‘Dancing with the Stars’ 20 rankings: Riker Lynch, Nastia Liukin, Willow Shiels surging before week 7
This season of “Dancing with the Stars” has the potential to be a ballroom bloodbath … at least in a few weeks. Much like the fall season, we’ve got a variety of different dancers who are all outstanding at what they do. For the time being, much of the competition could just be who lasts along with them until they are close enough to see the finale on the horizon.
As always when it comes to our rankings here at CarterMatt, we are ranking the contenders based on a criteria that includes overall dance quality, scores, voting history, and overall popularity (which is at times based on edit, strange as that may be to say given that part of the show is live).
7. Robert Herjavec & Kym Johnson – Ultimately, Robert lasted in the competition a little longer than we ultimately thought that he would. He proved himself to be a decent dancer many times over, but his recent struggles coupled with better scores elsewhere mean that he is probably going to be “out” (to coin a popular “Shark Tank” phrase) soon.
6. Chris Soules & Witney Carson – We are probably nearing the end of Prince Farming’s run in the ballroom, as well. To date, he has mostly been aided simply by the fact that he has recovered from a rough patch, and that “The Bachelor” as a show has plenty of fans.
5. Noah Galloway & Sharna Burgess – This just appears to be the natural order of things now. Noah may be very popular and an inspirational story, but in terms of dance quality the gap between these three and the next four is staggering.
4. Rumer Willis & Val Chmerkovskiy – The gap between the next three dancers are all microscopic. Basically, Rumer probably needs a dance that is as good as her “Little Mermaid” routine every week to keep steady against some of the big contenders.
3. Willow Shields & Mark Ballas – We’ve been very impressed by Willow most of the season for handling everything, and while it may seem strange to say, but we’re almost equally impressed with Mark. Has this been his best season creatively so far? We’re starting to think so.
2. Riker Lynch & Allison Holker – Riker was someone we knew would be outstanding (he’s got dancing in his genes), but the past two weeks he has really taken it to another level. Almost enough to make there competition for the #1 spot…
1. Nastia Liukin and Derek Hough – Here’s the funny thing: Nastia and Derek may be helped by some of the adversity that they are facing at the moment. Derek’s injury makes the two of them even more of an underdog story in so many ways. They have real challenges, and it will be all the more impressive if she delivers given the circumstances and possibly having a new partner.
Who do you think is ruling the ballroom at the moment? Share with a comment, and head over here to see the dance spoilers for the week! Also, you can sign up now to get some other TV news worth dancing about via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: ABC.)