John John seen here in happier times. Maybe happier.
John John seen here in happier times. Maybe happier.

Rumor: John John out of Trestles!

A terrible possibility! Damn the fates (if true)!

Oh how great it is to be king! The sun shines brightly on John John Florence, your newly minted giant atop the Jeep Leaderboard. He vanquished the snaggle-toothed usurper and ahhhhhhh wonderful. Everything is right with the universe.

Except oops!

Rumor has it that Blonde Ambition hurt his knee in his final against Kelly Slater bad enough to be out of Trestles and maybe beyond!

Life sux!

You can watch his injury on the wipeout against Kelly Slater. At 4:20 watch his foot slip off the board and leg tweak oddly. Watch the grimace.

And what, horror of horrors, if this is all true? What if John John’s very clear championship run is derailed not by a Brazilian but by fate itself.

LIFE SUPER SUX!

We will keep you up to the minute on this ugly possibility.

And, perhaps so briefly, life as the world number one!

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Danny Clayton's girlfriend...are you there?
Danny Clayton's girlfriend...are you there?

Poll: What is surfing’s greatest scandal?

Is there one so tawdry it towers above?

I have licked my lips all morning over the latest Anthony Wiener sexting scandal. And of course you know Anthony Wiener. He was an up and coming political star. An angry dynamo with a funny name but passionate liberal heart.

He was a congressman and oh how he would scream about injustice etc. etc. face bulging. Neck bulging. He was so passionate, so on point, that the Clinton family even tapped him to be Hillary’s number one aide’s husband!

Huma and Anthony were married and now he was part of the Clinton machine. Future assured!

Except he tweeted pictures of his penis bulging to a woman and got found out.

It happened lots more times and he was totally disgraced but Huma stuck with him until yesterday when it happened again. This time with his penis bulging next to his toddler sleeping. It don’t get any worse!

He is a sexting monster!

All of it made me wonder, though. What is surfing’s greatest ever scandal?

Kolohe Andino sexting Danny Clayton’s girlfriend?

Very funny.

Very very funny.

Very very very funny.

Do it get douchier than Danny Clayton? I think it can’t!

But surfing’s greatest ever scandal?

Matt Warshaw, are you there?

Anyone?

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Ace Buchan
Oowee, those hands-behind-the-back toobs stink, but it's a small crime in the grand scheme. Who is more loveable than Adrian Buchan! | Photo: WSL

Ace Buchan is the world number four!

Can you love a man who once advertised Power Balance bracelets?

Adrian ‘The Ace’ Buchan is world number four. The fourth-best surfer in the world as determined by a panel of expert judges. Is his rating an accurate reflection of his ability, of his status as a world-title shooter?

Let’s examine.

After a hot week in Tahiti, John John Florence became the number one surfer in the world and everyone went home happy.

Everyone.

Even a Central Coast goofyfooter with two contest victories to his name. Was very stoked indeed. Heading home to saddle up the backhand and swoop his way to the top in Cali in a couple weeks.

Wilko? Nope. Kid’s in Byron these days, anyway.

I’m talking Ace Buchan, top-five debutant and Australia’s latest goofy-champion-in waiting since Mick Campbell in ’98.

Ace is currently 9500 points behind Gabriel, who is 4000 points behind John John with Willy in between. Close, yeah? So close! And with four events left on the clock, he’s halted designs on the ‘John John 2016 World Champ’ shirts and got Bob Hurley sweating on his great investment.

Trestles? Dual semi-finalist. Got smoked by Gabriel in the Nike QS in 2012, tagged him back in the 2014 Hurley quarters with a 9.43. A comment on the WSL video of said 9 states “bad judgment!!!! Great mistake!!!”

Another one says, “but in the middle you have judges who was Donald ??? use the glasses in addition have binoculars … or just tell them you want to throw out Medina. judges Losers.”

I don’t know who Donald is nor can I watch the wave to make my own opinion (since when do the WSL privatize their video links from past events?), but pencil Ace into your Fantasy team.

Did you know Ace was a hologram sticker bracelet guy? Wikipedia tells me he was riding with Zentrom Quantum Technology on the Power Balance trend way back when the plastic trinkets fooled the Irons brothers among millions around the world. But, that lapse in judgement aside, Ace ain’t no fool. Here’s a sharp piece he wrote on Kieren Perrow for Stab. 

And he sure knows how to win a heat. Remember when Ace beat Kelly Slater in France in 2008. Why is he called Ace? Who gives someone the nickname ‘Ace’ and how does it end up sticking? I prefer Ace to Adrian. I can’t call anyone Adrian without conjuring a Stallone impression. And didn’t Dave Stanfield call him ‘Byoochan’ at Sunset one year?

Well Byoochan won’t need Sunset this year cause he’s going straight to tha Pipe. If you do well at Chopes you tend to do well at Pipe. Mr Buchan, Chopes champ, 2013, bobs and weaves with the best of them. Maybe too many hands-behind-the-back claims (what is this 1985?), but still good.

Remember that time at J-Bay a couple years back when Ace punch claimed the fuck out of a nine-something and nearly threw his damn shoulder out? Imagine the punch on the podium at da Banzai with a big silver cup in front of him!

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Slater, Reynolds in murderous cabal?

Is there more to the pro surfing game than meets the eye?

