamil film, in development since 2019, finally released this week. Like #9, it received negative criticism, although to a lesser degree, and in part due to its length. Its production company. Red Giant Movies, made the unusual step of trimming the film down by 20 minutes and releasing the trimmed cut as the theatrical cut.
18	Erling Haaland	542,027	This Norwegian footballer broke yet another record this week, namely after scoring his second hat-trick in his sixth match in the Premier League.
19	Andrew Tate	506,016	The boxer turned internet personality continues to make the list, although much further down than his third place last week.
20	Antony (footballer, born 2000)	496,116	It's still football transfer season, and Dutch club Ajax sold this Brazilian winger to Manchester United for £81 million! Making him the clubs third most expensive signing.
21	Charlbi Dean	479,746	This South African actress and model died this week.
22	Top Gun: Maverick	487,042	The sequel to 1986's Top Gun, this action film continues to grace the list this week, becoming the 12th highest grossing film worldwide and now being available for digital download and rental.
23	"Weird Al" Yankovic	477,927	The teaser trailer for the upcoming Roku Original biopic Weird: The Al Yankovic Story brought interest to Yankovic. The biopic will star Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe in the titular role, and has been intentionally exaggerated in a fitting way for Yankovic, whose nonsensical demeanor and song material have earned him acclaim.
24	Artemis 1	468,742	Another article about the final frontier. NASA had planned to launch an uncrewed spacecraft to orbit around the Moon this week, but had to delay it due to what ultimately turned out to be a failed sensor, and then delay it again due to a leak. The next launch window starts near the end of the month.
25	2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine	451,303	The invasion creeps back onto the list (keeping off #2's husband Alexis Ohanian) courtesy of Ukraine's long-awaited Kherson counteroffensive, which, it seems, has had some success, although it's hard to know much due to the fog of war.

Exclusions edit

This list excludes the Wikipedia main page, non-article pages (such as redlinks), and anomalous entries (such as DDoS attacks or likely automated views). Since mobile view data became available to the Report in October 2014, we exclude articles that have almost no mobile views (5–6% or less) or almost all mobile views (94–95% or more) because they are very likely to be automated views based on our experience and research of the issue. Please feel free to discuss any removal on the talk page if you wish.