‘Dancing with the Stars’ 19: Alfonso Ribeiro on working through groin injury

Will a groin tear cause Alfonso Ribeiro to be eliminated from “Dancing with the Stars” this season? Clearly, not if he has anything to say about it!

Ribeiro is currently struggling with some pain, but the former “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” star is still hopeful that he can deliver that right combination of adrenaline, technique, and fun to the crowd. Just the hype from that Carlton performance alone could lift him to the finals.

Before tonight’s episode, he told the following to TV Guide about how he is coping with this pain right now, and what he is hoping for leading up to the performance itself:

“I feel like I can’t do 100 percent. I can’t get it to that next level. I feel like I’m delivering 85 percent rather than 100, because I know that if I go harder then I’m going to injure it more. I have to give it half energy until performance night, and then I turn it up. The difference is that, anytime you do something where you don’t have the ability to know what that turning up feels like ahead of time, when you get on that stage for performance, it’s unknown. So there’s a little bit of discomfort in that. … When you have a tear in your groin, it’s not comfortable to take steps.”

The consensus pick to go home tonight is Tommy Chong; regardless of how much we love him, it’s hard to ignore the scores at this point.

What do you want to see, and hope to see, from Alfonso on “Dancing with the Stars” the rest of the way? Let us know, and we can at least tell you over here just what he will be doing for the Trios portion of the show tonight.

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