'Dancing with the Stars' cuts Lawrence Taylor and Edyta Sliwinska

Former NFL superstar Lawrence Taylor and partner Edyta Sliwinska became the seventh couple eliminated from Dancing with the Stars' eighth season during last night's live results show broadcast on ABC.


Taylor and Sliwinska were eliminated from the competition based on a combination of the judges' scores from Monday night's performance episode and home viewer votes cast immediately following the broadcast.

"I gotta tell you. this has been a great experience," Taylor said following his elimination. "I've gotta thank you guys, Dancing with the Stars, [and] ABC for giving me such a lovely partner. I've been very blessed. She's taught me everything I know about dancing."

"I don't know where the hell I'm gonna use it," he added with a laugh.

Sliwinska was also complimentary of Taylor, particularly in regard to the golf lessons he had given her last week in an attempt to demonstrate how hard it was to learn something she'd never tried before (like he had been with dancing) to her.


"Well you definitely taught me everything I need to know about golfing... But I really enjoyed working with you, and it was an honor to get to know you. And now I'm really counting on those golf lessons, I taught you how to dance you owe me!"

Upon catching Taylor smiling after his elimination, Dancing with the Stars' host Tom Bergeron couldn't help but add in his two cents for the golf addict either.

"Can I just tell you, you're the worst actor we've ever had on this show," he said. "You're the happiest guy to get home [and] to get back to the golf course."

Taylor and Swilinska the second couple in as many weeks to be eliminated from Dancing with the Stars without competing in a "Dance Off," which had featured the week's second-lowest ranked couples dancing a final time for a higher judges' score that could possibly spare them from elimination.

Champion bull rider Ty Murray and partner Chelsie Hightower had finished next-to-last on Monday night's judges' leaderboard and were the other couple still in danger of elimination when Taylor and Swilinska's ouster was revealed, however Bergeron was careful to note that they were not necessarily the week's second-lowest ranked couple.


Taylor and Swilinska had received a lukewarm reception and the round's low score of 21 from Dancing with the Stars judges Carrie Ann Inaba, Bruno Tonioli, and Len Goodman for their waltz performance during the show's performance show on Monday.

While Tonioli had complimented the vouple for beginning the dance with a romantic tone that reminded him of Dr. Zhivago, he'd added that the dance had become "clumsy" as it progressed and also included a mistake where Taylor lost his balance while kneeling on the ground.

"When you're turning you get a little bit clumsy. and then there was a little incident at the reveal where you lost balance, which is a shame," Tonioli said. "It's not terrible, but not brilliant."

Inaba had been more receptive to Taylor and Swilinska's performance, complimenting both Taylor's style on the dance floor and the fashion sense his had exhibited while choosing his couple's dancing outfits -- a responsibility each celebrity dancer had this week.

"Here's what I saw, I actually saw more freedom in your movement," Inaba said. "I don't know what's going on, but you're movement is a little more open, you look like you're really enjoying it. "You were embodying the character, there was tenderness, and you are a great dress designer sir, because her dress is beautiful.'


Although Goodman was more critical of Swilinska's outfit and had noted that the dress had flipped up over her head and messed up a section of the dance, he had also been generally complimentary of Taylor's work on the dance floor.

"You captured the grace of the dance, it has a tenderness about it and an elegance," he told Taylor. "Overall I was shocked about how well you performed it."

In addition to Taylor and Swilinska's elimination, Tuesday's results show also featured performances from Natasha Bedingfield and Celtic Woman, as well as the first of four performance rounds from Mayo Alanen, Brent Borbon, Afton Delgrosso, Anna Demidova, Genya Mazo and Snow Urbin, the six dancers competing to join Dancing with the Stars' next season as a new professional dancer.

Next week's results show will see the male and female professional dancers who received the lowest number of home viewer votes after last night's broadcast be eliminated and the four remaining dancers compete in the competition's second round.

Monday night's live performance show had ended with jilted The Bachelor winner Melissa Rycroft and her professional partner Tony Dovolani finishing atop the judges' leaderboard with a score of 29 out of 30 for their Argentine tango.


They were followed by Olympic gold medalist gymnast Shawn Johnson and partner Mark Ballas, who came in second place with a score of 28 out of 30.

Sex and the City actor Gilles Marini and his partner Cheryl Burke and country singer Chuck Wicks and his partner/real-life girlfriend Julianne Hough had tied for third with their scores of 27 out of 30, while rapper Kimberly Denise "Lil' Kim" Jones and professional partner Derek Hough had come in fifth with a score of 26 out of 30.

Murray and Hightower had finished sixth with a score of 24 out of 30, while Taylor and Sliwinska had posted the lowest score of the week with their 21 out of 30.






About The Author: John Bracchitta