MEAWW.COM / ENTERTAINMENT / TV

‘AGT’ dancer said he knew only one move — then gave a Golden Buzzer moment (sadly it didn’t exist yet)

Back when ‘AGT’ had no Golden Buzzer, this dancer delivered the kind of performance it was made for

You know when you see a Golden Buzzer-worthy performance on 'America's Got Talent', but what do you do when the Golden Buzzer is not there? This is exactly what happened with Kenichi Ebina's performance in the 'AGT' Season 8 auditions. The then-38-year-old Japanese performer kicked off his ‘AGT’ segment by introducing himself and chatting with other contestants backstage. Longtime fans of the show know that when a performer gets that much screen time, it usually means something big is about to happen.

When asked by Nick Cannon, the season 8 host, Ebina gave a very vague answer: "A little bit of robots and dance and martial arts." Ebina didn't care about the $1 million cash prize; his eyes were set on the Las Vegas show. "My dream is to do my full-length show one more time in Vegas; that's why I'm here." As the Japanese dancer stepped on stage brimming with confidence, Heidi Klum asked him about his act, and yet again Ebina gave a vague answer: "My act is dance-ish performance."

Klum asked how he got into this, to which Ebina hilariously demonstrated a dance, moving his hands forward and backward, stating, "I knew only the one step called the running man, and when I did it, people got loud, and I was like, I feel good." Owing to the Japanese dancer's modest demeanor, no one in the room knew what they were about to witness. Starting with a robot routine, with a dance move so slick, it looked as if Ebina's head had literally come off his body.

He then moved to the rhythm with his robot moves, finally transitioning to martial arts and bringing his performance to an end. Keep in mind, this was the nascent stage of 'AGT' with no Golden Buzzer, no Simon Cowell, just pure, raw, and unfiltered talent driven by audience energy. As Ebina ended his performance, the judges rose to their feet as they applauded, and perhaps Howard Stern put it right as he said, "You had a story to tell; you were doing the Matrix there. That was the whole movie, all in 90 seconds."

To no one's surprise, all four judges gave a unanimous yes, with the Japanese dancer making his way all the way up to the finals and ultimately claiming the title of 'AGT' Season 8 winner and fulfilling his dream of performing in the Las Vegas show, as reported by People. Ebina is 50 years old now, and surprise, surprise, he still came back to 'AGT' at this age, but this time as a mentor to the iconic group Airfootworks that made it to the bottom five of season 19, as reported by NBC. It's no surprise that Ebina and Airfootworks would be related, considering how ridiculous both their bodies of work are.