Who really gave the best performance during ‘Dancing with the Stars’ premiere? Fans disagree with judges [Poll Results]

Olympic bronze medal-winning gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik gave the best performance during the “Dancing with the Stars” season 33 premiere. That’s according to “DWTS” fans we polled after last Tuesday night’s show. But that’s actually contrary to the judges’ assessments. Scroll down for our complete poll results at the bottom of this post.

Nedorscik was the penultimate performer on premiere night, and his slightly over-caffeinated jive with pro partner Rylee Arnold got sevens across the board from the judges, who called him “an unstoppable explosion of energy” but advised him to point his toes and focus on the details and technique of his next routines. With a total of 21 out of 30, he tied “Bachelor” star Joey Graziadei for third place on the leaderboard, but he narrowly topped our poll with 30.51% of the vote.

The judges’ favorite performance of the night came from TV actress Chandler Kinney, who attended the Debbie Allen Dance Academy as a child. For their tango, she and her pro partner Brandon Armstrong scored eights from Carrie Ann Inaba and Bruno Tonioli and a seven from Derek Hough, who nitpicked that she should dance deeper into her legs. Nevertheless, she “set the standard for season 33,” according to Inaba, but she just barely fell short of the lead in our reader poll, where she received 30.03% of the vote.

There was a steep drop-off after that. Basketball star Dwight Howard finished second on the leaderboard but third in our poll with 15.18% of our respondents picking him as the highlight of the night. The drastic height difference between him and his pro partner Daniella Karagach seemed like a tough hurdle to overcome, but their salsa succeeded despite their seeming disadvantage.

Nedoroscik, Kinney, and Howard were the only celebrities to score double digits in our poll, gobbling up more than three-quarters of the support from our readers. Next in line with 6.71% support from fans was football star Danny Amendola. Rounding out our top five with 5.75% of the vote was the aforementioned Graziadei, who looks like he has serious potential to go far in the competition, perhaps farther than the male “Bachelor” alums who have come before him.