Quiksilver Pro winner Matt Wilkinson calls for sharia law!
The almost 28-year-old Matt Wilkinson, from Australia’s Central Coast, is a one of a kind. The salty savour of the brunette tipped onto a bed of vice and mitigated with a tapestry of humour.
I couldn’t be a bigger fan of Wilko’s surfing and would happily debate that his top-to-bottom combos are superior even to those employed by the 2015 world champion, Gabriel Medina.
The loyalty he inspires among fans and friends is well-known and understandable. This was shown in great measure when The Australian, Rupert Murdoch’s national broadsheet, ran a story by its surf writer Fred Pawle. The sport section’s headline, SURFING YOBBO: He’s not pretty but this is Australia’s latest king of the waves, drew fire from Wilko and his myriad fans.
On Instagram, Wilko called for Pawle’s whipping. Sharia! Post below.
Let’s examine the response from his 117,000 fans.
filthy_clean What a kook, you’re pretty enough Wilko! I bet he’s got a small dick and rids a lid
charlesswild You are so pretty babe.. Don’t listen to the jealous cunt
chad_n@mattwilko8 Its simple. Take some of that 100k. Buy the biggest advertisement slot on the front page and go ham on the writer with his worst picture on facebook. Haha
matt_h1ll@mattwilko8 you’re a Fucking stud let that pussy sit in his office and express his opinions
sillycharleswillie Poor guy! Just wins the biggest event of his life and gets savaged by some inconsiderate hate monger!
kaneo23 What a shit cunt
On Facebook, Wilko’s close friend Adam Robertson wrote: @fredpawle. I hope this gets to you. Your name = AIDS.
Soon, a photo of the writer (posted by Surfing Life editor Wade Gravy) appeared on Facebook as well as a furious commentary. A screenshot appears below.
Of course, as in most things people get wound up about, if the IG jockeys pounding their little telephone buttons had read The Australian‘s report, they would’ve found this: “His wide-kneed bottom turn is as refined as a nightclub dance move. His approach to the lip looks as graceful as a suburban front-rower’s shoulder charge. And his descent back down the wave sometimes features comically flailing arms, like Wile E. Coyote when he realises he’s just overshot a cliff.
“But yesterday, when Wilkinson won the opening event of the 2016 world tour, the Quiksilver Pro on the Gold Coast — his first tournament victory — his surfing style fittingly became the most beautiful in the world…
“His surfing was fast and often brutal, a refreshing alternative to the clinical precision that most competitors favour.
The most beautiful in the world.
Fast and often brutal…a refreshing alternative…
Of course, a blood feud wouldn’t be complete without swings from both sides.
Let’s ask the writer Fred Pawle for his response:
Watching an online mob devour some unsuspecting schmuck has become so common these days, you can become anaesthetised to the vitriol and incitements to violence.
Until it happens to you.
Yesterday I wrote a piece for The Australian heaping praise on Matt Wilkinson for winning the Quik Pro. I called his style “the most beautiful in the world”. I described him as a “refreshing alternative to the clinical precision that most competitors favour”. I said the best surfer won the contest, and the result was testimony to pro surfing itself.
The opening sentence, written with deep affection, said he “surfed like a yobbo”. Read it here.
This morning, Wilko posted a photo on Instagram of the paper’s back-page pointer, which I didn’t write, calling him a “surfing yobbo” and “not pretty”.
Wilko’s caption: “Who thinks this guy deserves a flogging?” He didn’t identify me, so I’ve been spared the direct messages and threats of friendly visits that are customary in such situations.
But Wilko’s question was not intended as an invitation to debate. Anonymous social media users respond to such questions like flies respond to the pungent odour of a fresh turd.
The answer, from an army of morons who hadn’t even read the story, was a resounding Yes! Well, if by “this bloke” Wilko meant me, then his followers will need to get to the back of the queue. There are already many people who have been waiting a long time to give me a “flogging”, most of them passionate advocates of increasing the number of sharks at our beaches. But I digress.
One of the reasons I wrote so affectionately about Wilko in today’s paper was that, although I’ve never met him, he’s always struck me as a cool, ordinary bloke who’s kept the fun of surfing alive on tour, not the sort of over-sensitive prima donna that the pro tour has routinely produced over the past decade or so.
Despite his faux pas this morning, I still reckon he’s probably a half decent bloke. But bloody hell he’s sensitive.
Oh! And just in, a new post from Wilko’s IG. Click here to read the accompanying comments, including: “What a beady-eyed cunt waffle” and “come over so we can tie you up and root ya xx”.
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The last sentence of that article is very very far from affectionate.
Rumor has it Murdoch teed up a charity fight night to settle the controversial feud…Will back the notorious YOBO! he’s paying good odds…
After all that clowning around with wetsuits, rollerblades, crossdressing, etc I would’ve thought Wilko would’ve just loved to be labeled a Yobbo, hell he practically shouted it!
