Australian surfers crash to historic lows;
Hawaiians dominate tour!
We witnessed a lot through the couple good days of
competition at Sunset, including too many competitors riding shitty
equipment, the continued ebb of Australian surfing, and the rise of
the Hawaiians.
How does all that impact the rankings?
Find out!
36. Liam O’Brien/Yago Dora
Absent the entire year so far, neither has really contributed any
surfing to the Tour. In Yago’s case, that’s a shame.
35. Morgan Cibilic
Funny how the announcers keep asking if one of the rookies could be
this year’s Morgan Cibilic (saying both names is paramount!).
Here’s hoping for them that they aren’t. Don’t want them shitting
the bed next year.
34. Carlos Muñoz
Injured and out of Portugal. Get better, my friend. We would rather
see you fall off Tour on merit.
33. Ryan Callinan
Poor Ryan, having to coax his battered, oft broken spiderweb
skeletal system to perform in Hawaii only to be thoroughly
destroyed by Deivid Silva… bummer.
32. Callum Robson
Surfing like a statue suffering a bad case of camptocormia, Callum
lost to the once future-and-caveated-and-heavily-excused savior and
fellow Australian, Jack Robinson, in the Round of 32. His existence
on Tour is merely to function as further evidence of the ongoing
and in progress slow extermination of Oz as a surf superpower.
Queen Ozma is dead and cannot save them.
31. Imaikalani deVault
A terrible two-event start for the rookie. Suffering a severe case
of the fallzies, otherwise known as The Michel Bourez Staple,
Imaikalani wasn’t able to make it out of the Round of 32, after
looking rather sharp in his Opening Round heat. Had to knock him
down a few spaces for the uninspired/lame board spray.
30. Lucca Mesinas
Surfing frontside definitely a weakness for Lucca, who appeared to
have been following a strict script on every single wave he caught
at Sunset, the list of maneuvers just to be checked off: takeoff
fade, bottom turn, flaccid cutback two feet under the lip (with
pronounced arm movement), a non-lip hitting turn or two, and fall
or pull out.
29. Jackson Baker
Jackson performed well in his heat against Jordan, surfing a longer
board that looked like it was created with the input of old
keyboard warriors who can’t fathom adequately riding anything
sub-6’8”, but still lost. Still, looked pretty good.
28. Frederico Morais
A pre-event favorite (or every single person’s darkhorse), the
Pride of Portugal lost to Jaddy. That’s damning enough. Hopefully
home treats him better.
27. Leonardo Fioravanti
Another Euro with a disappointing result. I would say something
making fun of the fact that he’s Italian, as that is one of only
three things I know about him (the other two being that he is
friends with Kanoa and that he sometimes wears his hat backwards),
but saying he’s really more Luigi than Mario is not funny.
26. Owen Wright
A dead last place finish for O-Dawg. Why did they waste a wildcard
on him? Another Wright mystery. Fuck.
25. Miguel Pupo
After a semi-final appearance at Pipe, Miguel tumbled his way back
down toward the bottom. Not that he surfs like the guy or that he
definitely has had greater competitive success than him, but Miggy
just made me think of Miky Picon. I think it’s the losing part.
24. Nat Young
Natty powered his much fawned over (by Ross) powerful thighs to a
shitty scoring Round of 16 loss to Seth Moniz. Along with his
California compatriot in the next spot, Nat’s place on Tour serves
as a reminder that the Eldorado State produces a lot more sand and
gravel than gold these days.
23. Conner Coffin
With two seventeenths in Hawaii and being outsurfed by a
professional receding hairline, Conner must not be feeling too
comfortable about the cut. The generational wealth should help.
22. Connor O’Leary
He had his singlet ripped off in one of his heats… gnarly.
21. Jake Marshall
Discharging his opponents, which included John John, on his way to
a quarterfinal finish, young Jake had Scott Bass involuntarily
ejaculating his pants repeatedly.
20. João Chianca
After exciting everyone at Pipe, João fell back down to Earth at
Sunset. I’m sure there is something else I could say…
19. Samuel Pupo
Surfed well against current commentator apparent masturbation aid,
Ethan Ewing, young Sammy didn’t really prove anything, except for
that he’s pretty good (could be argued he should’ve won) and
reminding everyone of how absolutely rank claims aimed at juicing
scores are
18. Griffin Colapinto
Another bad result for Griff, who could easily blow 90% of the tour
out of the water just surfing, but instead opts to ride shitty
equipment and follow the advice of whoever his dumbass coach on
“heat strategy” on his way to losing earlier than he should. Trent
at the Home Depot in Mission Viejo is licking his lips at the
thought of further Griff failures.
17. Shadow of Gabriel Medina Inside the Mind of Italo
Ferreira
Absent the canvas to boost and surf like his jittery, exciting
self, instead surfing looking like Beau Emerton’s cadaver, Italo
suffered yet another early round loss. While I’m sure he doesn’t
give a fuck about what Gabe is doing or whether he would care for
the comparison, I can’t help but watch every Ferreira heat through
the lens of “how would Medina perform?” in the same conditions
(answer: probably a lot better).
Without Gabe competing, Italo is far and away the best goofy on
Tour and with no one else within sniffing distance of his level of
excellence to measure him against as a relative equal, it’s hard
not to view his performance through that perspective. Is this
something I’ve latched onto a little too closely because I lack any
other faux interesting thing to say? Probably. Hopefully the
back-to-back defending MEO champ can snap out of it.
