Tougher than the rest.

There are not many occasions, as surfers, to feel sympathy for our Great White Shark neighbors, the selfsame that nibble our feets and cause us to hop on metaphorical sleds and reset, but there’s a 10-foot li’l nugget, currently swimming off the coast of South Australia, that is so battered, so bruised as to maybe become BeachGrit‘s new mascot.

The amazing footage was captured by underwater cinematographer Dean Spraakman who described the shark as “friendly” but said no one on his team had ever seen a creature in such condition.

“We see sometimes down there the white sharks tracking stingrays because they hunt and eat them and we thought they chase them into shallow reef areas where it’s quite sharp and it might get stuck and cause that sort of damage. You can only speculate what happened there and to be honest no one … ever really knows what causes that sort of damage to a shark, but the poor guy had a bit of a hard time I think. I noticed he had scars on him but I didn’t realise to what length until I reviewed the footage later.”

They wondered if the gouges might have been caused by boat propellers but dismissed the notion and continued to remain befuddled.

National Geographic explorer Professor Yannis Papastamatiou thought some of the wounds might have been from fighting with other sharks saying, “Females are often heavily scarred from mating behaviour but males can get bitten as well during dominance interactions between sharks, eg a larger shark may want a smaller shark and dominate the smaller individual with a non-fatal warning bite.”

Whatever the case, this shark is a working class hero and, you know, some girls, they want a handsome Dan or some good-lookin’ Joe on their arm. Some girls like a sweet-talkin’ Romeo. Well, ’round South Australia, baby, he learned you get what you can get so if you’re rough enough for love, honey, he’s tougher than the rest.

But is it a ploy?

At 1:25 pm, California time, the NFL’s Green Bay Packers will take the field against the Kansas City Chiefs and there will be one dominant storyline. The absence of Packers’ quarterback Aaron Rogers who tested positive for the Covid virus earlier this week. Rogers at the beginning of the season told reporters that he had been “immunized” but had not, in fact, taken one of the three vaccines.

Days ago, last year’s most valuable player decides to address the situation directly.

“I realize I’m in the crosshairs of the woke mob right now, so before my final nail gets put in my cancel-culture casket, I think I’d like to set the record straight on some of the blatant lies that are out there about myself right now,” he told Pat McAfee of the Pat McAfee Show.

“It wasn’t some sort of ruse or lie, it was the truth,” he said about his being immunized, and if further questions had been asked “I would’ve said, ‘Look, I’m not some sort of anti-vax, flat-earther. I am somebody who is a critical thinker, you guys know me, I march to the beat of my own drum, I believe strongly in bodily autonomy.'”

Continuing, “I believe strongly in bodily autonomy and the ability to make choices for your body, not to have to acquiesce to some woke culture or crazed group of individuals who say you have to do something. Health is not a one-size-fits-all for everybody.”

Entirely Slater-esque.

Slater himself went on his own pro-choice campaign, recently, opening various fronts against Instagram commenters, doctors and his fellow professional surfers, telling Australian Ironman Matt Poole, “If I know the risks (informed consent) and I judge the choice to be one that benefits/hurts me based on stats and info and my own ability (health), I can choose accordingly.”

And yet, the world’s greatest surfer has been uncharacteristically silent since Rogers’ dragging began.

Not a peep.

Now, I’m no military tactician, but might the 11x World Champion have seen an opportunity to join forces with Rogers and the very popular Joe Rogan and punch through the fortifications of the pro-life side?

A real Battle of the Bulge moment?

Maybe Slater is waiting until 1:25 California time to announce the attack.

It would be wise.

Erwin Rommel-esque.

Green and gold über alles.

BeachGrit is known to be many things, most importantly anti-depressive, but there is no way to spin recent dark comments from Australian superstar, one-time Championship hopeful Julian Wilson into light. No how to find any such silver lining as the black cloud that just emanated from his handsome mouth covers the sky as far as the eye can see.

For in a sit-down with Australia’s august Daily Telegraph the famous Wilson laid absolute waste to the World Surf League’s “Dream Tour” and also to the hopes any young American, Australian, South African, Frenchman might ever have of winning a championship for themselves.

His revelation of the dystopia came to him during this past summer’s Olympic Games in Tokyo wherein he got to see the future up close.

“The Olympics were better than I imagined,” he began, “And I just felt so much responsibility representing Australia … it was so much bigger than I thought — nothing like a surfing event and I was blown away.Even without spectators it is the biggest event I have surfed at. The athletes village, the Opening Ceremony … the athletes were like avatars, they were such specimens and so primed and just ready for their Olympic moment. And the Brazilians all year have been the ones to beat. With all the changes that have happened with the world tour and the competition schedule …the Brazilians have been too hungry. They are just tenacious and with the waves, most people would say a lot of the waves at world tour events were mediocre this year compared to the standard wave quality, but the Brazilians just stepped up. Until we go back to the full schedule of events they will be hard pressed to beat, they are used to making the most of messy, inconsistent waves.”

Wilson had time to ruminate on the poor quality waves and the Brazilians who surfed them so well during three separate isolation stints totaling three weeks and decided to step away, now fronting Oakley’s “Be Who You Are” campaign which encourages children “that they don’t have to conform, to be brave and embrace who they really are.”

i.e. not a surfing world champion if hailing from America, Australia, South Africa or France.

Green and gold über alles.