Stop this nonsense! Let the Hawaiians surf!
And finally The Billabong Pipeline Masters is underway-ish! Today we begin with the Pipe Invitational. This, if memory serves, is the bone the World Surf League threw to Hawaiian locals, giving them a handful of heats of 4 surfers per for 2 of them to scratch into the main event.
Do you recall just two years ago when a full sixteen Hawaiians got to surf in the big show without having to dance for their soup?
I do!
Those early Pipe heats that pitted a crusty underground Pipe specialist against some freshly scrubbed Californian or Brazilian World Championship Tour youth were pure joy.
Mayhem!
Carnage everywhere!
Oh I witnessed many hot tears running down pink cheeks as children were sent packing back to the Qualifying Series. Grown men sent back too also with tears running down stubbly sadness.
But those days are over and now the Hawaiians must wrestle each other to the death.
Today’s surf is not so great or at least not at the start. Heat 1 featured Yan, Chapman, McIntosh and McNamara’s boy battling scraps. Yan won the heat with the combined score of a 3.57. Chapman snuck into the quarters with a last minute 2.80 combined score.
Talking to Rosie after the end, Mr. Yan said, “There was one wave at the start then no mo sets came in.”
Yeah bummer. WSL CEO Paul Speaker should wave his coconut scepter and let all the Hawaiians back in to the castle. It was better that way.
I was very surprised by the lack of shape of some surfers. Especially Reef McIntosh. And how poor his technique was, even in shitty Pipe. I can’t believe he’s paid to surf. I know he is a charger but there are also plenty of chargers here in the comments section 😀
Can’t wait for Chas to sit on the WSL CEO throne so that we can finally start to have some fun.
The trials are a fallacy but why all the PC around Hawaii? I would love to see 15 locals paddle out at J-bay and see how a local, enter Sean Holmes, smokes the world champ, enter Andy Irons, not once but twice.
Pipe trials are a joke (again). Last year, Aussie grommet Jack Robo won. This year 16yo grommet & 40yo Californian haoles. At least they did not waste a good day’s surf like last year.
don’t come at me with your elitist facts. drain the swamp!!!
of course we remember the ones who won, thats a pretty good indication they did well.
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Go ask Joel Parkinson who knocked him out of the Title race when he was a front-runner in 2009. Pipe wildcard Gavin Gillette.
Need I go on?
go easy with the facts and figures and all that soft intellectual shit
Wiggs straight into the main event! And when I am finally CEO of the WSL I am going to implement drug testing too. If you are found without any in your system you get booted.
WeedMaps has a surf team with ol’ BI on it now, so we’re a step closer to your dream: https://www.instagram.com/w…
But how are they? Seriously. They’re all eat organic, be healthy… & smoke weed. Those things don’t go hand in hand at all.
If the weed is organic why not?
thank you. i was having trouble with the logic as well
Are we in the “contests are cool” phase of surfing again?
I’m assuming that means Noa Deanne didn’t give a rousing “fuck you, WSL (or ASP)” speech at the Surfer Poll Awards the other night.
I should be allowed to surf in the Rip Curl Pro at Bells with 15 other mates then. Fuck Hawaiians were/are/always will be idiots. There isn’t a single name in that heat I think deserves to be there. Reef can’t even win the weight loss battle let alone a heat.
Oh but you should be! How much more fun would each event be with localz only trials?
Mate I just saw a 40 year bloke fall off a Penny board and another fuckwit wearing a suit with Birkenstocks. This was one set of traffic lights in Torquay. If the WSL implements drug testing no locals will make it in. Same goes for Hawaii I bet.
I think you should be able to surf EVERY heat!
Couldn’t agree more if Hawaii wants to pull this shit so should every spot on tour.
ya cuz the oi rio pro featuring some poor brazzo fucks would be so much more exciting then jamie and bruce at pipe
Well said. Every CT stop should have trials before the main event.
dude, hes hawaiian, being big in his blood
‘Those early Pipe heats that pitted a crusty underground Pipe specialist against some freshly scrubbed Californian or Brazilian World Championship Tour youth were pure joy’
Then you might also remember the Hawaiians getting waxed by those low seeds, purely because they are inferior surfers. Last time the format was used, only Shane Dorian made it into the top seed rounds, and then he lost in round 4.
Then again, it was entertaining to see the ‘pipe specialists’ get taken off their pedestal by scrappy beach break specialists.
bullshit, there were heaps of Pipe guys getting through, when it was proper Pipe.
Go watch Evan Valiere give Owen Wright a dust up in the QF’s in 2011.
2001 Bruce Irons (1st place)
2004 Brian Pacheco (quarters)
2005 Jamie O’brien (1st place)
2006 Jamie O’brien (semi finals, 5 specialists made the quarters)
2007 (2 specialists made rnd 5 (no semi finals, 2 man quarters > 4 man finals))
2008 ( Kamelei Alexander and Jamie O’Brien in quarters)
2009 (Flynn Novak quarter finals, JJF and Gavin Gillette did well)
2011 (Evan Valliere, Shane Dorian, Jamie Obrien, Kalani Chapman in the quarters
IMO, every WCT event should put in 16 locals. The local community would be more engaged and the WSL would look like the cool older brother.
JBG>HO. 1997.
Given how many locals get in to the event, those stats are pretty pathetic. What about 2012, 2013?
2012: Shane Dorian (quarters)
I clearly remember everyone else getting waxed that year. Most pipe locals lose in rnd 2, of course some will be an exception to the rule.
They might struggle with that in Fiji. Although Glen Hall’s probably got a bit of Fijian in him after the prang on that rock.