Guillermo Rodriguez lives to dance another day.
The Jimmy Kimmel Live! parking lot security guard-turned-sidekick survived the first elimination of Dancing with the Stars Tuesday night, despite finishing at the bottom of the men’s leaderboard after his debut performance with professional partner Witney Carson.
Rodriguez and Carson earned just 10 points out of a possible 30 for their cha cha to Jean Knight’s “Mr. Big Stuff,” with judges Derek Hough and Bruno Tonioli each giving him a 3 and Carrie Ann Inaba awarding him a 4.
The low score left Rodriguez needing a strong showing in the audience vote to avoid becoming the season’s first male contestant sent home.
And apparently, he got it.
Under Dancing with the Stars’ voting system, judges’ scores and viewer votes are each converted into ranking points and combined, meaning a contestant near the bottom of the judges’ leaderboard can still survive with enough support from viewers.
Rodriguez certainly seemed to have the ballroom audience on his side.
“Was the technique there? No. Was the effort there? Absolutely,” Hough told him after the performance. “You are a performer. We love having you here.”
Hough told Rodriguez he needed to work on his power and timing, adding, “We can’t be having heel leads on the cha cha.”
Tonioli was equally entertained, even as he acknowledged Rodriguez had some work to do.
“Nobody will ever, ever forget this,” he said, describing one of Rodriguez’s moves as “the crazy sexy grasshopper.”
“It’s got nothing to do with the cha cha cha,” Tonioli added. “Technique can only get better.”
Inaba offered the strongest defense of Rodriguez’s actual dancing, praising the clarity and commitment of his movements.
“Entertainment value and how the audience responds to what you’re doing matters,” she said. “They were big, bold movements, and they were executed fine!”
For at least one more round, that entertainment value appears to have been enough. Conner Leavitt from The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives and his partner Adele Zaikman were the season’s first elimination.
Rodriguez and Carson will return to the ballroom next week, giving the late-night sidekick another chance to improve on a debut that was considerably more successful with viewers than it was with the judges.
Watch the duo’s spirited performance at the top of this post.
