"Surfing is in its racing stage," says Albee Layer. "Look at a lot of action sports. Moto, mountain biking, skiing, snow mobiles, they all start as racing being where all the money and time is spent and freestyle being a side show. But eventually, freestyle is all people really wanted to watch and people started figuring out how to make competitions based around progression and not sticking to the same formula of the last three decades."

Albee Layer Lands First Backside 540!

By Jake M Tellkamp

8 years ago

And celebrates with shake weight and vodka cruiser!

Albee Layer spins one-and-a-half on the pineapple express. Pirouettes angrily into that sweet Maui breeze! Then takes to Instagram to tease the world what glory must lay on his laptop screen. First, a celebration with a shake weight and vodka cruiser then followed up with a video clip of him bunny-hopping his way to the beach.

Don’t you just love the comedic prince of Peahi ?

https://www.instagram.com/p/BM-h6-lgTXJ/?taken-by=johnjohn_slater&hl=en

https://www.instagram.com/p/BM-21QdgONj/?taken-by=johnjohn_slater&hl=en

The maneuver’s completion comes shortly after an early round loss at the Jaws event. Similar in fashion to Slater’s frontside 540 which he landed after a disappointing loss at the Ripcurl Pro Portugal last year. Which to me speaks poetry!

Airs are the moves of those demanding attention. What’s getting kids off that beach in Rio? What sets Noa Deane apart from the rest of the Tweed ? How does Filipe support his family?Airs are moves that command an audience. They breathe expression. They set souls free!

Albee’s been trying to stomp the backside five for years now. In Attractive Distractions, he lands a 540 alleyoop, the first time anyone had spun to that degree.

Which brings me to my concluding thought. What matters more to you as a fan, a surfer being the first to do something, video parts or a contest victory?

Ok now from the man himself. Outspoken and always outstanding. Albee Fuckin Layer everybody!

BeachGrit: You’ve been racing John John to be the first to land the backside 540. How’s that feel to be the only guy in surfing who’s beaten John in 2016?

Albee Layer: John hasn’t really been trying that much. He’s, like, changed to a full comp guy now practicing power turns. I wish he was putting his heart and soul into progression like he was a year or two ago. So it didn’t feel like a race everyone seems to ignore these tricks in a way these days as some side show.

Surfing is in its racing stage. Look at a lot of action sports. Moto, mountain biking, skiing, snow-mobiles, they all start as racing being where all the money and time is spent and freestyle being a side show. But eventually, freestyle is all people really wanted to watch and people started figuring out how to make competitions based around progression and not sticking to the same formula of the last three decades.

BeachGrit: It would be sick if it were more like the Bones Brigade in skating. A full regalia dedicated to progression and landing new things. Inventing tricks taking precedence over contest wins.

Albee Layer: Yeah I’ve been saying for a while surfing is in its racing stage. Look at a lot of action sports. Moto, mountain biking, skiing, snow-mobiles, they all start as racing being where all the money and time is spent and freestyle being a side show. But eventually, freestyle is all people really wanted to watch and people started figuring out how to make competitions based around progression and not sticking to the same formula of the last three decades.

BeachGrit: Airs to me, seem to be done best by those who are angry and don’t give a fuck about their well being. Did losing at Jaws piss you off to spin into the wind? What’s the next move your going for?

Albee Layer: Absolutely. The double cork is next.

Note: No video proof until tomorrow! But the build up is gold! Come tomoz to see!

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Hail: Dane Reynolds! Slacker king!

By Chas Smith

8 years ago

John John Florence's antics ain't cool, bro. Ain't cool at all.

And look at John John Florence going and being all good at everything. Oh there he is making the most visually impressive surf film ever. And look, over there, he’s winning the Eddie in biggest/best Waimea ever. Beating men who dedicate themselves only to the giant wave. But wait, now he is winning the entire World Surf League tour, smashing the field so thoroughly in all sizes of wave that he doesn’t even need the last event even though it basically breaks in his living room and he is going to win it too and the Triple Crown and Taylor Swift’s delicate hand.

Such a phenomenon! Such a… millennial!

And don’t those damned overachievers just roil you? Doesn’t their good-at-everything always-try-super-hard deal just rub you the wrong way? Yeah, your cool like me.

We’re Generation X, bro.

It’s all so lame. Everything is so lame. Trying is so lame. Everything is super lame.

At least we’ll always have Dane Reynolds. He, like me, like us, understands the lame. Remember when he quit the World Tour? When he gots lots o money and then quit Quiksilver? When he quit basically surfing all together?

Cool like jazz and this whole thing may read ironic but it’s not. I’m serious. Like every Gen Xer though everything I write or say comes out vaguely ironic. Trying is lame.

Whatever.

Donald Trump ain’t my president and John John Florence ain’t my champion.

All hail Dane Reynolds, or whatever. Our slacker king n shit.

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Hell of a year for John John Florence. Wins The Eddie, wins Rio, second at J-Bay, second in Tahiti, wins Portugal, wraps up the world title with a contest in hand and, just now, wins the first event of the Hawaiian Triple Crown. "I want to win Pipe, I want to win everything," he says. | Photo: WSL/Cestari

John John: “I want to win everything!”

By Derek Rielly

8 years ago

The world champ wins the Hawaiian Pro! But it ain't enough!

