Is not taking off on a wave in a WSL heat, in front of the world, the bravest thing ever?
Filipe Toledo put on a stunning display of cowardice in his heat 5 round 1 battle vs. I. Ferreira. His score total (0) matched his moxie and wow! The lowest point total in professional surfing history.
As the Brazilian bobbed in the water, not surfing, he surely must have known the haters were boiling in their tanks but he chose to bob, lonely against the steel grey sky, and brave.
Yes, brave because I would, and will, argue that it is sometimes more difficult to not get smashed in order to prove a larger point, thereby getting smashed by public opinion.
But wait. Is Filipe somehow bigger than that?
WILL he get smashed by public opinion. Hello, surf historian Matt Warshaw, curator of the Encyclopedia of Surfing (click here)!
Charlie: Is Filipe going to get smashed by public opinion after Teahupoo?
Matt: He is.
Charlie: Fair? Or not fair?
Matt: Depends on how Filipe plays it. He needs to humble this one out, big-time. Fail-wise, it was just beyond epic. And so very public. And after what Sally Fitz did at Cloudbreak, and with Flores surfing with a brain injury or whatever, you can’t play the injury card. I mean, Filipe’s deal is un-spinnable. He isn’t ready for prime time at Teahupoo. Or Cloudbreak. Or even J-Bay. I’m his biggest north-of-50 fan, and I feel sort of crushed by what I saw. All Filipe can do now is come out and say that he’s got a mile of hard work to do in the premier WCT breaks. And meanwhile, like Sean Doherty said yesterday (read here), if he does go on and win the world title, which is totally possible, it’s gonna come with an asterisk.
Charlie: But what if Filipe got really brave, steeled his backbone and said, “Guess what bitches? I love to surf head-high, puntable waves. It’s who I am, yo! And I’m going to win a title surfing only Gold Coast, Rio, Trestles and the rest if they small enough. Booya!” What if he admitted, to the entire world, that he ain’t brave. Wouldn’t that be brave?
Matt: Damien Hardman won two world titles that way, except he didn’t say anything. Gary Green didn’t paddle out for his heat at Waimea one year, I think it was the ’86 Billabong Pro, when it was huge, and if he didn’t own if with total gusto, he shrugged and said “I’m a smoker, never done a day of exercise in my life, never surfed this horrifying place, so fuck it.” Then again, Green quit the tour the following year, so maybe he wasn’t feeling so casual. Even if Filipe has the game to say he’s a small-wave specialist, God he’d just get so smashed in the media. And I think he really does want to be magical in heavy surf, like he is in small surf. He must just be choking on frustration right now. He’d never say it, but you know what makes it way harder for him I bet?
Charlie: Italo.
Matt: Italo, exactly. Rookie paddles out there and keeps up with every big-swinging dick on the lineup. Italo could have won the thing! First time at Teahupoo!
Charlie: Brazil-bashing isn’t so vogue this year.
Matt: Italo! Anyone who tuned this week and didn’t fall in love with guy is heartless.
Charlie: I’m heartless! Theoretically, I liked that Italo tried his best but, in real life, trying one’s best does nothing for me. For example. I was in Tahiti last year, in a boat, in the channel, obvs, because it was pumping. Mikey Wright, Owen’s brother was doing magical things but poor young Kanoa Igarashi was there and looking completely terrified. But nobody made him be there. He clearly did not like that vibe and good for him! Get back on the boat and pop a Hinano, or whatever it is young boys are drinking these days. Own the gutless or paddle the fuck in. I have done both in my life and both are wonderful in their own ways.
If you are telling me that Filipe really wants to surf those waves then why did he not surf those waves? Nobody in the line-up? Manageable size? He don’t! He wants to punt and dance!
Matt: But Filipe could kick it up. People find that gear later on. Potter didn’t like big waves as a kid, then later he did. Fanning couldn’t surf Teahupoo early on, now he can. Who knows. Could just my own wishful thinking with Filipe…
Charlie: And give me other examples guys who don’t want it? Because you just made Gary Green my fav surfer ever.
Matt: Dora said he was a “four-foot-and-under man” and gave loving long descriptions of how scared he was on the North Shore. Except then he flipped the thing on its head, because he actually charged Pipe and Waimea. Kylie Webb, you’d love her! Gorgeous blonde, and drank herself off the tour in the ’90s. But before that happened, she paddled out for a heat at Sunset, in big waves, pulled a Filipe and got a zero, then threw her 17th-place prize money check back at the contest director in disgust and said “I don’t deserve this. Buy the judges some beer.”
Watch Filipe’s zero-point heat here!
And remember when the Margaret River Pro moved to the Box? Gabriel Medina, I’m told, had to be coaxed into the lineup with the words, “You’re the world champ! You have to surf!”
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Bryce Ellis also refused to paddle out at Waimea that day. His card was also marked
Filipe did well on the preview heats. He got two great barrells against Wilko and a fair heat against Owen e Ottz. Shit happens and a zero, sometimes, is better than 2 points.
No big deal here. toledo got stuck with priority under challenging tricky shitty chopes. Italo just smoked him. But call him a coward and trow shit on the fan is pretty typical anti-brazilian seppo/oz media try hards.
Have we all forgotten how brutally fucking useless Andino was his first few years on the tour? If there was a shoulder he was on it. Burning dolphins and going toe to toe with his sleds. Making daddy proud.
