World of Dance Season 3 Divisional Finals Rant!

I am not gonna beat around the bush. World of Dance is making me angry so I wanted to create a rant post. I will not be talking about every single performance, this isn't a recap. My rant is specific towards favouritism shown by the judges, one judge in particular *coughs* Jennifer Lopez *coughs*.

This has been bothering me since Season 1. Les Twins won solely because they were J-Lo's favourites even though there were far better dancers; namely Eva Igo who should have been a clear winner, alongside honourable mentions Keone & Mari and Kinjaz, who all were way better than Les Twins. Upper Teams Divisional Finals in Season 3 made all my build-up resentment from Season 1 resurface in full force.

Let me get this out of the way. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a judge having a favourite. We all are human and it's completely normal for us to like something or someone more than the other and root for them. But when you are on a platform which asks you to be impartial and gives you the power to change someone's life, you need to use this power responsibly. If your favoritism is blinding you to the point of ignoring the flaws from your favourite and showing bias after bias while leaving everybody else aside, then yes there is a clear problem here.

I strongly believe that JLo is suffering greatly from this which is reflected very poorly in the competition. Once you figure out who she favours, competition stops becoming a competition because you know exactly who will win no matter what happens.

I'd like to share the two dance routines from The Upper Team Divisional Finals. I won't share the routine from The Heima because while I believe they were underscored, it was their weakest performance so far and it was correct for them not to continue to the World Finale.

Let's take a look at the performance from my personal favourites first: Piece by Piece by Unity LA. The performance received 100 points from Neyo & Derek and a disappointing 96 from JLo, which was quite negatively shocking particularly because she had absolutely nothing but extremely positive things to say about them while "seemingly" fighting back the tears. The piece also gave Neyo his first "goosies" which is of great significance since he mentioned previously that he has never seen anything on World of Dance stage that gave him goosies before. That is irrelevant here though because Neyo did give an appropriate score in accordance with his commentary after the performance.

You already know something is up when a judge can't point out a single flaw in a performance but still gives a quite low score. 96 is nothing but a joke after such high praise. This is further enhanced when the "favourites" come up, fall during a back flip (1:01 timestamp in their video below), don't even get critiqued on it and receive 100 from Neyo & Derek and a  whopping 99 from JLo. They aren't even trying to hide the bias at this point.

Far better danced choreographies were sent home for far smaller mistakes in the past. At this stage in the competition, when you make such a vital mistake especially when your competitor performed their routine absolutely flawlessly, this shouldn't give you a 99.7 score and move you forward to the World Finale. This should send you home, period! Just like it did many other dancers before. I can't even believe that not a single judge commented on this fall. 

Let's leave aside the jumps, tricks and stunts heavy choreographies done by The Kings on a supposedly "dance" competition, why is their mistake ignored? What makes them special that the judges can easily overlook something like that? Neyo always says something like "there is very little room for mistakes". I guess this was tiny on a microscopic level so let's not dwell on it. If you have two routines which you believe to be absolutely exceptional; you pick the one that was executed without any flaws, not the one where there was a mistake. If there were mistakes on both sides, go ahead and pick your favourite. No complaints there.

I'm fully aware that I must sound like a hater. I am a hater of JLo, I can admit this. I have nothing against The Kings, I even consider them to be my 2nd favourites even though their awesome stunt work can easily outweigh the actual "dancing". I really enjoy their performances once they start mixing Hip-hop with Bollywood and yes my jaw drops when they do their stunts. I also raise the proverbial hat to the dancer who fell because he was such a professional in his recovery. This rant is in no way directed at The Kings, it's directed at what I believe to be a heavily biased judging in this competition.

Bottom line: Once Jennifer Lopez decides on a favourite, they will win no matter what. Unity LA will most likely be the wild card and come back for the World Finals but even if they give the best, the most flawless and perfect routine the show has ever seen, The Kings will win. Either way, I hope I'll be blessed with another excellence from Unity LA if they are the wild card. 

Just a nod to Unity LA's Indestructible routine, which for me is the best routine I've ever seen on this show across all seasons

It's just sad that those dancers (I mean every single one of them) have to deal with this bias. Provided they are the wild card I am sure that Unity LA won't hold back even if I believe that they know the game has been rigged all this time. Please make Lopez eat that 96!

Extra rant: What is it with some people asking stuff like "do you know how hard that is?", "you think you can do that yourself?", "are you jealous?" when they hear negative comments about their favourites? I totally understand the urge to defend whom you root for but is that how it should be done? These are all irrelevant questions but just in case someone who stumbles upon this post, decides to read all of it for some reason and ends up asking those very same things to me, I'll go ahead and answer them. 

I can't even possibly imagine how hard those stunts are. But this isn't limited to the jumps and tricks because I also can't imagine how hard any of those genres of dance are. I wouldn't even be able to daydream myself doing the things they do, that's how ridiculous that notion would be. But you know what? Do you think JLo can do those stunts or Neyo? Or how about those fans who love to ask those questions, can they do them? Can YOU? Derek is the only true dancer in the judging panel which is why I value his critique the most. As for jealousy, hell I am jealous of ANYONE who can dance. I have mad respect for each and every individual in those competitions whether they may be my favourites or not.

All these reactions are totally meaningless and toxic. It's solely to bring the other person down rather than trying to understand their point of view.

End of rant... For now...