AN ex Strictly pro has waded into a ‘fix’ row on the hit BBC competition.

Viewers have criticised a perceived advantage for celeb contestants with previous dance experience.

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Professional dancer Ola Jordan, 42, starred in Strictly from 2006 to 2015.

Speaking in a new interview with Mecca Bingo., she shared her thoughts on Week 5’s leaderboard and the stars’ dancing abilities.

Arsenal legend turned pundit Paul Merson was in last place, with 19 points – and he was ultimately eliminated.

Ola said: “The leaderboard was right in some respect because you’ve got Paul, Punam, Pete and Sam in the bottom of the leaderboard, they are all non-dancers.

“The rest above have had some sort of dance-related training, maybe apart from Chris, but he’s very good.

“The bottom four that are on the leaderboard are really pretty much not dancers.”

Those who placed higher include the likes of Shayne Ward, Wynne Evans and JB Gill.

Joint top of the leaderboard were Gladiators’ Montell Douglas and EastEnders‘ Jamie Borthwick, with 39 each.

Soap star Jamie, 30, won last year’s Strictly Christmas special alongside Nancy Xu.

Meanwhile, actress Alex Kingston revealed her pal Sarah Hadland is a “trained ballet dancer”.

Fans hit out at ex-Love Island star Tasha Ghouri over her professional dance training background.

The 26-year-old is partnered with pro Aljaž Škorjanec – and the pair have consistently placed high on the leaderboard each week.

Taking to X, one viewer wrote: “Tasha getting all high scores but sure she’s a professional dancer, bit unfair.”

Another added:  “Isn’t Tasha Ghouri a professional dancer? Wasn’t that a thing when she was in Love Island?”

Strictly 2024 pairings

Here’s who is matched with who this series…

While a third remarked: “I love tasha but she isn’t meant to be on the show because she is already a PROFESSIONAL DANCER.”

Others disagreed with the notion and came to Tasha’s defence.

A fan penned: “shes not ballroom or latin trained though, there are multiple ‘trained’ dancers on the show.”

Strictly Come Dancing airs on BBC One and is available on iPlayer.

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Samantha Irvin has announced her time with WWE has come to an end after four years.

The 35-year-old, who first joined the World Wrestling Entertainment company in 2021, shared the news of her surprising departure on Monday (October 21).

In a lengthy and heartfelt statement posted to her X and Instagram accounts, she wrote: “WWE Universe, my time has come to an end as your Monday Night Raw Ring Announcer. I love you all tremendously and this does not mark the end of my art, I have a lifetime more to share.

“Thank you to every WWE fan who accepted me.”

She went on to thank her Women’s Locker Room colleagues, as well as crew and cameramen, WWE superstars past and present, coaches and more for “everything you did to help me along the way.”

“To my fans, my entire career I’ve been waiting for you! We are meant to be and I can prove it. Stay tuned,” she concluded.

Irvin, real name Samantha Johnson, was first hired by WWE in 2021 as the announcer for its 205 Live show, before she went on to replace Greg Hamilton as the ring announcer for Friday Night Smackdown.

A year later, she was promoted to be the ring announcer for its flagship Monday Night Raw show.

During her time as a WWE presenter, she endeared herself to fans with her enthusiasm and passion for ring announcing. Last April, she introduced 14 Wrestlemania matches and earned the praise of legendary ring announcer Michael Buffer.

“Ring announcer Samantha Irvin ruled @WrestleMania last night and her emotional final announcement was awesome,” he posted on X at the time.

“She was featured on camera-ring center – that was a smart production move and she was just brilliant!” he added. “Her timing, pace, drama, energy was perfect!”

Her exit comes months after her fiancé, professional wrestler Ricochet, left WWE in June and signed with its competitor All Elite Wrestling (AEW). He made his AEW debut in August during the Casino Gauntlet match.

It has not yet been announced who will be Irvin’s replacement.

Irvin, who is also a singer and musician, initially rose to fame as a semi-finalist on the tenth season of America’s Got Talent. She later showed off her flute-playing abilities on a 2020 episode of the Fox game show I Can See Your Voice.

IT’S been serving us sequins and sparkles for two decades, but Strictly Come Dancing appears to be getting its steps wrong.

Ratings of 7.2million for Saturday night’s show may sound respectable — and it was the most watched programme at the weekend.  

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But just four years ago, the same episode was viewed by 9.8million on the night.

That drop of 2.6million represents a quarter of Strictly’s fans waltzing off in the past few years.

It was a similar story with the launch show, which saw the number tuning in fall from 7.4million in 2021 to 5.7million this year — and a drop of around 1million on the 2023 figure for the same episode.

At the time, the BBC said the show’s popularity now had to be measured by the number of people watching live and on catch-up through iPlayer.

But the 28-day viewing figures for the first episode of the current series, which were released yesterday, showed online ratings had also dropped by around 1million.

