“It's incredible that people can be so butt hurt over an opinion,” says Kelly Slater…
Does it surprise you, as it does me, how readily celebrities will engage with their fans, and foes, on social media platforms? Slater is the most prolific, although the San Clemente surfer Kolohe Andino must come a close second.
When Slater turned 44 one week ago, Kolohe posted a photograph on Instagram of Kelly accepting his first world title with the innocuous words: hbd to the greatest athlete of all time. any sport. the best of all time.
Innocuous to most. If you’re a little off your hinge, these words make you see a whole galaxy of stars and put you in unspeakable agony.
@scottlapeer kicks the game off with his dissent, suggesting the Canadian hockey player Wayne Gretzky is clearly the superior athlete (twenty years in the game, 60 NHL records) and quickly engages in a back and forth with @octavisu_flex.
“Ur a fucking idiot.”
“Are you just a little comment section coward who talks tough, then slinks back to Mom’s basement?”
“good one….. Bud. Stop talking, u sound stupid. How many Stanley cups does Gretzky have? A lot less then 11. 😂😂😂 Go sniff a jock strap.”
“can we all agree Gretzky competed against multitudes of better ATHLETES than Slater? Absolutely. Don’t be mad, little fella. Slater’s still good. Chin up there, little guy.”
“Who is we? U and your peewee hockey team? Lol stfu u kook. Slates is the most dominant athlete in any sport. A literal freak of nature. Not to mention his career is 25 years strong and still going. Gretzky hung up the skates after 21 years. Get ur facts straight ‘lil fella'”
“‘We’ is the general population of sports writers/reporters/scholars. Which sport is tougher on the body, hockey or surfing? Thus, Slates’ longevity. Comparing Stanley Cups with titles in an individual sport is a false equivalent, so logically, it doesn’t even make sense to measure that way. Gretzky holds more records in his sport, against a much greater amount of competitive peers, than your boy. What’s next? You gonna argue for Tony Hawk or Shaun White? Jack Nicklaus is even more dominant in his sport than your guy! Roger Federer! The list goes on, little buddy…”
The storm gathers momentum.
From @wrvsurfer26: Find me a hockey player that hits harder than pipeline, Waimea and jaws just to name a few and then maybe you would have an argument. @scottlapeer but obviously you have never surfed anywhere. if you can even swim to know the toll surfing takes on ones body especially when surfing world class waves like the pros do!
From @connieb_totally @scottlapeer first off, you clearly get delivered bags of dicks daily. Second off you only follow kolohe and other pro surfers so you can act like you are keeping up with the times in front of your Clove-cigarette wielding frat Bros who pretend they surf because they have been to the south Florida every summer since they were 9 and lastly if you’re gonna speak, and if your even allowed to speak at all (which should be reviewed by a committee or board of intelligence) you should never fuck with the King (@kellyslater) or his acolytes. And for that reason you should slam your dick in the car door and repent.
From @its_litstagram @scottlapeer by common consensus, It is clear that you are a flaming homosexual that knows nothing about surfing. Why are u even commenting on this picture? Dont u have a Gretzky fan page you can tug off to?
From: scottlapeerNo, @its_litstagram because I’m not gay. I just enjoy seeing you little surf boys get so mad and have temper tantrums over an opposing opinion.
And, then, after… minutes… the owner of the account makes a visit.
koloheandino22 @scottlapeer you’re tripping dude. surfing is by far the hardest sport in the world. just because the fact you have control over so little. and for someone to be that dominant in that difficult of a sport. it doesnt even compare to anything else. won in ever condition. from huntington to chopes. from lowers to the eddies. from lowers to pipeline to mavericks. he has literally left no stone unturned. and has dominated in every way in every condition for over 25 years. theres is absolutely no debate and ill never change my mind that kelly slater is the greatest athlete of all time.
And, finally, Kelly Slater. Hello!
