Erik Logan, are you watching?
The Billabong Pro Pipeline née Masters is but hours away and as much as we may want to excite, thrill, at our heroes back in singlets, a certain exhaustion looms. Oh, professional organized surfing is a fun-adjacent way to kill a work day but, let’s be honest with each other, how many heats are actually worth watching?
How many surfers, themselves, are (a fact made truly clear with Karl Von Fanningstadt’s brilliant Power Rankings)?
Does Leonardo Fioravanti vs. Deivid Silva vs. Nat Young (heat 12) get your heart pumping? What about Frederico Morais vs. Miguel Pupo vs. Jackson Baker (heat 8)?
Morgan Cibilic vs. Connor O’Leary vs. Caio Ibelli (heat 3)?
Italo Ferreira vs. Callum Robson vs. Miguel Tudela (heat 5)?
No because rarely do we get to see the surfers we want battling each other or the surfers we want full stop.
The World Surf League tried to remedy by introducing the “Final’s Day” concept which works well enough (minus Lower Trestles) except why was it not pushed further? Why was the very idea of seeding based upon standing tossed into the trash and lit on fire?
Take snowboarding’s Natural Selection, currently underway in gorgeous Jackson Hole, Wyoming (watch day one here). Now I know that your eyes roll when I get to talking about snowboarding but the tour’s format is simply superior. There is, first, no qualifying series. The snowboarders are chosen and generally the ones fans want to see. There is, second, no seeding. The events begin with gathering of riders wherein one name is drawn. That man, or woman, then chooses whom she, or he, will go head to head against. Repeat until the bracket is finished.
But what utter joy. The selection of opponent is a fun bacchanal but just underneath the surface, tension reigns. The competitors whose names are drawn generally choose whom they think they can beat leading to lightly pricked egos leading to added fire on the first run day.
Each rider gets two laps, loser goes home.
As there are no Miguel Tudela equivalents, each heat is worth watching and imagine the glee we professional surf fans would experience if this was adopted by our WSL. Whom would tanned, rested and ready Kelly Slater select? What about young Ivan Florence? Mason Ho would certainly be invited and whom would he select?
Tell me this would not be much better than our current Griffin Colapinto vs. Liam O’Brien vs. Matthew McGillivray (heat 2).
Tell me this is not what you’d prefer.
I wish I could get a gorgeous dollar bill for every time you gorgeously used the word gorgeous. It would be, ummm, gorgeous
I’ve never seen a contest more consciously designed to elevate it’s creator. 2 years in a row Travis has been beat in the first round but still won his heat. He literally designed the “natural” course that half the riders have never ridden, which is all to his advantage. Inviting non competitive riders who put out more inspiring footage than him is a great to help Travis elevate his profile above there!s too. It is super funny listening to Travis cuss when he eats it then listen to the commentators quickly make excuses for him. Interesting too that Chas criticizes the WSL putting women out at pipe with out investing in them to succeed, while The riding similarly struggled during Travis’s own contest. Regardless I still enjoyed Natural Selection, even though I just felt sorry for most the competitors. Being able to pick and hamstring the competitors should allow Travis to maintain his profile for years to come. Bravo!
You must have never seen the Freshwater Pro in Lemoore, CA presented by Michelob Ultra Pure Gold.
I have seen it, big difference is Kelly didn’t get to pick the competitors. It’s a similar dynamic for sure, but Natural Selection seems even more weighted in favor of the founder to me. Listening to the commentators squirm when Travis goes down is very entertaining though. I’ll say Natural selection is way more entertaining than the pool . Love seeing pro’s able to get by on tricks that were the norm in the 90’s. It’s more relatable than the quadrillion cork 19 billions being thrown around these days.
It is Travis’ concept and contest, and its backed by just about every respectable rider out there. He lost last year, and the scores were very close this year, because the competitors were evenly matched like all the other heats. Feeling sorry for the other riders who lost is like feeling sorry for the guys who come in 3rd and 4th in a 4 man heat at pipe. Most people are grateful to be there.
I felt sorry for riders who had never ridden the course before. Getting the right speed for jumps is everything. Hitting jumps where you can’t see the landing from the take off for the first time in crummy conditions is a huge disadvantage.
