Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/October 1 to 7, 2023

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (October 1 to 7, 2023)

Prepared with commentary by Igordebraga, Ollieisanerd, and some helpful IPs.

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

New month, lots of sports, and a few entries on politics and war to remind us why escapism is a recurring theme in the Report.

Rank	Article	Views	Notes/about
1	India at the 2022 Asian Games	2,382,812	Hangzhou received the continental games that ended on October 8, and our South Asian friends that always shape the Report had their best performance, surpassing 100 medals and standing fourth in the total count. Among the podiums are over 20 in both shooting and athletics, three for those who medaled in Tokyo 2020 (javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra, seen to the left, boxer Lovlina Borgohain, and the field hockey team), and both gold medals in the national sport (see below).
2	2022 Asian Games	2,120,017
3	2023 Cricket World Cup	2,102,848	India is a natural to host this, as they even have a cricket ground for 132,000 people. The tournament began last week, with a rematch between the finalists of the last edition which ended in the champions' defeat. The group stage of this edition alone will last over a month, so this article will take a while to leave.
4	David Beckham	1,654,841	Netflix released Beckham, a documentary miniseries about one of the faces of England's late 90s football resurgence, who won a lot with Manchester United, Real Madrid and LA Galaxy, with the stint in the last one helping Beckham get an expansion team from Major League Soccer, Inter Miami FC, who currently employs an even bigger football star than Beckham ever was.
5	Jawan (film)	1,248,683	After becoming the biggest Indian movie of 2023 and the second-biggest Hindi film of all time, this Shah Rukh Khan-starrer continues to bring in the crore in the last lap of its run. Meanwhile, a certain Canadian believes that Hollywood could learn a thing or two from it.
6	Travis Kelce	1,034,857	The Kansas City Chiefs are going off well in their post-Super Bowl season. But most views regarding their tight end regard how he and Taylor Swift might be in a case of "You know I love the players, and you love the game".
7	Cricket World Cup	1,034,149	#3 led to readers seeking out the article on the quadrennial event whose trophy still remains the biggest honor in cricket.
8	Kevin McCarthy	928,377	He was the US Speaker of the House for 10 months, starting in January this year and ultimately ending this month after he was axed. This makes him the third shortest serving US speaker in history, and the first in history to be axed.
9	Deaths in 2023	921,298	For you, it's goodbye For me, it's to cry For whom the bell tolls...
10	Dick Butkus	860,882	The American football linebacker who played for the Chicago Bears between 1965 and 1973 has died aged 80. He was considered the most feared tackler of all time. After his playing career, Butkus became active in sports commentary and philanthropy through his charity the Butkus Foundation.
11	Asian Games	832,511	#2 was the latest edition of the biggest, most populated continent's games. Later this month there's the equivalent for the Americas.
12	Taylor Swift	824,177	NBC has been playing her songs to promote #6's team, even if both haven't confirmed a relationship. In the meantime, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour opens 2 months before Taylor's 34th birthday, having already amassed $100 million in ticket pre-orders.
13	The Creator (2023 film)	749,082	John David Washington already starred in Tenet, so here's him in another science fiction, this time concerning a war between humans and AI. Reviews were positive but even if The Creator stands above Washington's father (#16) in the box office, it still hasn't even made back its $80 million budget.
14	Victoria Beckham	743,000	#4's wife, who will always be "Posh Spice" even if she bailed out of the last Spice Girls reunion.
15	Matt Gaetz	741,637	Even if he's in the same party as #8, Gaetz has had many confrontations with McCarthy, and started the process that got him removed as Speaker of the House.
16	The Equalizer 3	739,128	With this movie finally arriving in his country, this here writer agrees with the positive assessments, as The Equalizer 3 offers good action scenes, a serviceable plot about Denzel Washington fighting the Camorra that thankfully is contained to just 109 minutes in contrast to the recent wave of "why is this (2½-3) hours long?!", and there's even a Man on Fire reunion by bringing in Dakota Fanning! It might not be a runaway success (even if $160 million is profitable, it's still $30 million below what the previous two earned) but certainly caused enough of an impact that the movie remains here even as new movies arrive (speaking of, Netflix's Nowhere and Reptile were the first two off the list!) and bigger hits like The Nun II fall off.
17	Hamas	685,384	The controversial and belligerant Palestine faction that controls the Gaza Strip decided to attack Israel, reigniting the Israeli–Palestinian conflict to outright warfare (#24) and causing lots of unrest in the international community.
18	2022 Asian Games medal table	679,557	As expected, like in every edition of #11 since 1978, the top three countries of #2 were China, Japan and South Korea, in whatever order. #1 followed, with more than 30 medals over fifth place Uzbekistan! And only Bhutan, East Timor, Maldives and Yemen ended without medals.
19	Saw X	664,481	While The Exorcist: Believer wound up being bad enough that it couldn't break into this list, we still have an entry for this better received horror sequel (along with positive reviews Saw X already recouped its $13 million budget and only didn't top the box office because it opened opposite PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie).
20	UEFA Champions League	658,000	The 2023–24 UEFA Champions League continues, and it should be noted #4's original team Manchester United has lost both games so far.
21	Rachin Ravindra	615,349	At #3, this New Zealand player (who is of Indian descent, hence the name) scored a century right in the opening match.
22	Tim Wakefield	609,818	One of the players who broke the Boston Red Sox cursed drought in 2004 and would remain in the MLB until the age of 45, Tim Wakefield died at 57 from a cancer-caused seizure.
23	Laphonza Butler	581,338	This American politician was chosen by Gavin Newsom to fill the Senate seat left vacant by the death of Dianne Feinstein last week.
24	October 2023 Gaza−Israel conflict	570,211	War in the Middle East is a sad constant. 50 years after one of the biggest ones involving Israel, the Zionist state was targeted by what #17 called "Operation al-Aqsa Flood", firing their rockets and prompting Israel to launch air strikes of their own. As thousands die, many more are injured or displaced, and the international community express their unrest, hopes are raised that the conflict can be solved soon. (It's bad enough that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is entering its 20th month.)
25	Ahsoka (TV series)	569,477	Closing it off, the latest Star Wars show that in its final episode had kind of an open ending, given the title protagonist was left stranded on an isolated planet and the villainous Grand Admiral Thrawn was still on the loose. Still, a worthy journey more fulfilling than Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Book of Boba Fett, and another step in making up for the frustrations left by the sequel trilogy. (And one day after Ahsoka ended started the next event Disney+ show, season 2 of Loki, which couldn't get that many views, showing the MCU's side of Disney+ is not what it used to be and probably that people were confused by the introduction of complicated time mechanics)