There hasn’t been this air of invincibility around a surfer since, oowee, Andy Irons in 2004.

Just now, John John Florence, who turned twenty-four in October, completed his inevitable win at the Hawaiian Pro, which ran in good enough four-to-six-foot waves at Haleiwa. Portugal’s Frederic Morais, a light-footed, mostly mistake-free surfer, actually tied for first place with John John but lost because the Hawaiian had a higher-scoring best wave. Morais needed a 7.34 on his last wave to win; scored a 7.33.

A fix? Not even close.

John John’s posture, his positioning, the way he clutched his hands and manipulated with deft precision his Pyzel, was surfing far beyond his peers.

The WQS-rated Hawaiian Pro is the first of the three Triple Crown events, which also includes the Vans World Cup at Sunset (also a WQS event) and the Billabong Pipeline Masters, the final event on the WCT schedule.

In a post-heat interview with Strider Wasilewski and Peter Mel, John John admitted, “I want to win Pipe, I want to win everything.”

And he will.

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Just in: The Inertia hates you!

By Chas Smith

8 years ago

And hopes your life is shrouded in despair!

Now, when it comes to aggregating content I am not allowed to throw stones. I love the share economy! I have two hard and fast rules though:

1) Always credit source.

Here’s looking at you Stab!

2) Never regurgitate a story that is suicide inducing.

And here’s looking at you The Inertia!

Get a load of this! I read a story in the early morning in The Los Angeles Times about an older very kind man who lived in a van with his father in Florida. His father got sick and he cared for him and then his father died and he was very sad. He decided, though, to punch through his sadness and achieve a lifelong dream of surfing in Huntington Beach.

So he drove his van where his father died all the way from Florida to Huntington, paddled out, slammed into a pier pylon and died. No one knows if he actually caught a wave or not. There is a gofundme to get his body back to Florida so he can be buried next to his father.

The levels of depression here have rarely been reached. And yet The Inertia puked it straight up under the headline

FLORIDA MAN DIES WHILE FULFILLING DREAM OF SURFING IN HB

Which makes me wonder. Does the definitive voice of surfing™ hate you and hope your life is shrouded in despair? Does it want you to feel that life has no happy ending? Ever?

So depressive! Screw you The Inertia! Screw you forever!

Always and forever!

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"I’ve ridiculed everyone on the roster and would like to say from the bottom of my heart and take the chance to apologize, to absolutely nobody” | Photo: From "The Notorious’ Conor McGregor"

Opinion: Pro surfing needs a McGregor!

By Jake M Tellkamp

8 years ago

Can you imagine a world champ with the loosest lips?

It’s qualifying season on the North Shore, and it looks like we’ll be seeing some new faces on tour for 2017. Leonardo Fioravanti, will be a welcome addition to the rookie class. Kids got an olive oil voice and Italian charm.
His flare will add spice in a league of vanilla post-heat interviews. Which albeit for Mason Ho, and Keanu Asing, I’m getting pretty tired of watching.

See, there’s this blueprint that they all follow, and which commentators like me have poked at before. The post-heat interview goes like this.

Compliment the other surfer. Say how well they’ve been surfing all week. How blessed they were to have caught the waves that they did. Thank shaper and add how good the board felt under their feet. More humility and graciousness and the part that shits me up the wall.

“I’m just taking it one heat at a time, Rosie”.

We fucking know that you can’t win the final in the first round. But they keep saying it anyways. Every event. Without fail.

Recently, I came across this interview Conor McGregor did with Joe Rogan after he clinched the light weight belt, the first time someone in the UFC has held two titles simultaneously.

“ I’ve ridiculed everyone on the roster and would like to say from the bottom of my heart and take the chance to apologize, to absolutely nobody,” said Conor McGregor.

Now, obviously fighting and surfing are different. But as athletes, they have the same job. No, not to win, but to entertain. Been that way since the gladiator days of Rome. Sure, someone can dominate, but if he or she isn’t appealing to the public’s emotions, they aren’t filling seats.

Conor McGregor is a perfect example of a people’s champion. Rags to riches. Good to his women. Obliterates his opponents. Dances around the ring and makes headlines every time a microphone passes in front of him.

What do we have?

A humble, soft spoken, John John Florence that has every right to say, “None of you guys are on my level, not even close” but he doesn’t. He’s bashful, shy, and just what the WSL wants, a clean-cut poster child at the head of his organization.

The UFC sold for 4.2 billion however, and the WSL is in the red year after year.

Maybe, if there was a brazen and outspoken champion like Andy Irons was, it would be more enticing to tune in. John John isn’t the guy, however. Years of being haole in Hawaii have ingrained respect and humility into his genes.

Gabriel Medina would fit the role of anti-hero perfectly. Shame that he’s too busy thanking god and being a cry baby to deliver anything of true entertainment value. Well, there was that one time he threatened the smallest guy on tour with a Portuguese lesson. That was pretty entertaining.

John John can still take a page out of Conor McGregor’s book by competing on the Big Wave Tour next year. With the way that he made Waimea Bay his bitch last year at The Eddie, I’d wager he would of won Puerto Escondido and Jaws easily.

If the WSL was able to hold events around his schedule, guy could win both titles in the same year, setting a new precedent that not even Slater has on his mantlepiece.

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Eat beach grit spam!