Longtom’s Sam George rebuttal: “Wrong, historically ignorant, disrespectful and dumb!”

Calling it the sloppiest display in Bells Surfing history was both wrong and wilfully flat-earth a-historically ignorant.

We, the Australian Underground Surf Media, have always had, what they call nowadays, a problematic relationship with the George brothers.

I use the Royal We, meaning independent contractors, commenters, plumbers, cube monkeys, tradies, chalkies and others who were traditionally locked out of calling bullshit on the old-style print editors.

Thank God things have changed, evolved even.

We recognize that Sam gave Chas Smith his start in the biz when he backed him on the Yemen escapade. We recognise his brother Matt changed the course of history by backing the revival of paddle-in for big wave surfing in his Hollywood epic In God’s Hands. We recognize their skill in deftly handling pathos and emotion that the Australian man runs a mile from. We recognize the hair and the Navy Seal attitude.

But we don’t come here today to praise Caesar but to bury him.

For his Bells article.

Calling it the sloppiest display in Bells Surfing history was both wrong and wilfully flat-earth a-historically ignorant.

In any argument it’s always the detail that makes it sink or swim. Like the error I made in calling Khabib Nurmagomedov a middleweight, instead of a Lightweight. Instant red flags, instantly marked as a despised “fucking casual”.

George dropped a similar clanger when he tagged the Kelly Slater/Julian Wilson round three matchup as having taken place in “clean, four-to-six-foot Winkipop.”

How could you get that wrong unless you never actually watched the heat, in which case what authority to comment? The heat took place in three-to-four-foot Bells Bowl.

Yes, it was a terrible performance from Wilson, almost unbelievably bad and Kelly was only marginally better.

But that low point should not be used to mar what followed, on the Friday and Saturday.

I wasn’t born the last time four-man heats were in the water at a Bells Beach Easter comp, Rip Curl was still a twinkle in Doug Warbrick’s eye, and yet that innovation on Friday allowed for the best, most entertaining day of competition in Bells Beach history.

That day was the most effective and efficient sorter of wheat from chaff in the last twenty years, Teahupoo excepted.

Wave for wave, ride on ride, as a complete heat, it showcased the best Bells Beach surfing ever seen from it’s two current undisputed masters: John John Florence and Gabriel Medina.

If you could watch that and not be capable of putting it into an historical context of top five or best-ever surfing at Bells then you are a despised casual who has abrogated their right to be taken seriously. Seriously.

Bush league moments abounded.

Owen Wright signed a $1.25 million a year contract with Rip Curl before he could legally buy a drink in the US of A and couldn’t organise a waxed back-up board.

Jeremy Flores was even worse, his hadn’t even made it down the fabled stairs.

Italo almost perished, boards snapped like tooth picks.

It will always be bush league, that is it’s beauty. These people did not, by and large, finish school. Between the desire and the potency, as they say, falls the shadow.

If they would only stop gussying it up and trying to sell it to insurance salesman in Minnesota life would be apples and peaches. But they do and it ain’t. It is, like democracy, the best we’ve got.

For now.

What we got, on finals day, was patchy, but mind-bending performances. The super heat that should have been the final, between John John and Medina, delivered.

We’ve waited for almost twenty years to see a rivalry between two greats at the peak of their powers. Maybe the Pipe Final of 2002 with AI and Slater with Dorian and Fanning playing spoiler was the last one.

Please, look at the two turns Florence did on his 8.87 and tell me Bells has been ridden better.

What Medina did for the opening turn on his best wave on a silky double overhead outside section, carving under the lip at full speed and then adjusting mid-carve to slice across a thirty yard piece of pitching lip before free-falling, is yet to be understood.

Find me an analogue. You’ll search in vain.

A turn like that has never been seen before. He pulled two of them off in that heat, seamlessly.

Perfectly.

It’s true everything else on that day, save maybe John John’s semi-final with Jordy, had the whiff of anti-climax about it.

But that is the nature of the sport.

John was close to spent in the final. It was on a platter for Filipe to take and he haired out. John recalibrated mid-heat when a lesser competitor would have folded and produced two good, not great rides.

It wasn’t the cherry on top, but the cake was already so magnificent it hardly mattered.

Pro surfing is such a slog through so much dross.

When we finally do get great champions operating at the peak of their powers in surf that does them justice it seems, I don’t know, ill-timed, disrespectful, dumb, to call it the sloppiest display in history.