Have you every wondered, “Is there more to this surfing game than meets the eye? Dark secrets? Murderous plots? Unhealthy ambitions? Nefarious backroom deals? Sabotage? Sabotaj? Death, destruction, vengeance? Death? Murder? Murder? Conspiracy, chemtrail, murder?”

If yes, you are not alone.

There is a man in Oceanside, California who believes that some of today’s most beloved pros are actually cold-blooded killers and maintain their positions in our imaginations by taking out the competition.

Literally.

The wonderful photographer Jack English stumbled upon him while playing with his young daughter on the beach one sunny day.

You, of course, know Jack’s work. He followed the tour for many years and shot some of the most iconic of images. His “Crying Jordy” is one of BeachGrit‘s all-time favorites. His website, surfimages.com, is a treasure and he, himself, is tall, tanned and handsome.

In any case, he saw this man across the way holding a sign. Of course he assumed it to be political in nature until he got closer and could read, clearly:

KELLY SLATER

MURDERED

ANDY IRONS

MARK FOO

His heart raced. Oh, of course he didn’t believe it to be true. He knows Kelly well and couldn’t imagine him killing anyone at all, much less Andy Irons and Mark Foo. He thought it must be some kind of sick joke and tells me on a warm Cardiff day:

I approach the guy and he begins rambling how Kelly choked him out in the water (surfing Oceanside). He just began rambling to me and I wasn’t sure if he was going to try to do something crazy to me or my daughter so i just asked to get his pic and let him be on his way.

Jack went home mind racing alongside heart. Of course none of what this crazy man said was true… except… except… oh never mind.

Weeks later he stumbled across him again and this time shot video. What unspooled is almost too much to report. Oh yes. Jack showed me. Kelly is a murderer, maybe even a serial killer, and Dane Reynolds wantonly destroys surfboards in order to clear the Ventura lineup.

It is all too shocking, too evil, and I will show you the video soon… if I don’t end up dead first.

Until then, we all have much to fear.

kelly-slater-murdered-andy-irons-mark-foo-sign
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Long Read: When Huntington burned!

The most exciting surf contest in history? Yes!

The 1986 Op Pro riots in Surf City, California happened 30 years ago this week and what a wonderful time to be alive. Surfers went crazy! Surfers lost their minds! Or maybe not surfers. Maybe Inland Empirites. Maybe thick necked yokels. Who knows! Whoever they were, the OC Register has a brilliant re-telling written by Laylan Connelly. Pour a cup of Zima and enjoy.

On Aug. 31, 1986, Bill Richardson stood in the Huntington Beach lifeguard headquarters building, gripped a 9 mm handgun, and braced for the worst.

Rioters were surrounding the building, and a few were already inside. Looters seemed ready to destroy a place the lifeguard captain considered a second home.

Outside, police cars were being overturned and set on fire. And the mob was shaking other cars and chanting “one more, one more.” Glass bottles were being thrown; blood was flowing.

Officers temporarily retreated from that stretch of beach, near downtown. They advised the lifeguards to do the same.

But that day, 30 years ago this week, Richardson loaded a gun he’d only used in training.

Then, he came face-to-face with the rioters.

“They met someone crazier than they were,” Richardson recalled recently.

Now 72 and the Chaplin for the Huntington Beach Marine Safety Department, Richardson doesn’t recall being afraid during the biggest riot in the long history of riots near Huntington Pier.

He remembers a different emotion.

“I was pissed.”

BIG HAIR, SMALL BIKINIS

It was the mid 1980s and MTV was still playing music.

Neon was big. So was everybody’s hair. For women, Ocean Pacific ruled the beach with high-on-the-hip, skimpy bikinis.

For anyone who wanted to party hard, Huntington Beach was the place to be.

The Op Pro surf contest was a big deal, too. About 100,000 people turned out to watch the event in 1986.

Ian Cairns, a former pro surfer, ran the contest back then, as well as the series of contests leading up to the event in Huntington Beach. He said the crowds grew bigger that summer. And the parties got rowdier.

“They were bad guys,” Cairns recalled recently. “Like, rock-and-roll crazy, you know.”

What sparked the actual riot remains a point of debate. Some say women and girls in the crowd removed their bathing suit tops, around 2 p.m., and the mostly male crowd reacted. Others say some men were aggressors, attacking some women.

Whatever the cause, witnesses agree that the mob soon was out-of-control.

Cairns remembers standing on scaffolding built over the crowd, watching surfers in the contest out in the water. But as the unrest began, he looked behind him and saw black smoke billowing skyward.

“It just erupted,” Cairns said. “The … massive crowd was burning police cars and tearing doors off (police cars),” Cairns added.

“It was gnarly. It was mayhem.”

Meanwhile, the surf contest wasn’t done.

Surfers Mark Occhilupo and Glen Winton were in the water, finalists competing in the best of three heats. After two heats, Occhilupo should have taken the win, but with the unrest growing Cairns called both surfers to the scaffold to ask them for a favor.

“We have to protect the crowd in the bleachers, the surfers,” he told them. “What do you think about going back in the water?”

Cairns then declared a tie and directed the surfers back into the water for a third heat. He was hoping to buy some time, and that by the time the contest formally ended the rioting would be over.

It wasn’t.

Continue reading here!

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