This is not what i would prefer, if you dont like the early rounds dont watch them, tune in from the 1/4’s on
Shit tier take: snowboarding tricks don’t count cause you are attached to your board.
Should have had a separate heat for cancelled pro’s like Terje, Mueller, and Shaun White. Also, shame on Nicolas Mueller’s agent for not telling him to keep his crazy conspiracy theory stuff under wraps. Bummed to see one of my favs cab rodeo 9 off the deep end like that.
Great to see that you know “eyes roll” when you discuss some of your snow stuff Chasdzy…
Cheers
Natural Selection is a great concept but the first day sucked. The snow was unmanageable and the riders weren’t feeling it at all. Commentary is Turpel-esque with the exception of Bridges.
Marriage sure is a bitch. On one hand, Chas has to publish this. Marital duties and all. Yet the answer to his grievances is Stab High or Stab100: brain child of Ashton and co. But if he were to credit them, which we all know he can’t, he’d be crediting the man who spoke bitterly about Chas’ wife. Marital duties and all.
There are no winning moves, friend.
Mother Nature sure can be a bitch too. Let’s say hypothetically that it had dumped 2-3 feet in the days leading up to the event (like it did last year), what could you conjure up about Chas’ marital obligations then? Also, Mr. Kotsenburg seemed to manage just fine on that cab 9 he threw down on the final jump in his tiebreaking run. Go have a sift through the social media accounts of the athletes and I think you’ll find that none of which “weren’t feeling it at all”.
Oh aye, I’m sure they’re going to slander a high profile event they’ve been lucky enough to get invited to on their social channels.
Maybe you should have a sift through social media to try and get a grasp on what it is.
The surf and snowboard industry is one big network of free trips and bro deals. Negativity is not tolerated.
Thanks for your insight Chazzy. Can’t help but point out your use of the terms “lucky” and “invited” in your little quip here. Tell me how you really feel.
That they’re lucky to get invited to a high profile “invite only” event because it’ll make their sponsors happy and keep them relevant?
Nevermind the hard work it took to achieve a level of skill that is recognized by a group of your peers to be chosen to compete in a high profile event. You can always count on luck!
The reality is IF really want natural selection to come into play while in Jackson there is only one event worth of consideration:
A chinese downhill that starts at the tram and goes right into Corbetts with the finish line at the Mangy Moose. All other events are for poseurs!
Very perceptive
Honestly, I took some solace in that the snowboard world had to put up with cringeworthy productions too.
I think there’s a conflict of interest here, if Chas had written a critical review of this event, would this have detrimentally affected his home life?
I look forward to Nat Young’s return…. he has been absolutely killing it and he’s intelligent enough to identify what went wrong his first run….
Colapinto will be in the 5 discussion for the foreseeable future. Get used to it. I want to see that kid charge Pipe. Fuck yeah.
Leo and Frederico charge. I may not watch their heats at Margies, but Pipe, yes. Hell.
Maybe it’s cool and groovy for snowboard audiences to critique pro surfing, I share that with them. But they just want to clown or demean and I wanna see this WSL mess cleaned up and what real professional surfing would look like.
My eyes roll when I think of you (Chas) snowboarding at Jackson. Sorry.
Someone has to be an audience.
The most over hyped and underviewed events in action sports. But similar in that both anchored by sugar daddies to fund them. They should push the event a week for real snow and not compete on dust-on-crust. All speed checks and coming in way too hot on landings. They will end a few competitors season likely. Ask the red bull guys how the views stack up against their other events – they definitely aren’t capturing the snow world to nearly the level they do with other sports.
Sal Masekela commentating is wrong for snowboarding and surfing.
Worst in the game.
You may have hypoxia.
I’ve snowboarded my whole life and I’m way more stoked to watch pipe. Also snowboarding is actually way behind surfing / WSL. Surfing is rad because it has an act tour that declares a world champion. Snowboarding is just random events ie x games, dew tour, natural selection but nothing that ties it all together. I know beach grit loves to hate on WSL but to act like snowboarding is the one that has its act together is a joke.
Don’t worry mate Soph will sort snow sports out for ya.
we get the WSL for free but its never enough for people, could easily end up with nothing