Michael Irvin is amazed at how far he made it on Dancing with the Stars considering where he started.

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"Me, first week, I thought I was gone. To last seven [weeks] is a blessing," said the retired NFL star during an appearance on last night's Jimmy Kimmel Live broadcast.

"So I want to say thank you to all the fans. I appreciate it."

Irvin -- who frequently found himself at the bottom of the judges' leaderboard but was repeatedly able to stave off elimination -- and his professional partner Anna Demidova were finally ousted from Dancing with the Stars ninth season based on a combination of their judges scores from Monday night's performance episode and home viewer votes cast immediately following the broadcast.

Since he's an accomplished athlete, Irvin described competing on Dancing with the Stars as a "different challenge" than what he is used to.

"It's one of the things I said I would absolutely never, ever do -- sing and dance in front of people," he told Kimmel. "I happened to do it in front of 20 million people. I was just happy to overcome that fear."

While he used to have a fear of dancing, Irvin said he plans to continue to do it thanks to Dancing with the Stars.

"I'm going to keep dancing, hopefully shake my tail a little less than they were having me do here," he explained. "Just kind of get manly with the dance. There was a lot of tail shaking."

In addition to Irvin and Demidova, Food Network personality Mark Dacascos and his professional partner Lacey Schwimmer were also ousted after competing in a special "Dance Off" with singer Aaron Carter and partner Karina Smirnoff during last night's episode.

Dacascos told Kimmel it was his wife's idea to appear on the show.

"She's a big fan of the show and we'd watch it together," said Dacascos, who is also trained in mixed martial arts.

"She'd say, 'Doesn't that look fun?' I said, 'Yeah, it looks fantastic.' She says, 'Do you want to do it?' I said, 'No!' This went on for two years and she said, 'Your fans would love to see you smile and do something other than yell at fruit and food and kick and punch.' I thought it's actually a very good idea. So I said, 'Okay, let's go.'"

Dacascos had a rough week before he was eliminated, as he traveled between Los Angeles and New York City on business and was also forced to perform on Monday night with previously ousted professional Anna Trebunskaya since Schwimmer was sick with the flu.

"It's not the swine flu, it's just regular flu," Dacascos told Kimmel. "She's still sick. But I'm good."
About The Author: Christopher Rocchio

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