@kellyslater @scottlapeer Gretzky is amazing. I’m just bummed he never beat anyone up. For that Chelios is my man. It’s incredible that people an be so butt hurt over an opinion. It’s no wonder this world is so messed up! @koloheandino22 thank you, my man. Much appreciated.
Read the long, long stream here.
And do you remember when Kelly Slater had the closing section in Campaign? Watch here!
Gretzky was also drafted as a baseball player.
Comparing athletes in different sports is well 1998. Or it belongs on Fox with a two hour debate.
This is all so depressing.
Oh, it’s Bradman for sure.
Kelly is great, no doubt, but he competed against surfers for his entire career. 80% of the time they were high, drunk, or otherwise engaged in lifestyles that didn’t really bring out their best. As a physical specimen, Labron, Jordan, Phelps, and numerous others shit on Slater.
Phelps got busted gettin’ high in a college dorm after the 2008 Olympics…otherwise engaged in the Rory Parker training plan…
Jordan was a womanizing alcoholic, King James hasn’t done shit yet, and Phelps is indeed a monster
No offense to the Great One, but did Slater have a Marty McSorley protecting his ass his whole career?
mcsorley ? pffft, every team has a goon.
I wish I was famous so I could post controversial shit on insta and watch everyone go at it. Alas…
still innovating the sport at 44 years old no one else is doing that
Changing shit up and making it worse isn’t innovating.
No that’s Gabe. He is a fucking shit version of Andre Agassi. He weeps.
Throwing down a 540 in his 40s
You idiots are all comparing apples to oranges. Kelly participates in an individual sport. Gretzky, messi, pele, Jordan etc all play team sports. Gretzky or Jordan don’t win a single title without teammates. They don’t win MVPs or set scoring records without assists from teammates. If you’re talking individual sports like golf, tennis, cycling, most Olympic sports..then you can bring Kelly into the equation – which he certainly should be among the goats. Every team sport’s greats are irrelevant in this discussion.
WSL is gonna make it a team sport now right?
The question that was put was Kelly the greatest athlete of all time, not the greatest individual athlete, nor the greatest sportsperson, if you have a problem with the scope of the question get onto Kolohe. “hbd to the greatest athlete of all time. any sport. the best of all time”.
You’ve missed my point. People on here are trying to compare the “greatest” athletes from individual sports versus ones from team sports is pointless. They’re basing their conclusions on how many titles one has or the challenges they faced to get there.
Comparing any two sports is pointless, even comparing two sportsmen from the same sport but from different eras is meaningless – more or less – but I think we can all agree that Kelly is the greatest surfer and John Daly is the greatest golfer http://media.cleveland.com/…
Greatest Man.
Pele’s a Brazzo. You idiot.
that clip was grade-A slater in primetime…paired with the musical stylings of davey havoc. So, so good. The only question that remains was it a blue tuflite or solomon s-core? Ahh, the glory days.
salomon s-core
If you look at surfing’s pro ranks you can see that a large percentage of top pros come from San Clemente, Coolangatta, and the North Shore of Oahu. This suggests that there isn’t much depth in the sport when three relatively small areas can be so well represented. Hence Slaters accomplishments in surfing (though incredible) cannot be compared favorably to the accomplishments of champions in world wide sports such as soccer or cricket where there are hundreds of millions who participate. I hate soccer and cricket by the way!
I reckon Kelly could’ve been good at anything he got into including soccer and cricket. He’s a fucking animal. I’d like to see Messi, Gretzki or Tendulkar drop into a 2′ to 3′ foot wave (the equivalent of being a reasonably competent beginner in any other sport) the fucking kooks. You don’t get much of a chance to get good at surfing in comparison to other activities. You can kick a ball around all day. Other than hockey what the fuck else is there to do outdoors on the East Coast and Canada in winter? For the record, cricket is so shit. How the fuck do those guys get pussy?
They pay for it!
But Messi is the best of hundreds of millions of players, all who have a viable chance to become a soccer player, Kelly is the best out of tens of thousands (if that), a big difference, I’m sure he’d be good at anything he put his mind to, but would he be as good as Messi – nah! I don’t know who Tendulkar is, but Gretzky is also a player from a minority sport, compared to soccer or cricket – you can’t compare him to a Messi or a Pele or a coke snorting Maradona!