In other words, catch-up views hadn’t made a jot of difference.

So why does the show — which this year marks its 20th anniversary — now feel jaded?

Online chatter suggests that the programme has simply lost its novelty factor, with the yearly line-ups becoming a familiar mix — and outcomes feeling predictable.

Most viewers expect there to be an ageing footballer who falters near the start of the series.

We saw ex-Arsenal ace Paul Merson go out on Sunday, but others have included Tony Adams, who captained The Gunners through the Nineties, and former England goalie David James.

Then, of course, there will be someone with a little, or a lot, of professional dance experience — see Tasha Ghouri and last year’s Layton Williams — who will probably get to the final, but not win.

Invariably, the Glitterball will be taken home by an underdog soap veteran or drama actor — Emmerdale’s Kelvin Fletcher, Coronation Street’s Ellie Leach or Holby City’s Joe McFadden helped set that trend.

Either that or it goes to a sport or news presenter — think Natasha Kaplinsky, Ore Oduba or Chris Hollins.

Strangely, it is politicians — obvious examples being Ed Balls and Ann Widdecombe — who provide the biggest surprises.

And in between it all (let’s be completely honest) we hope and pray for the Strictly curse to hit one of the pro/celebrity couplings, just to spice things up a bit.

Well, even this tantalising prospect has evaporated, because there’s less chance of any romance behind the scenes as a result of the BBC introducing chaperones in rehearsals.

Whiff of sleaze

Which leads into another reason why Strictly could now be struggling like never before — the lingering whiff of sleaze.

The normal buzz that surrounded the start of a new series was drowned out by the ongoing investigation into Giovanni Pernice’s alleged bad behaviour behind the scenes towards his 2023 partner, Amanda Abbington.

That was made worse by footage surfacing of Graziano Di Prima kicking his celeb partner Zara McDermott on last year’s show. He was immediately axed.

If the idea that this impacted the ratings seems far-fetched, the figures tally to an eerie extent.

With the shadow of Giovanni and Graziano hanging over the start of the new series, the viewing figures remained low until the report into Giovanni’s behaviour came out on September 30.

The BBC probe upheld some of the complaints against the Italian dancer, but dismissed those which suggested there was any physical abuse.

‘It could bounce back’

Almost immediately, the Strictly viewing figures seemed to rally, nearly equalling the same as shows which aired last year.

Then, on the October 12 episode, came “Gropegate” — when opera singer Wynne Evans appeared to slide his hand across the stomach of his pro partner Katya Jones, only for her to remove it in full gaze of the public watching at home.

The duo immediately said sorry for what they described as “an inside joke”, but the images spread like wildfire across the internet and they found themselves having to repeatedly explain and apologise.

Bosses at the Beeb were furious, rapping Katya and Wynne over the knuckles for the kind of behaviour that Strictly was trying to distance itself from.

Saturday night’s episode didn’t just drop almost half a million viewers in the space of a week, it was also down by a million on the same episode last year.

So does this mean that all is lost for Strictly? Not quite.

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Even if the show has lost its shine, there are some glimmers of hope.

Catch-up figures for week one — the first live show of the series — indicate that 8.2million people have watched it live and on iPlayer in just seven days.

After 28 days, that could well be higher than the consolidated figure of 8.5million for last year’s live debut.

It remains to be seen whether Strictly can maintain that level of iPlayer success until December.

But so far,  the figures paint a confusing picture.

Perhaps we just have to get used to the fact that Strictly will one day cease to be “appointment to view” telly, where groups of people come together to watch a show.

Maybe we are going through a rocky transition from live TV to streaming our entertainment shows.

Meanwhile, if sleaze has played its part, then the Beeb has at least acted quickly and firmly when it comes to Katya and Wynne, making it clear that this kind of behaviour won’t be tolerated.

The various scandals that have emerged over the past six months have made this the worst year in the show’s history, with many believing that, from this point on, things can only get better.

And as this series approaches the halfway mark next week, it could still bounce back.

Only at this stage are characters and back stories cemented in the minds of viewers, and Strictly becomes more compulsive as the final nudges ever closer.

The show is also likely to receive a boost when the celebratory 20th anniversary episode airs later this year, reminding us all what a sensational ride it has been since 2004.

A BBC spokesman said of viewing figures: “Twenty-eight days is a benchmark to measure performance and reflect changing audience habits in an on-demand world.

“And as we have said previously, overnight figures no longer provide an accurate picture of all those watching. The launch show figures reveal the episode was watched by 7.2million people across all devices.

“Looking at the week one show, it is already at 8.2million over seven days, which is in line with last year’s figures.”

So it seems the thrill of a Saturday night ballroom whirl has not completely worn off for viewers.

But make no mistake, Strictly’s challenges could throw it off tempo now more than ever.

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