Orange County Register

UPDATE: ‘Extra’ is reporting that Cristian is likely to drop out tonight.

“Dancing With the Stars” was going according to the script Monday night. The judges had succeeded in putting the unpopular Mario on the chopping block and Len Goodman had burst the Kristi Yamaguchi bubble with a pair of transparently unfair 8s.

And then Cristian de la Fuente got an owee.

Suffering what was later described as a severe muscle cramp, Cristian clutched his arm halfway through the samba, then tried to finish the dance before unceremoniously dropping partner Cheryl Burke. Strangely, he drew praise from the judges for toughing it out - which is exactly what he didn’t do - before racking up three 7s and taking the bottom spot for the night.

Does that mean Cristian & Cheryl are headed home tonight? Maybe not. Last week, Mario and partner Karina Smirnoff landed in the bottom two despite having the second-highest score. Cristian only needs to outpoll Mario by 1.7 percentage points in the fan vote to stick around. Assuming he is well enough to continue dancing, that is.

The injury topped a very interesting evening. The most controversial moment had to be Len giving Kristi & Mark Ballas an 8 for a cha-cha-cha that the other judges awarded 10s. Was Len feeling the pressure to make the competition at least semi-interesting? Probably.

The weirdest moment goes to Jason Taylor & Edyta Sliwinska’s bizarre paso doble done to the “Monday Night Football” theme, with Edyta in a garish Miami Dolphins-themed outfit and Jason dressed like Marcel Marceau with eyeblack in the place of greasepaint.

Despite the trappings, the pair scored high enough on their second dance to take the overall lead for the evening - the first time someone other than Kristi & Mark has done so all season.

We’ll keep you updated if news on Cristian breaks. Otherwise, we’ll look forward to Kenny Mayne and Jerry Rice’s “Dance Center” tonight - along with Mario’s likely ouster.

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