Let's demand a new professional surf format!
Have you been watching Cloudbreak spit its guts at professional surfers but who don’t compete on the World Surf League’s Championship Tour? I don’t like using superlatives, especially when writing about waves other than Pipeline, but… wow! Longtom broke down the juxtaposition between Fiji and Keramas expertly, as he does, drawing on the Scottish-flavored philosophy of David Hume along the way. It is worth a re-read but gave me this thought. You recall how the Keramas event was rebranded the Corona Bali ProTECTED yes? Well don’t you think the WSL should rebrand as the World Surf BEleaguerED?
That’s funny, right?
I think so but back to Fiji and what ought be happening right now. The BEleaguerED should implement, post-haste, the Surf Bout format that David Lee Scales and I discussed on the latest podcast. (Listen here). Quite basically, the model follows boxing or UFC where cards are drawn up based upon matchups both the people and The People™ want. At Cloudbreak yesterday, for example the headliners would have been Kelly Slater vs. Kai Lenny. 3 20 minute rounds. The undercards would have been… I don’t know who else was there? (watch here)
And very seriously, I cannot think of one good reason this format would not be exactly the sort that would work. Hell, some of the undercards could have even been at Keramas. We live in the future now where things can be videoed and broadcast live around the world in real time. Did you know that?
I would have paid 25 bucks for 3 hours of that sort of action. I will pay 0 dollars, though, to watch Julian Wilson vs. Connor O’Leary vs. Anwar Sadat.
What are even the potential bummers of treating competitive surfing like boxing? We’d get great HBO build-ups too. Don’t you want 24/7 starring Gabriel Medina and John John Florence?
Well, don’t you?
This is all very well, but think about Telly Savalas here back in ’73, alone but for a couple of bewildered locals and the tiger sharks.
He’d chartered a, well a canoe basically. No fancy Indies Traders back in those days. A couple of 10 or 11 foot guns strapped to the side.
Telly’s still relatively youthful paunch tanning and newly lit cigar gently sending pungent streamers past the tightly curled hair of the paddlers, who’s bum cheeks might have been even more tightly curled yet.
“What the hell was this white demon doing making them come out here, too close to these thundering waves?” The rest of course is history, and poorly remembered at that. The paddlers now dead, had relayed their story down the generations, but Telly mostly kept schtum.
…
Just fly in Wassel, a camera man and a satellite dish and let the good times roll.
Where do I swipe my credit card for access to the live feed?
…in your face, Nick Carroll, and your derision of similes.
like a thing that is like another thing, it is a thing.
like an air thing. I get it now. You know, it’s all ball bearings nowadays. Now you prepare that Fetzer valve with some 3-in-1 oil and some gauze pads, and I’m gonna need ’bout ten quarts of anti-freeze, preferably Prestone. No, no make that Quaker State. Speaking of quackers, how ’bout that Kelly guy. The flow dat fish swims against…wow! Shits outta left field
Lots of complaining lately about WSL, and some of it and maybe all of it is warranted, but how lucky I feel to be able to watch contests live from around the world, and it’s pretty good… about what I would expect for surfers. Not great but okay. Like lodging at a surf camp. It’s no fucking Ritz Carlton, but I’m not complaining. Coming from the 80’s on up, I would never have imagined this, and now that we’re here, I don’t think we hear enough guffawing about how fucking good we have it now. I know this is tired old man writing here, but damn, I’ll take the coverage. It’s too tempting to say fire Strider and hire Barton, but I’ll hold off for now. But no, really, fire Strider and hire Barton. WTF was he carrying that board around the ranch for? Shit, okay. Back to the positive. How lucky… and fucking Cloudbreak!!! How is there no contest at fucking Cloudbreak this year. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST. Talk about Mother Nature highlighting that colossal duff. That was a chip shot from the short stuff and they hit the ball backward. How have we ended up with a non-endemic CEO? Surfers are so stupid we hired a non-surfer to run our league. That’s like SAG hiring Harvey Weinstein to run their union. It’s no surprise that 5 out of 6 commitments made by surfers are loose, unpredictable, and impotent, just like the fucking WSL with its long battle with staying relevant, even with the gift of the World Wide Web and live streaming. We’re so lucky. Gonna watch some Karamas and suck down a beer.
hopefully you gonna choke on that bottle and pass out…
Thanks, man. You’re sweet.
I wish that wave clip was just normal speed. Personally I like raw footage.
Can someone advise on a good simple website to see some other decent clips from Fiji? I ain’t got the feels for insty, too old perhaps, me.
Swellnet has a bunch
Ta!
The Hawaiian Midget™ just got barrelled. Apparently using midget is derogatory.
And change the judging scale to out of 100, including decimals to two places, so the judges can make it even more confusing to the public. And even easier to rig for betting.
That poor man with his poor foot. He should file for workman’s comp. Thoughts and prayers Ke11y.
25 bucks for three hours in front of a computer, that’s too much if you’re paying, or not enough if you’re getting paid. I’ll give one dollar for a three minutes edit of the session.
This whole pro surfing stuff does not sound like a great business plan. Most of the non surfing people I know would ask to be paid to watch surfing, and actual surfers don’t give a shit. But most of those people in both categories are older than Kelly Slater. Maybe the youngsters are ready to pay? Good for them, then…
If some company like I dunno.. the wsl had live streamed Fiji yesterday, christ.. with those waves and chargers out there getting bombs who wouldn’t pay, that’s really the proposal. Days of notice for this day too..WSL lift your game cunts.
Isn’t this what the BIG WAVE TOUR is for ?
Maybe it is.
I’d rather see a lot of guys who want to be there rather than some nazi outfit come in and tell em – noo you can’t surf, this is ours for a week.
There’s enough of that shit already.
Fuck that.
Fuck the big wave tour, I want to see all the baddest big wave surfers on this insane cloudbreak swell. Not just the same handful of dudes.
I pray to God that someone set up a sick fucking camera angle and just filmed straight for 30 minutes of peak swell. I could watch that clip from the Code Red swell in 2012 with Kelly narrating for 30 minutes. That shit was the realest.
there is no god…
I prefer the idea that a bunch of adrenaline obsessed chargers make their own way there to take it on, rather than the sanctified wsl big wave tour guys taking it over. There’ll be some previously underground names made during this fiji swell, which wouldn’t happen with the wsl.
I’m with you on Sadat.. but Manachem Begin had some serious rail game
I’d like to see this undercard, with appropriate marketing:
Kaipo Vs Cote – “Do or Die”. Winner gets a permanent gig with a mic.
Blakey Vs Raspberry – “Winner buys Dinner” Bragging Rights Match
Pottz Vs Condor – “Battle of the Former World Champs”
Turp Vs Hodge – “Battle of the Sexes”
Williams Vs Snake – “Coaches Grudge Match”
Is Turp vs. Rosy really a battle of the sexes though? Surely it’s more of blonde vs. brunette thing.
Sadat literally was cannon fodder.
I would happily pay to watch JDub , Connor O (who offered me a go of his 5’5” CI at John Davey’s reef 2 weeks ago) and the former Egyptian President ,the first Muslim to win the Nobel Peace Prize.Take over Nixon’s ( the president not the watch ) old house and stick em out at Trestles and see what happens . Could invite Shaun Tomson to commentate to give it a Camp David feeling and possibly end the Mick Chas feud while he is at it ?
Thanks for clearing up the bit about the watch/president.
Can we get Golda Meir in the ladies draw??
The more the merrier. It’s ladies day every Sunday and she should be well rested after Shabbat.