Niggling boredom, jarring resentment…
The Rumble at the Ranch: it’s not an ideal moniker, let’s be honest.
There wasn’t much heat in the first WSL comp for 148 days, since Leo Fioravanti took the W in late afternoon onshore two-foot surf at Manly on pro surfing’s darkest day.
There was much potential for some sly sexiness, beautiful bodies doing beautiful things will always draw the eye no matter where you are on the sexual spectrum. But the Wozzle bobbled the potentially most dramatic moment: when the couples are revealed. By going prematurely on that announcement they robbed the beginning of the day of any kind of anticipation which might natively belong to it.
As for the rest?
The wave and the surfing it has now produced for four competitions spanning many hundreds of rides has changed very little.
Filipe Toledo produced the best ride with a pigeon pair of alley-oops during the Final, same as he did in 2018.
I swore off watching after last years snooze-fest.
A comp rescued only by the imperiousness of Gabriel Medina and, in retrospect, by the bone-deep weird combination of Kelly Slater and his Australian “friend” Charlie Goldsmith. That was compelling viewing in a way that was not touched by anything that went down today.
God knows why I expected anything else.
“This time it’ll be different” is the thought of anyone in an unhealthy relationship.
And it never is.
We’re five years into this thing now.
Five long years.
The gap between the rhetoric, that tubs were going to loose a tsunami of radical innovative surfing, and the reality, conservative surfing, is becoming clearer every day. It’s become what Orwell termed the “inadmissible fact.” It’s put us in upside down world, where Chris Cote, when he hears the train says, “ This never gets old” means “there’s something deeply wrong here but I can’t dare acknowledge it”.
Five years.
Can someone on the pro wavepool side of the argument explain to me why, given the basic repeatability of the wave, some new trick is not conceived, mastered and then executed to a stunned judging panel ala vert skating or snowboard half-pipe?
Wasn’t that the whole point?
That with the randomness of the ocean taken out of the equation we would see moreoreless choreographed “runs”?
Not the same two alley-oops that we saw two years ago.
The same combinations of turns for the same sevens that we were promised salvation from?
My admittedly tiny straw poll of the sexiest couple, ala Olympic Figure Skating, dubbed Filipe and Coco the clear winners.
OK, that was Derek Rielly, but a finer judge of sexy couples, would be hard to find.
I think we can agree on that.
Sage and Kelly also cut a very fine couple in the Steinbeckian heat shimmer.
Was anyone watching?
I couldn’t find a heartbeat amongst the surfers at my local for it. Facebook registered 11, 700 viewers during Kelly’s semi-final runs.
Pretty respectable numbers for live pro surfing. Especially on a Monday morning in Aus.
My viewing experience was unpleasant.
Site crashed every second wave, app no better. I watched more Sally Fitz shilling Boost Mobile than live surfing. It was a test of endurance, despite the whole thing being run and done in four hours. That has to be the future of the Basin game: novelty events, mixed doubles.
It don’t hold up as a full scale CT venue.
A QS would feel like a jail sentence.
Any highlights worth a re-watch?
Check out Filipes double twirlybird in the Final, for completeness. Kanoa’s Nine was the most technically well surfed wave. Tatiana-Weston Webb’s 7.93 was a little herky-jerky but siphoned off a very fine tube ride. The Derek Ho tribute wave which opened proceedings where Kelly muscled people off the wave and then pulled in will confirm all your impressions of the King circa 2020, for good or ill.
I thought, a little more grace from the GOAT on his home-turf would have been appropriate.
When you strip out the ocean and the possibility of anything that adds unexpected drama to pro surfing, a Medina brain explosion, lulls, a heat-winning ride in the final seconds, sharks, coral etc etc, it boils down to a bland formula.
For the viewer, a dull ache of unrealised desire at the deathless sight of that impossibly perfect wave that fades with each wave to be replaced with niggling boredom and a jarring resentment.
Or, no?
Watch the four-hour replay here.
I thought Felipe’s wave (I instinctually almost called it a “run” instead of a wave) with the varial to switch barrel was innovative. It was nice to see a creativity that competitive surfing generally lacks. Older non skateboarding commentators and judges won’t recognize it which is too bad. The wave pool exposes how uncreative competitive surfing is. Felipe added creativity the wave pool allowed, but the commentators didn’t get why that’s important.
I noticed that too.. micro slabby number.
I’ll tell you Tomson….. Its not free to go and practise in whenever you want. Most pro skaetboarders have honed their skills as kids by putting in hours at the skatepark practising the same thing over and over till they get it.
Pro-surfers – they were groms putting in the hours of surfing ankle-snapping onshore previously.
Pay-pools and the capitalist instinct behind them are worse than boring – they are a major threat to our sport. All pools require capital investment, and unless and until we have government sponsored, free to ride pools for the kids, you can forget about innovation…. (unless we only want to foster the talents of rich kids…. then Adriano should not have surfed….)
They need to make it more entertaining. Say they let spectators ride on the train and throw crap at the surfers to try and Knock them off as well as some hidden minefield they need to negotiate or blow up and become covered in green slime.
How ya doing Nick D?
Possibly inspired by Cheyne‘s 82 OP pro winner against Shaun the Prawn .