As for Toledo did he shit the bed and freeze up? or was he “out of sync with the ocean”? The clown froze and doesn’t have the moxy to his hand up and say “hey I’m mortal, I kooked it but you paddle out there and be a fucking hero”. Wilko is open about how uncomfortable he is surfing that place and rightly so.
You can’t honestly say Toledo couldn’t get waves when Italo was out there posting scores.
Cant buy it – top pro surfer in less than scary waves and he sits for a whole heat – shit they have the jetskis to get them and pull them back to the take off point! So its all about paddling in current and a steep drop??? OMG. There is nothing “brave”about this. If he was sick or hung over or emotionally screwed up then withdraw – an ego that is out of control.
Side note and nothing about Felipe – but why is punting into the air worth more than riding the wave- is it surfing or skateboarding??? The very few who surf to punt all the time get no love at the local breaks here – its a one move plan – not surfing and reading conditions etc. Just get some speed bottom turn and elevate and fall off 90% of the time on landing in the mush – waste of a wave.
This article blows 17 inch vitiligo laden donkey dick
it wasn’t even that big. what a puss
Cheap journalism with exclamations points after every sentence for added intensity to stir up the brazzo community, congratulations it worked, Beachgrit has more traffic now, but Chas Smith has lost respect. Reminds me of a ex-troll named Caveira…
The real discussion should be Italo and how he punted. There are so many missed opportunities by guys flicking out at the end of Chopes. Italo had the right idea, but not the right wave. You watch him get deep then throw a flip out of a Chopes bowl next year, not project out to the flats. Then the 10’s they get for standing tall in the barrel will finally be a thing of the past.
And you’re really into rollerblading to, yeah?
too
To be or not to be: that is the question.
Felipe was just doing mind games with Italo.
WTF is that!!!! Lets go BRAZILIAN STORM 2015 (again)… does not it matter if De Souza, Felipe, Medina, Italo, Guigui, Jadson or Pupo. All this guys has been showing us a really good surf day-by-day. Let me remember this ”CREW” smashed all the Ozzy Leg. I was in Margaret River and saw Felipe dropping THE BOX ”big enough”. It was insane!!! Anyone there needs provide skills. Everyone there deserve the world title. I CANT BELIEVE ALL THIS FUCKING BULLSHIT!
You tell em!
What about his previous heats? Round 1 was solid and he caught some niced size ones!
Will anybody here mention Stuart Bedford-Brown in Portugal, 1990? Does anyone remember Stu?
He’s a pussy and he should admit it to himself.
Another beach grit mountain (of bullshit) out of a molehill. He made a priority error, ended up in a difficult combo situation and during the remainder of the heat nothing the most kamikaze of surfers who would have “gone” came through worth more that a 5 He was more brave to take the zero and give you hacks something to mould a story around rather than a couple of desperate 2’s and ruin you circling like vultures
I guess you’ll be ripping your BeachGrit sticker off the VW now Keith?
Nah, but that rusty bit is going to fall off soon anyway.
You would have a point if there was 5 minutes to go. Accept there wasn’t. There was 30. He didn’t catch one wave. Forget everything you think you know about strategy, if you don’t catch one wave and theres five minutes to go then he should be swinging on everything going to make the heat even if it was a 5. It’s called desire.
Answer me this: Same situation, same heat but at Snapper. Would the same thing happen again?
off topic, but you have some of the worst spelling/grammar I’ve seen on this board. Kudos.
And yes, I think so. Just like Yadin did a few years back.
C´mon, man, respect my french brother. Badger, mon, pote, ne faites pas attention a ce gars lá!
Awwww thanks. That’s so cute.
Anyone wanna talk about this some more 3 years later?
Do you think he really was rattled by the size or did he just blow it? The waves were just not that big, surely he ain’t that soft. Certainly the waves are decent size and the reef is sharp but you would see waves this size at Ulus regularly with 50+ dudes on it and none of them would have anything even close to the surfing skills of Toledo.
I just can’t get my head around a pro being scared to take off on waves that size in a heat with the world watching. I hope they get massive waves at Pipe and he redeems himself.
I’m praying Quik gift him with an Eddie invite. Redemption opportunity!
The relatable peoples champion perhaps?
Felipe is scared.
I’m with Socialfo on this one. Surely Matt would remember Yadin Nicol’s final at the US Open in 2011? Ol’ Yadin didn’t catch a wave and no-one accused him of being intimidated by 3′ Huntington. Fella fucked up his strategy, time ran down, waves ran out. Same with Felipe.
Might agree if it was just the one bad heat. But earlier heats at Teahupoo, and Fiji, he wasn’t sparkling. Came out of a couple small-ish tubes this week just stiff-legged, fell off, not sharp at all. I’m hoping he smashes through at Pipe. Filipe is the most progressive surf on tour. But the champ needs to be the full package.
he actually surfed pretty ok leading up to that heat. It was Round 5, not Round 1.
Trogan is right, he made round 5. Yes the contest never got big but he was doing well. Case in point:
youtu.be/VdyNSTEwNoE?t=31m59s (at 31:57)
Do I think he’s world title material? Not yet.. but he’s certainly not deserving of all this shaming. I’m not even a big fan of his but it seems obvious that a flopped heat doesn’t make him a bad tube rider… and esp a coward. My feeling is it says more about his youth and inexperience with heat strategy than tube skills. Or we’ll find out that Italo slipped him a rufie.