‘Dancing with the Stars 16’ rankings: Sean Lowe slips; Kellie Pickler still holds at #1

The men of “Dancing with the Stars” are in trouble and we seriously don’t know what it is when it comes to the guys for the past two seasons. Have the show’s producers been casting stronger girls, are the ladies working harder, or have the guys with more dancing potential said no? While there are a few men left who could last a few more weeks, it is looking right now like only one of them has a shot of taking down the big three of Zendaya, Kellie Pickler, and Aly Raisman … and that’s mostly because he is a football player.

While there is no change in the #1 ranking yet again, the ranks have shifted quite a bit this week thanks largely to two people: Sean Lowe and Ingo Rademacher. Dance ability will and always be the #1 factor in producing our list, mostly because everything else is hard to predict. However, perceived fan support makes up the other half of our equation.

7. Andy Dick & Sharna Burgess (last week: 8) – We love Andy, and we make no excuses for it. He’s extremely entertaining, a nice story, and we’re glad he made it this far. However, we are at a point now where he is clearly the worst actual dancer left, and we don’t want to see him stick around so long that viewers start to mock and ridicule his participation. Then, a nice story simply becomes sad.

6. Sean Lowe & Peta Murgatroyd (3) – there is always a reason that we say “perceived” fan support here. We thought that Sean, as one of the most-popular Bachelors ever, would have a huge voting block. However, they did not keep him from the bottom two this past week. We do expect him to survive this week thanks to a post-bottom 2 voting bump, but he’s going to have a hard time getting a rose for the finale unless he really improves his routines.

5. Ingo Rademacher & Kym Johnson (6) – We actually wish that we could rank Ingo higher than this, based on the fact that this past week, we really started to come around to rooting for him. He seems like a very genuine guy, and he’s a good dancer with the strong soap-opera voting block behind him. The unfortunate thing here is that all four people ahead of him are better dancers.

4. Aly Raisman & Mark Ballas (4) -We would be stunned if there was not one man in the top three, and while she probably has some extra support behind her right now (and deservedly so) from the New England community, in the later rounds it may be all about the pizzazz. We just need to see the same flair for performance that we have for the top three if she wants a real shot at this.

3. Jacoby Jones & Karina Smirnoff (5) – Jacoby’s a football player! We’re not trying to be obvious, but this has been to date a major indicator of success on this show. Even Michael Irvin, who wasn’t very good at all, managed to make it pretty far thanks to who he was partnered with. Jacoby is not necessarily a revelation, but he is strong enough to take himself into the finale.

2. Zendaya & Val Chmerkovskiy (2) – We would understand there being a certain perception out there that Zendaya is some sort of ringer as a hip-hop dancer who stars on a Disney show about dance, but she’s clearly getting so much support thanks mostly to her talent. We see there being little chance of her winning, but making it to the final few weeks is an entirely different story.

1. Kellie Pickerl & Derek Hough (1) – It’s probably very boring to see these two at the top of the list again … but what can you do? Kellie’s a great dancer, everyone can relate to her, and she’s entertaining even when she’s not dancing. All of this, coupled with a voting block of country music fans, makes her the perfect candidate to win this whole season by a long shot.

Who do you think is the top “Dancing with the Stars” contender right now? If you haven’t heard show judge Bruno Tonioli sound off on “The Voice” vs. “Dancing with the Stars,” then you absolutely must read the story over here.

Photo: ABC