‘Dancing with the Stars 22’ week 5 rankings: Nyle DiMarco, Paige VanSant, Wanya Morris still strong
“Dancing with the Stars” is entering Switch-Up Week, but for the sake of these contestant rankings, we’re leaving everyone with their original partners. After all, we’re doing our best to formulate overall placement in this episode, and these Stars are primarily with their original partner as opposed to someone they’re just starting to get to know.
As always, our criteria remains the same: Scores, popularity, edit, and voting history for similar Stars over the years.
9. Doug Flutie and Karina Smirnoff (last week: 9) – We really like Doug, and have ever since we first box of Flutie Flakes. However, there’s no real shield for him anymore given that his scores are significantly lower than everyone else this season. We don’t see the path forward.
8. Jodie Sweetin and Keo Motsepe (4) – We thought for a while that the “Fuller House” star was a huge contender, but lower scores plus multiple weeks “in jeopardy” signal some trouble for her. She needs to hope that Doug leaves this week, and she gets a chance to turn things around.
7. Kim Fields and Sasha Farber (8) – Kim’s not a terrible dancer by any means. The biggest thing standing in her way right now is simply that we think there are more popular people this season who are getting better scores.
6. Von Miller and Witney Carson (5) – We don’t think that Von is in any sort of real danger of going home this season. However, he hasn’t had a breakout dance so far, and if that lasts, we don’t really see the Super Bowl MVP ever emerging from the middle of the pack, regrettably.
5. Antonio Brown and Sharna Burgess (7) – This is a nice rise for Antonio this week, and it comes after he delivered far and away his best routine of the entire season. We do think he needs to prove himself now by being consistent, but he’s heading in the right direction and figuring this one.
4. Ginger Zee and Val Chmerkovskiy (6) – Ginger’s been a little hot and cold this season. She’s looked at times like a contender, and at others like someone who is firmly in the middle of the pack. When you try and reconcile the two things, this is probably the right placement for her.
3. Paige VanSant and Mark Ballas (3) – Paige is an excellent dancer. She’ll probably be the first person to get a 10. The only reason that we’re not putting her higher is that we’re not sure what he following is like as opposed to the top two, since we don’t see MMA fans being the sort of people who regularly watch this show.
2. Wanya Morris and Lindsay Arnold (2) – Wanya has definitely had a great run so far, and so long as Boyz II Men fans have his back and he keeps dancing like he is, there’s no reason to think he’ll be gone before at least the semifinals.
1. Nyle DiMarco and Peta Murgatroyd (1) – We’re not changing from Nyle as the favorite right now, even sometimes there are people with better scores and he’s coming up on a difficult week with a new partner. He just has the wonderful story to go along with the moves, and we’ve seen so much over the years how powerful that can be on this show.
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