Which makes me think he’s gotta be on steroids: skinnier, stronger, feistier and now sensible and enraged…
Hey WSL how’s that drug testing program going?
I hope wilko has never read the comments on Stab! Shit there might be a lynching party out after me…
What do you think happened to Andrew Chan’s Ghost?
what did happen to ol Andrew? I assumed he succumbed to syphillus?
It’s very common for an imposed sub-editor’s headline to not reflect the content of an article. But it is the big print that most people read. Wilko waking up after an impressive, hard worked for achievement and having it summed up in the big print of the national media as ‘ugly yobbo wins’, that would seem a bit of a downer.
Wilko’s supporters on social media are rowdier than a Trump rally.
Same demographic, different continent.
Same affinity for the racist idolatry of the Confederacy.
Rip curl pay well if you are a team rider – less so if you are a slave
When I saw the headline this morning, I thought that was the best way to sum up Wilko
not a true blood feud. no guns required this time.
Put the bitch back in its place. Few bitch slaps would solve it.
You empowered that dork, Derek. He’s dodged multiple requests for a phone call (maybe because of his high pitched voice?). Fear mongering and spite don’t make for compelling reading.
I’m here, always: +61 424 902 997
Band meet wagon.
Who was empowered? Fred or Wilko?
It was a badly written headline that should never have made it through check subs. I can only imagine the outcry if it was written about a female surfer. Pawle’s yarn doesn’t read in a negative way at all, which makes the headline even more criminal.
Wilko has every right to blow up about the headline splashed across the back of a national paper. I’d imagine he, like most, would assume that the guy who wrote the story, wrote the headline. But that’s not the case.
The subs desk and night editor should give themselves an uppercut
disagree. it did exactly what it should have done. welcome to the media. click. click. click. chatter. chatter. chatter. rolling on now.
And that’s why the media is in the state it is now! It’s fucked!
You can’t really be that surprised when your “surfing yobbo” fails to grasp the nuances in your broadsheet profile piece.
Also, I predict “your” and “you’re” will be entirely interchangeable by 2020.
“I predict “your” and “you’re” will be entirely interchangeable by 2020.”
alas, it is true.
Notice Nick Carroll’s appearance (sucking up, too!), the man is everywhere!
Hey! He has scaled back and is getting professional help.
like I need to suck up to fucken Wilko. his dog is hotter than you.
Derek you allowed a lot of defense here. Defense you never allow to people you don’t know or don’t like. think about that.
Oh, from Fred you mean? And did I ever tell you about Fred and my Blood Feud?
yeah totally! like most people on the wrong end of a BG blood feud are just hung out to dry in a most amusing fashion. but Fred is your buddy, even though he is not really even the villain here. so he gets this mega free kick, and Wilko is kinda painted out as a wha wha baby crying about nothing.
but he is crying about nothing. literally.
…oh, ok, I see what you mean. Fred was one text away and five minutes later had his response emailed. It’s rarely that easy. This is my favourite Blood Feud, I think, because it illustrates the ease that someone with charisma, or fame, however fleeting, has of assembling an hysterical mob. Like the stoning scene in Life of Brian. https://www.youtube.com/wat…
ohhhhh hang on. i see what you are doing here nick carroll. you want your own blood feud with BG!
Damn Nick, I told it once you are a kook for commenting under your own name. I actually thought it was just old school but I guess it’s just a massive ego.
Well all in all you just come off all this a seemingly small man
I thought you could take a joke. Fred is right, the tour does produce oversensitive prima donnas: you!
PS. Hey, Nick, this, too, is a joke… mostly
I read the original story and thought that it was very complementary to Wilko. Basically Pawle said that it ain’t classically beautiful but beautiful none the less.
I’m pretty sure that was the remnants of the Corona’s talking this morning and hopefully Wilko rethinks his position.
ok. now this is just absurd. what yobbo drinks coronas? actually who the fuck drinks that watered down piss? seriously now. does that advertising really work? fucking world is demented.
We’ll have to ask Budweiser after they paid Peyton Manning to plug their beer after the Super Bowl.
yobbos will drink anything if its free
I stand corrected he called him yobbo saw another version bring on feud!!
The usual media can make you and break you story – all just inflammatory bullshit. If you actually read it Fred writes quite favourably of Wilko ( of course not in the vein of esteemed scribes here) but it is actually the Australian website themselves that put the story under a banner of “yobbo surfer beats the best” !!! That is what everyone has jumped over .
So should be Wilko Vs the “strayan” as the blood feud
I think it was here that I saw Wade Carmichael referred to as an axe murderer which made me cry with laughter. Also does anyone have concrete evidence Wilko chopped Sally Fitz a year or two back? Either way Wilko, you look like a shorter skinnier version of myself and I think you’re the tits mate. I even use my wilful blindness powers to ignore your poo-stance. Well done mang.
