‘The World’s Best’ Had An Outrageous Premiere After The Super Bowl
CBS Reading Time: 4 minutes
The World’s Best has finally arrived, and it’s post-Super Bowl premiere delivered everything from excitement, to inspiration, to…a cliffhanger? Let’s recap what went down in this jam-packed hour long episode!
First things first, host James Corden had to give props to the winning Super Bowl team! Congrats, Patriots!
Once we got down to business, we found out more about the criteria for performers to move past this initial audition round. The scores are determined in a two-step process:
STEP ONE: Each of the three celebrity judges give the act up to 50 points. Their scores are combined for an average and that is the number carried over to…
STEP TWO: Each expert on the Wall of the World chooses whether or not to advance. For every expert that votes to send the act through, one more point is added. If the total score comes out to 75 points or higher, the act moves forward. If not, they are eliminated.
Now, let’s get to tonight’s performances!
Kukkiwon
Kukkiwon is a Korean taekwondo team who performs a really cool choreographed martial arts routine that involves a lot of board-beaking.
The judges and experts were absolutely blown away. RuPaul’s “heart wanted to jump out of [his] chest, and Drew “could not have loved it more”. Faith gave perhaps the highest praise, saying it was “one of the greatest things [she had] ever seen in [her] life”.
The Wall of the World was equally impressed. UFC fighter Anderson Silva gave high praise, and K-pop producer Alex Wright deemed the group “true ambassadors for Korea”.
Drew: 58
RuPaul: 48
Faith: 50
Judges’ Average: 49 (rounded up)
Total Points: 99
With that, Kukkiwon became the first act to move on to round 2!
TNT Boys
The TNT Boys hail from the Philippines, and are a trio of young singers who went viral on the internet. for their audition, they performed a cover of “Listen” by Beyonce.
They certainly had some HUGE shoes to fill, but the judges and experts thought they did great! “You possess a gift,” said Drew. And as RuPaul put it, “Shantay, you stay!”
Dancer Dennis Jauch, who has actually worked with Beyonce, said he wouldn’t be surprised if she were to call them up and have them perform with her!
Drew: 50
RuPaul: 48
Faith: 50
Judges’ Average: 49 (rounded down)
Total Points: 99
Another 99, another act we’ll be seeing again!
Space Cowboy
Space Cowboy’s act consisted of him swallowing various scary-looking items, including a red item that looked like a light-saber and a blade attached to heavy weights. Since he’s the Guiness World Record holder for sword swallowing (which he set with 17 swords!) he naturally showed that talent off here too…this time, with 29 of them!
RuPaul had his jaw dropped for pretty much the entire act. When he finally managed to speak after it was over, he said “You know that that scares the heck out of us!” to which Space Cowboy replied “I hope so!”
Drew: 25
RuPaul: 38
Faith: 33
Judges’ Average: 32
Total Points: 57
This meant Space Cowboy was eliminated, despite promising to bring totally new tricks with every subsequent performance. However, some of the experts liked the act a lot more than the judges, with choreographer Sisco Gomez giving it strong praise and magician Stuart MacLeod saying “It was sick. It was disgusting. It was violent…and I loved every minute of it!”
Enhk Erdene
Enhk is also known as “The Mongolian Cowboy”. He got up there, belted out a country western tune, and did a pretty awesome job with it!
When asked if he could understand the words he was singing (the song was in English, which Enhk doesn’t speak) he said he had no idea. Musician Lira was “gobsmacked”.
Drew: 50
RuPaul: 48
Faith: 45
Judges’ Average: 48 (rounded up)
Total Points: 97
Manami Ito
Manami is a Japanese violinist who stopped playing after losing her arm in a car accident. However, she managed to find a way to make it worked and used a prosthetic arm in her performance.
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Drew told Manami “your perspective on life is something that the world definitely needs” and RuPaul said the way she managed to overcome adversity was a lesson everyone needed to learn.
Actor Kate Henshaw called Manami “an inspiration” and several of the other experts on the Wall of the World were moved to tears, including theater producer Makoto Deguchi.
Drew: 42?
RuPaul: 39
Faith: 40
Judges’ Average: 40
Total Points: 86
Matt Johnson
Coming all the way from the UK, Matt is an escape artist who started because he wanted to be able to empathize with his brother, who has a rare genetic disease causing seizures.
Matt began his act by bringing out James to make sure only one key could open the lock of the water-filled box he would soon be locked in. Once inside, Matt had to use a lock pick to escape from handcuffs and being chained to the box, then find the one in 21 keys that would open the final lock.
Matt claimed he could stay underwater for a minute and a half and that he would escape during that time. However, the timer ticked past the 1:30 mark and everyone started freaking out. The next thing we knew…the credits began to roll.
That’s right, the premiere ended on a cliffhanger, and we won’t get to see how the act ended until the next episode of The World’s Best airs this Wednesday February 6 at 8/7 c on CBS!
What did you think of the premiere? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
