‘Dancing with the Stars’ rankings: Is Emmitt Smith the spoiler for Shawn Johnson?

Even though we gave Sabrina Bryan the #4 spot on the “Dancing with the Stars” rankings last week, we’ve said all along that the sixe of her fanbase was ultimately a concern. You always have to remember with a show like this that it is a popularity contestant more than one about dance, and that a few good scores will not make up for having a tiny group of supporters out there.

With Sabrina’s exit in mind, we are shifting our criteria slightly more this week in favor of fan followings. While this is not our only deciding factor by any means, we are now at a point in this competition where followings are more important than just about anything else, especially when mere points separate the best from the worst dancers on a semi-regular basis.

7. Kirstie Alley and Maksim Chmerkovskiy (last week: 8) – Even with followings in mind, it’s still hard to move up the person who is clearly the worst dancer on the show any higher than this place. She just has so much more work to do, and she has been consistently lower than everyone else by enough of a margin that she’s the safe pick here.

6. Apolo Anton Ohno and Karina Smirnoff (6) – Yes, they got a perfect score for their past performance … but they were also in the bottom two. If this does not keep you safe, nothing will … and you have to hope that this was a giant wake-up call for the fans of these two to pick up the phones soon.

5. Kelly Monaco and Val Chmerkovskiy (7) – We know that Kelly has a fanbase following her being safe this week, especially after she and Vald had one of the lower scores of the week. Our biggest concern here is just if her work schedule thanks to “General Hospital” will put her behind as time goes by.

4. Melissa Rycroft and Tony Dovolani (5) – She was in jeopardy until late in the show this past week, but it’s hard to say whether or not that is any indication that she was in any major danger of actually leaving the competition. Our major concern at this point is just that she was in third place during her season, and the three people higher than her here all were either winners or runners-up.

3. Gilles Marini and Peta Murgatroyd (1) – Like we said previously, we are considering fan base size here more than anything else. While it would hardly be surprising to see Gilles pull off a win here, we could also see a finish similar to last season, when the much-hyped leading man in William Levy finished third to Katherine Jenkins and Donald Driver.

2. Emmitt Smith and Cheryl Burke (3) – Emmitt probably has the largest fanbase in the competition, at least judging from the fact that he not only won his last season, but he has never been in the bottom two once. This bodes well for a pretty long life, and it would be a shock if he somehow tanked out before the finale.

1. Shawn Johnson and Derek Hough (2) – Like Emmitt, Shawn has never been in danger on the show; and in addition to that, there are also some other things working in her favor. Gymnastics is clearly popular right now thanks to the summer games, and she has a story tied to that courtesy of an injury forcing her out. Plus, she has a popular pro in Derek, and the two of them are creating crazy-good dances. Considering that Emmitt is not the strongest dancer on the season (entertaining as he may be), we could see fans of eliminated stars piling up in support of her winning.

Who is your current favorite at the moment? We want to hear from you below!