16. Matthew McGillivray
So many people to talk about and pretend to have a take on (or
their ridiculous 9.0 scores), I can only say that to sum up my
feelings here would be to reference the word, “doldrums.”
15. Deivid Silva
I don’t care what the heat scores may say (others may have had
better totals, I don’t really know), but Deivid was easily the best
goofy out at Sunset… the benefit of looking like a garden gnome on
huge waves probably helps… just ask Tom Carroll.
14. K-Hole Andino
Another year, another disappointment for the narrative that K-Hole
is a legitimate World Title Contender, which everyone realizes is a
fantasy.
13. Zeke Lau
Nice result for the Don-From-Napoleon-Dynamite-Vibe Hawaiian, even
if he was one of the pre-event favorites. A quarterfinal is good
for his re-qualification chances.
12. Jack Robinson
“If only the waves were huge like the first day.”
Has a more excused surfer ever existed on the World Tour, one
held in such unearned high esteem as to exist in a state of
permanent absolution for his inability to perform? I’d argue
no.
Jackie’s under-performances are always rationalized away,
usually by people saying stuff like the above quote, nothing is his
fault. Understanding that people really think this these excuses
are reasonable I ask: if a surfer ALWAYS requires perfect
conditions in order to do well and destroy his opponents, doesn’t
that mean he’s probably not as great as you think he is?
11. Ethan Ewing
A very good contest for Andy, who surfed his way, in his usual
overly polished fashion, all the way to the semi-final, to every
single commentator’s onanistic joy! Beating Fil, whose turns I much
preferred, in the Round of 16 on the strength of one extra
turn.
10. John John Florence
With his loss to Jake Marshall in the Round of 32, I had to drop
him a bit. Not as low as I probably should’ve, but I’m not worried
about him. He’ll turn it around.
9. Kelly Slater
After a Round of 32 loss that saw him get an interference against
John John in the overlapped heat, Kelly Slater cried in his
post-heat interview about hating Sunset. No, he didn’t really cry
about it, rather he just pointed out that he doesn’t like the place
while assigning it personhood in a
semi-serious-do-not-really-understand-how-to-deliver-jokes way.
8. Jadson Andre
Every heat Jaddy surfs on Tour is a gift to him and an inspiration
to everyone watching, proving just because you’re not the best as
what you do, you can still make something of yourself.
7. Caio Ibelli
In the process of writing up these unsolicited Power Rankings, it
is sometimes hard to come up with stuff to say about the actual
surfing they do, as most of the time there is no real analysis to
be had, as most often the guys suck or just didn’t surf well for
whatever reason. Because of this, a lot of what I write seems
shallow, like how I order people heavily based on simple results
and how I might focus too much on making fun of someone’s looks or
persona. What does this have to do with Caio other than that he’s
ranked this high because he made the semis and is balding? I don’t
know.
6. Jordan Michael Smith
Another Sunset favorite who didn’t do as well as he should’ve,
Jordan is having a Jordan year. Ranked highly because he should do
fine in cold water and be better over the next three events.
5. Seth Moniz
Another solid result for Seth, who eeked out a few squeakers to a
quarterfinal finish that has him tied for second position on the
leaderboard after two events. .
4. Barron Mamiya
The lack of exaggerated hype around Barron coming on Tour into the
year, while understandable, considering his participation would
come through wildcards rather than formal qualification, is
surprising. Every rising star entering the big leagues, from Owen
in 2010 to the Reincarnation of Andy in 2017, had more hype
surrounding their entry to elite competition. Whatever the reason
for this, it doesn’t really matter, he’s number one right now. He’s
not ranked higher because of the uncertain status of his continued
participation this year due him being only an injury replacement at
this point.
3. Kanoa Igarashi
A nice runner-up result for the young American Japanese Portaguese
dynamo. Maybe the local boy can produce some magic at the MEO.
2. Filipe Toledo
According to Pancho Sullivan in a story on the WSL website from
2017, “For the better part of 30 years Sunset Beach was surfing’s
spiritual proving ground.” Its reputation as a proving ground
carried through the contest, which confirmed one important fact
about professional surfing: Filipe is the best surfer in the world
on rail. There’s no real debate. Doing better in Hawaii than people
expected he would, he should be able to surf his way to Trestles
comfortably.
1. Makuakai Rothman
Easily the biggest winner of the contest at Sunset, where he became
the best commentator the WSL has to call events, supplanting
one-time Best Surf Commentator, Ross Williams, who probably at this
point is too compromised (John John’s coach) to be considered any
good.
Throughout the contest he was the only person in the booth who
even attempted to analyze anything going on like in one instance
that I remember (don’t know what heat) when he was explaining the
different sections of the reef and how each should theoretically be
approached, clearing the low bar set by others who usually can only
say something stupid like “oh, this guy’s surfing well…”.
The WSL should keep Makua on, probably limited to the Hawaii leg
to avoid his overexposure.
It will be interesting to see who the WSL has as part of the
commentary team for Portugal. My hope is that somehow Ben Mondy can
play the part of Rosy and have to take a post-heat interview with
Slater. The GOAT surfer with the WOAT surf power rankings
writer.
Delicious.