The most exciting part of the contest was when my mate Paul made a joke about jizzing on Rose’s tits on our ‘Surfing’ WhatsApp group
(That was an interesting comment on purpose)
They need to somehow change the format so there’s more risk involved so it’s more interesting , safety surfing is boring. They can’t do this with a wave every 3 minutes or whatever though. Would like to see a contest in one of the other pools where there’s loads of waves.
(That was a boring comment on purpose)
I watched five waves and flicked it.
For me I dont find the wave boring but rather the surfers approach to it.
Safety safety same same boring boring.
WSL has tied the pool to it’s longest mast .
It’s not going to be half as important or make half the money zoff has been convinced it should.
It was like watching a nil all childrens soccer game…but not quite as exciting.
make a pool with sets of 4 / 5 waves at 12′ and ill watch…
Brah what’s wit da pinnies? Look like some ice skatahs
“Once upon a time, a man bought a Bugatti and a Toyota Previa.
The Bugatti, being far too nice and far too clean, paralyzed the man in fear as the pressure of driving let alone scratching the door handle upon entry was all too much. The Previa, on the other hand, was a total turd and it was with reckless abandon that the man whipped, tipped, rolled, and launched it into flames of glory and debaucherous ruckus until one day the wheels fell off nearly decapitating enthralled onlookers in the process.
The ranch wave is far too nice & far too clean. Give me Previa or give me death”
– F Scott Fitzgibbons
Long time lurker…I finally had to sign up for a Disqus account to post this. I tried to watch a wave or two when my 5 year-old came over and said this:
“I’d rather watch This Old House than watch these guys lose.”
does anybody have a timestamp for that? Missed it and would love to go back and see it in context
oh, weird, removing nature from the equation makes surfing stupid and boring who could have guessed
chlorophyll more like borophyll
It sucks you had to watch this Longtom. A true bummer
Can we see commentary and opinion from some pro-wavepoolers please? It’s real easy to hate on it, like all the BG staff does, using the predictable criticism that the wave is “predictable”. See how good you are at debate, and defend the ranch. I for one, think its enjoyable to watch – certainly more so than some “real” waves on the tour. You know, like the one they hold in South America, that with all the shifts and changes in the tour is still on the docket.
Feel free to have a go. What’s stopping you?
Why not move the take off spot up a few poles so they aren’t just doing scoreless s-turns for the first 5 seconds? Make em take off where the wave starts throwing a little, like they have to at a real tour stop. But I still enjoy watching good surfers ride that wave, predictable as it may be. Except for ADS…
Say what you want about the wave, the production of this broadcast was a disaster. Months to prepare and this is the best they can do? The feed kept dropping, the ad rotation was mind-numbing, the same silly banter from the announcers, etc. In the real world heads would roll after a performance of that ineptitude. Embarrassing.
SIMPLE SOLUTION: Keep the Mixed Team format. Add simple strategy to it. Let’s use Filipe and Coco since they won.
•• Two rights and two lefts per team until Finals. Finals: Four rights and Four Lefts. Two, 10pt sections (outside and inside) on each wave. Max 20 point wave score.
•• First wave – Filipe is on the outside. If he doesn’t feel he did shit… he raises his hand (Indicating he will kick out) and Coco takes off at the midway point to try and add more points or could fall and just blow it. There is more pressure involved.
•• If Filipe is having a cracker… he waves off Coco and he rides the entire wave. If he fucks up and falls after waving Coco off, he should get his ass booed.
•• Since he rode the entire wave, that means at one point Coco is going to have to ride a full wave as well out of the next 3 waves. So you better make damn sure you being a ball hog like the late, great Kobe Bryant and not passing the ball is worth it.
•• On the subsequent left, Coco goes first with Filipe waiting at halfway point. Same options.
•• If they have 4 full length sled pulls total, at the very most/or worse depending how you view it, it will be like yesterday’s event and each surfer could ride 2 full waves max (which might result in repetitive boringness or 4 crackers, or multiple chokes, falls and boos). At the “Best” it would be each surfer rides 4 half length waves – which shorter length and alternating sections could eliminate repetitiveness. They get performance sections on the outside and tubes and room for one hail mary maneuver on the inside when they switch positions. At the “Very Best/Most exciting”… it is full strategy and they could take a full length ride on purpose to leave it up to the last surfer to go big or go home on the very last wave of the heat. It’s like sending a field goal kicker out to kick a 55yarder to win the game. It’s also strategy as to who starts the rotation – as in the better surfer now matters and whether they have a stronger frontside or backside will decide what direction you want to end up on for your last wave.
•• The surfer on the 2nd half will get a crack no matter what if the outside surfer falls. So it will encourage the surfer on the outside to go big. If Filipe goes for a Alley oop on his first move and lands it, he might as well go for a superman on the next section. If he falls, Coco goes anyway. If he lands both airs, (thinking high 9 or 10pt score already) he can wave Coco off and go for ANOTHER perfect 10 for an 18-20pt ride.
•• If Coco goes first, she might as well do a couple of safety turns and try and air and fail for a 5pt ride. Filipe is able to get a 10 on any section, so they could still end up with a 15pt ride. Just like in basketball… a Star player can carry a team. But the role player is still important and it will ultimately still take a team effort to win.