Caio Ibelli, seconds after God interfered with judges' computer panels to send his fav boy through. | Photo: WSL

World’s richest fantasy surf league proves ruthless reputation is no joke as it culls an astonishing sixty-four percent of field after second round of the Billabong Pro Pipeline!

The heaviest losses came from Slater (41% of picks), Barron Mamiya (10%), Kanoa Igarashi (4%), Griffin Colapinto (3%) and Italo Ferreira (1%).

Over a thousand people entered the arena of the Surfival League, their dreams shimmering with thoughts of five-thousand American dollars in cash and three custom PANDA surfboards.

Winner take all.

Surfival League was born, of course, after years of surf fans winning the Surfer or WSL’s fantasy leagues and getting stiffed of prizes.

Three years back, we interviewed Shane Starling, a forty-eight-year-old cycling enthusiast, who picked ten of the eleven event winners that year and his victory came and went entirely unremarked and unacknowledged by the WSL.

The first year of Surfival, a handyman from Colorado won a thousand bucks (world champ CJ Hobgood placed second).

Last year, a butcher from Bondi won three-gees and a three-board quiver from PANDA surfboards.

Rules, real simple.

You pick one surfer, they advance past the Round of 32, and you advance. They don’t, you don’t. Winner take all.

Well, the round of 32 just concluded at Pipe and 64% of the league is out.

Six-hundred and forty players from that initial one thousand, gone. 

Usually 10-25% of the league is gutted after each event. 

This year, the heaviest losses came from Slater (41% of picks), Barron Mamiya (10%), Kanoa Igarashi (4%), Griffin Colapinto (3%) and Italo Ferreira (1%).

Who hath angered the Surfival Gods so?

What’s next for those 64% who are out?

Go back to Fantasy Surfer?

That’s no fun!

The Surfival Gods are cooking up a Loser’s League.

And we’re open to ideas.

Whatcha got?


Stab (pictured) enjoying the Pro Pipeline women's quarterfinals. Photo: Shame
Stab (pictured) enjoying the Pro Pipeline women's quarterfinals. Photo: Shame

Subscription surf blog declares women’s Pro Pipeline quarterfinals to be “worst day of surfing all year” in shameful attempt to deflect attention from own Pipe Masters disaster!

Shame.

Is there no depth to which Stab will not dig? No shred of dignity it will not gladly untie and pitch into the slimiest of gutters? Apparently not for yesterday the subscription surf blog proudly stood up and declared it the “worst day of competitive surfing in 2023.”

It was, to be fair, objectively, bad.

The women were sent out into their quarterfinal matchup in complete garbage and the sorry affair needs no recap save to say the new Chief of Sport Jessie Miley-Dyer should apologize to both the surfers and BeachGrit Open Thread: Comment Live community and do so in a heartfelt manner.

But those who live in glass houses…

Stab, let us not forget, was responsible for the absolutely, and I really hate to use this word but, retarded re-imagined Pipe Masters that proudly declared the once second jewel of the Triple Crown as “the world’s best air wave” and trickeration would finally receive its long overdue praise. Air play plus turns plus who even knows what else.

Dumb.*

It was a pointless shake and, adding insult to injury, there were no airs of note other than the space left with a number of notable names pulling out and generally rotten waves throughout the entire window.

And while it did, officially, happen in 2022 it was a whole awful event.

Not as bad as yesterday but also like winning a heat with a 3.45 total and claiming it like an out of control Kanoa Igarashi.

*Retarded


Open Thread: Comment Live on the Bracket Round of the Billabong Pro Pipeline where irritating fans is the jackpot!

It's go time!


VAL (pictured) headed to rent surfboard from rack using his phone. Photo: Full Metal Jacket
VAL (pictured) headed to rent surfboard from rack using his phone. Photo: Full Metal Jacket

Declared “War on Locals” reaches dangerous new phase as San Diego startup rolls out app-based surfboard rack rental system!

When did it go wrong? Difficult to say, exactly, but somewhere between Covid and Ben Gravy.

Grumpy locals, from Maine to Monterey, know that the days of old are absolutely over. Adult learners rule most lineups, paddling out all wrong on lousy soft-tops, jibber-jabbering loudly about their tech jobs, misbelieving that “the best surfer in the water is the one having the most fun.”

When did it go wrong? Difficult to say, exactly, but somewhere between Covid and Ben Gravy and now we have clueless hordes going straight even at places as holy as Waimea without anything to be done. Violence has been cancelled and even stern yellings extremely frowned upon. Light social media shaming is the last available weapon and that, friends, ain’t gonna win the war.

The Duke rolling over in his Newport Beach grave.

Well, things are set to get worse.

A San Diego startup has just unveiled a brand new app-based surfboard rack rental system. You know, like those electric scooter stands that popped up in every major metropolis five-ish years ago.

Per Spectrum News:

To try out surfing, you need a surfboard. And not everyone has one or can get their hands on one, so there could be some logistical challenges.

That’s part of the reason a surfboard rack app-based rental system was developed. It’s called SurfUp, and it’s hoping to make surfing a little more convenient.

The rental rate is 20-cents a minute. It also includes a few free minutes to account for the time it takes to walk from the rack to the sand, and back again for the return.

There are currently three racks around Pacific Beach though I’d imagine fresh ones are already being shipped to the aforementioned Waimea, Ours, Mullaghmore, Teahupo’o etc.

Dark days.


Anderson, as she appeared in Brazil Vogue, and Slater, inset.

Notorious love drug ecstasy blamed for Pamela Anderson’s decision to dump Kelly Slater and marry Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee after four-day courtship despite surfer being her great love, “My skin was melting, I was drugged out!”

“I’d never done [ecstasy] before. I didn’t even know he’d put it in my drink!"

In a jaw-dropping interview, Pamela Anderson has revealed it was the notorious party drug ecstasy, famous for turning whomever is in your immediate vicinity into the greatest love of your life, a drug by turns absurd and compelling, for her decision to dump Kelly Slater and marry glam-rocker Tommy Lee.

Anderson, now fifty-five, tied the knot with Lee after he followed her to Cancun, Mexico, after which she says the drummer spiked her champagne with ecstasy. 

“I’d never done [ecstasy] before. I didn’t even know he’d put it in my drink,” Anderson said in an interview with Dax Shepard on the Armchair Expert podcast. “My skin was melting, I was drugged out.”

And then,

“[Tommy] goes, ‘Do you want to get married? And I go, ‘Absolutely!’”

Anderson, who was supposed to meet Slater’s family in Florida following the shoot, had to call the then twenty-three-year-old two-time world champ and explain why she wouldn’t be swinging by to meet Mama Judy or brothers Stephen and Sean. 

“My first phone call was to him to tell him I was married. He was like, ‘What?’ That was horrible.”

Slater, whose every pectoral and abdominal muscle is still clearly defined and who is still in the full rude vigour of perfect health, is a testimony to the long-term benefits of abstinence, as compared to Lee, now sixty, who is a dried-up stick of a guy, neck shivering with turkey wattles, hair died a sad onyx.

Anderson divorced Lee after a DV beat-down for which he was imprisoned and married another five men in her desperate search for a meaningful love, although no one could compare to Slater.

“He was my big love actually,” says Anderson. “He was such a sweetheart to me, and so good to me.”

Slater, meanwhile, has maintained a steady relationship with Chinese bikini designer Kalani Miller for an astonishing fifteen years. 

The pair are yet to marry but, says Slater, he and Miller plan to wed in the future.