Billboard Music Awards 2014: Pitbull, Jennifer Lopez open with World Cup song ‘We Are One’

Like many other major awards shows out there, the Billboard Music Awards like to open up the show with some sort of epic number that is going to get people talking right out of the gate.

This time around, we have a feeling that we had a performance that may play a little better around the entire world than it did on this particular show. Pitbull performed the official World Cup song “We Are One” with Jennifer Lopez and Claudia Leitte, and most of the audience seemed extremely disinterested. There was a little bit of dancing, but most of the time they were just standing in one place. Ironically, it was Leitte (a relative unknown for most American audiences) who brought the most energy to the song. Pitbull was forced to do a little bit of singing, and we know already that this is not his strong suit at all.

Will there be some great performances later in the show? We hope so, since this is not one that may be remembered as much as we’d like it to. In general, we’d rank this song significantly far below “Waka Waka (This Time For Africa),” the World Cup Anthem performed by Shakira with Freshlyground four years ago when South Africa was the setting for the gigantic sporting event.

This is not the only performance to feature Jennifer tonight, though, as she will be back a little bit later in the night to be honored for her overall contributions in music … which will surely get airtime during “American Idol” later in the week.

What did you think about this opening performance? Share your thoughts below, and click here to get some other updates related to the show. Also, be sure to sign up for some further TV updates courtesy of our CarterMatt Newsletter.

Photo: ABC