The debate is irrational. However given that it’s irrational this is how I like to look at it…. I could beat up Messi. Kelly could beat up Messi. So Messi is a bitch. Greatest athlete of all time can’t be a bitch. So Kelly wins.
It is irrational, but these are the two greatest athletes ever, Andy (the Viking) Fordham and Phil (the power) Taylor (14 time world darts champion ) Beat that Kelly! http://i3.mirror.co.uk/inco…
I’ve spent so much time watching these two Little Britain characters claiming and revving up an insanely enthusiastic crowd while sitting lazily on hotel gym spin bikes…. These guys can have it. I want to live in a world where you can have a couple of cheese burgers with the greatest athletes of all time.
Kelly couldn’t last one night drinking with these gentlemen, he would be legless after an hour, let’s see him do his fancy moves after the proverbial forty pints of stout!
Don’t know about now but a buddy of mine got wasted with Kelly and Andy and told me the king could hang. But idk, homeboy on the right could drink a fifth and it would go to his forearm.
Impeccable logic, WPS, truly.
lulz. Messi never got beat up by a boogie boarder like Slater.
Huh? Wasn’t that parko or did I miss something?
If Slater is a boogie boarder your boy Gabe is a sea cucumbers ejaculate.
Cricket and pussy are mutually exclusive everywhere but South Asia.
Can I make that Asia/Pacific. The Aussie tarts are starting to have a sniff. I can’t speak for the NZ scrags though.
Is this the dawn of a sincere investment in Australian multiculturalism??? Or just evidence that Aussie girls truly are the easiest on the globe?
They give ol’ Wigg’s a pretty fuckin’ hard time to be honest. “Wiggolly…. we can’t just have sex every time we hang out you know?”, “Why did you tell Tiff I need to shave more often Wiggolly?”, “Put out your fucking cigarette Wiggolly! This is my mums bed!”, “You’re getting fat Wiggolly. You eat too much fucking McDonalds!”, “Why were you at the RSL today Wiggolly? It’s Wednesday!” Life with an Australian woman is a fucking misery.
But Kelly came from Florida, which is an uphill battle, making it even more an accomplishment. Let’s imagine for a minute that Gretzky grew up in Arizona no where near the ice and still managed to accomplish all that he did.
Lot’s of world class surfers have come from Florida, CJ even got himself a championship. Slater has said himself that growing up in weak waves gave him a certain advantage. If Slater grew up in Arizona do you think he would be a world surfing champ, maybe if he grew up leemore he might!
Good point, but I have to disagree with Slater. While yes, it does foster that fire in the belly growing up with shit waves, it doesn’t take away from the fact that your still surfing shit waves. You find little ways to generate speed, do what you can, but if you didn’t grow up on the east coast you’re looking at at long struggle with progression. One step forward, two steps back. And yes, even if Kelly was raised in an igloo, he would have still won 11 world titles. Maybe even 15, this the king we’re talking about!
The struggle is staying on the East Coast…..Kelly hit the road at 18 and hasn’t looked back
WTF is this cricket thing y’all keep talking about?… hearing south Asia mentioned in the mix, I’m guessing is that some kinda bug eating contests?… Or it could be that people engage in breeding & training lil’ grashoppers to compete in high/long jump on the insect olympics?… idk, I’m confused…
Wilko is the greatest athlete of all time. Eats pies, drinks beer, never trains and can still squeeze into an XL steamer. Also has the weight of all that wet hair to contend with #neckmuscles
@scottlapeer YOU DON’T KNOW BO.
Agreed, if you are judging an athlete by god given athletic talent/strength/ability, and not silly awards. That being said, this still makes Slater an easy 2nd.
Actually Bruce Irons has the final section in Campaign, I think it was the first Taylor Steele film the champ didn’t close out.
nice.