Shorter skinnier version of Wilko?
You fooled me, dawg, I thought you was my nigga. Having some of that old Wiggolly on you and shit.
BG’s first outbreak of black-on-black crime!?!?!?!
What would Otis Carey say about this mate!? Na I’m a fair bit bigger than Wilko and my skin is a fairly fucked color. It’s some sort of mix of green and brown. I think my old man is Lebanese or something I don’t really know cos he tells everyone he is French. I’m an eye sore.
Oh wait, the tour begs for mainstream media coverage, then gets it and the athletes bitch about it. Hey Wilks, from a famous person/athlete of which I fail to remember, “don’t read your reviews”. Or, do tour pros get a basic course in media management? Or, your manager just dropped the ball.
I would hardly believe that this is their idea of main stream media coverage, a little article stuffed in the pages somewhere.
PPS. Bloody Wade Davis knows a thing or two about having the lynch mob from twitter running towards his door with burning torches as a result of some poorly chosen words.
Lighten up fellas
Poorly chosen words indeed. That moron has always used many online aliases to viciously attack and bully anyone disagreeing or critical of Pro Surfing and the Industry.
Just a lackey kissing ass.
PS. Good write up on Wilko by Fred.
Fred is no stranger to being attacked by the bloodthirsty mob on social media. He is enemy NO 1 of the shark huggers, because he speaks the truth.
Go Freddy.
Wilko’s just a blue collar bloke , and Fred Pawles thinks he’s some kind of pseudo intellect , classic Freds still out their flogging sensationalist crap ,, a damn good flogging, be careful rumor has it S&M is a past time!
Very blue collar. Yet, I bet Fred is the one pulling the 9 to 6.
Just kidding… but it´s true.
Whatever the pro surf clique says Fred strikes me as an honest bloke who hasn’t been afraid to stick by his opinions, lots of which I disagree with but he also engages and debates online. It always strikes as particularly unfair and cowardly for a public persona to incite their fans on someone they don’t like… don’t like the attention stop being a pro and go underground…
And what – get a real job, nah fuck that!
BM , we live in the age of social media and polls , which seems to increasingly be the benchmark of popularity and /or it works both ways , so its not really unfair or cowardly , its just the media driven world we live in now , and actually what wilko did was get his followers/stalkers to comment on Freds opinion of Wilko, no harm done , he’s only a journalist , hhehe….
Fuck me, it’s really you MC!
All that Pro surfing ass-kissing has smudged your vision. To even think something is ok because “it’s the world we live in nowadays” can turn sour on your ass pretty quick.
How about the Aboriginal issue, is it the world we live in and we should get with the times?
That’s just an example.
Doesn’t matter how much you squint Wilko acted like a prima donna after years of playing clown to get attention and incited a mob lynching without even getting that he was being touted as a hero. Poor form/stupidity so much so that the post is now gone/finito/kaput.
Happy reaching
ah BM , yes its me , but I do not do bds for pros anymore , as they are too boring , which snapper showed in spades . So I think that Pro surfing has just become very conservative or maybe their bds are just 15 yr old designs . So Pro surfing ass-kissing , big call , but you have you opinion on me a bit like mine on FP , even though I think he was trying to be funny describing Wilko , he should have just stuck to his clinical reporting….
The world we live in today , hmmm , politicians run by polls , news is twitter and instagram , that’s real…is it right , probably not , but its what now drives business’s marketing/PR and as surfers are a brand , well their followers are real , means the surfer has a powerful public voice.
Don’t know what aboriginals has to do with this?
Wilko flexed his new found stalkers , beat up FP a bit , and now has taken it down , no harm done!
In that case, despite all differences in opinion, I’m honoured. You are well and truly one of the references in board design and you have never been afraid to experiment or stick to your views on it.
You are, however, still too close to Pro Surfing as you’ve always been one yourself or in most ways dependent on it.
The fact that something becomes “the new reality” doesn’t mean that some of us conscious beings have to conform to it or refrain from criticising. We do need some critical thinking and if it can use the same platforms as the empowered yobbos all the better.
And someone that needs to call up a mob is always a coward, modern times or not.
Ah BM, yes those days of shaping bds for Pro’s as a way of generating sales and increasing brand awareness is a thing of the past. Being a designer and not very good shaper means that experimenting on new hull shapes is a must to keep the ol’ grey matter passionate and fired up , but as Pro’s will not try new designs , my focus is on the USA market , where there is a greater acceptance of not just Pro models.
I don’t have a problem critical thinking as long as it is constructive and offers solutions , and not too sure ” if calling up a mob is being a coward , does Ghandi fit your model of a coward??