In last night’s (Tuesday, April 17th) Dancing With the Stars Season 14 results show, America’s #1 dancing reality show introduced something that has never been done in the fourteen seasons it has been on the air, a dance duel. The purpose of this newly integrated dance duel is for the bottom two couples to dance off against each other on the stage at the same time. This event is seen as a “second chance” to impress the judges with their moves and to prove why they should be remaining in the competition. The judges will be heavily critiquing the dance choreography and technique during the duel.

With last night’s first ever dance duel, the bottom two couples (designed by judge scores and viewer votes) were singer Gavin DeGraw with partner his Karina Smirnoff, along with actor/comedian Jaleel White and his partner Kym Johnson. The couples danced a Cha Cha to the song “Edge of Glory” by Lady GaGa at the same time, and were shown on a split screen so that the viewers can compare the couples side by side. To see last night’s dance duel, I have provided a YouTube video of the event below.

From my observations, Jaleel and Kym delivered a stronger Cha Cha performance than Gavin and Karina, included more content, and Jaleel also demonstrated quality Latin hip action that is a must-have in Cha Cha. The judges saw these characteristics as well and awarded Jaleel and Kym to return next week, rendering Gavin and Karina this week’s couple to go home.

The Twitter community has been active with mixed reactions pertaining to the outcome of this dance duel:

What did you think of the outcome of Dancing With the Stars‘s first-ever dance duel? Please leave your reaction below in this post’s comments section.