No record-smashing eighth crown for Gilmore says "His Holy Frothness".

The former BeachGrit habitué who now steers Surfline in Australia, Nick Carroll, has driven his sword into Stephanie Gilmore’s world title hopes in a sizzling interview on the always heart-quickening Ain’t That Swell podcast. 

Carroll, who is sixty-three and described as “his Holy Frothness” for his storied forty-year-plus career in surf media, made the claim as he gave his characteristically thoughtful analysis of Rip Curl Finals Day, which is gonna be held at Lowers, sometime between September eight and sixteen. 

Asked how he figured Gilmore, who goes into Finals Day ranked fifth and who must beat three other surfers to have a shot at world number one Carissa Moore, would fare, Carroll first, carefully applies a layer of butter. 

“Ah, well, Stephanie, is probably my most favourite surfer in the world world, really, just because she’s got the best style of any surfer in the world and I’m a sucker for that. But…”

But.

“I will say she’s got absolutely no chance of winning this world title.” 

Cue roar of laughter. 

“She’s got some nasty opposition between her and Carissa and I suspect one will take her out at some point. But…”

But. 

“If she was number two, she’d be a serious risk to Carissa. Steph has a lot of surf for here, eight world titles, can you imagine? She’d be the all-time one, then. Imagine would Layne (Beachley, who ties Gilmore for most world titles at seven apiece) would say! But…”

But.

“I can’t see it, it’s too big an ask.” 

Vans, meanwhile, drops a billion in sales!

Az predicted a month back, and set to be revealed in coming days, is VF Corp’s acquisition of the once-iconic surf brands, Billabong, Quiksilver and RVCA. 

Quiksilver, Billabong and RVCA all operate, or operated I suppose now, under the umbrella Boardriders Inc, majority owned by Oaktree Capital, an American global asset management firm

VF Corp, a behemoth in rude fiscal health that owns fifty percent of the US backpack market via its brands North Face, Timberland, Eastpak and JanSport, first had a swing at Billabong in 2013.

VF offered over half-a-billion dollars, before ending the chase when it became “too expensive.” 

Dreams do come true, as they say, and the acquisition by one of the world’s largest apparel, footwear and accessories companies, consolidates VF Corp, which also owns the canvas shoe company Vans, as the hub around which surf fashion now revolves. 

The buy comes amid mass sackings within the company, six hundred jobs shed following an astonishing one-billion dollar drop in sales from the aforementioned Vans, China and supply issues blamed for the probs.

More when the ink dries.

Goodbye Kai?

The seemingly unshakeable friendship between Kai Lenny, the daring multi-discipline surfer with skin the colour of buttered cocoa, and Mark Zuckerberg, the world’s fifth richest man and founder of Facebook, appears to’ve floundered after Lenny’s former tow-buddy shared a video of himself training MMA with UFC debutante Kha “The Shadow” Wu, even calling it “the best sport.”

In the video, Zuckerberg, whose foil-boarding escapades along Kauai’s Ne Pali coast with Lenny had become the stuff of legend, rolls easily through the various disciplines of mixed martial arts, kickboxing, wrestling, jiujitsu, and at one point even arm-bars his quarry.

 

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A post shared by Mark Zuckerberg (@zuck)

Two-div UFC king Conor McGregor put aside his usually corrosive manner to write, “Yo!!! Fucking awesome Mark!”

On a podcast with Joe Rogan last week, Zuckerberg explained the pivot away from surfing.

“From the very first session that I did, like five minutes in, I was like, ‘Where has this been my whole life?’ All right. My mom made me do three varsity sports and my life took a wrong turn when I chose to do fencing competitively instead of wrestling in high school or something…

“There’s just something that’s so primal about it… Since then, I’ve just introduced a bunch of my friends to it. That’s been really fun, because now it’s like we train together and wrestle together. There’s a certain intensity to it that I like. Maybe there’s this cultural thing where a lot of people haven’t considered it. I’ve had 100 percent hit rate of introducing friends to it and converting them to people who now train. Every single person who I’ve shown it to is like, ‘This is amazing. This is obviously how I should be training and working out.’”

No word yet from Lenny who must be reconsidering his comments from a Wired interview just eight months ago where he described his former BFF as “super cool, super into water sport, really active. Super fit. Like … strong, strong strong. Physically strong.”