The future was yesterday!

Kelly Slater, Kelly Slater, Kelly Slater, etc. but did you really think the world’s greatest surfer would actually go away, could actually leave after becoming decapitated after the much ballyhooed mid-season cut?

Ha!

After quietly changing the rules under cover of darkness, the World Surf League has come into the light and gifted our 11x champion a golden ticket into the season’s remaining events plus the entire beginning of next year’s campaign.

Per the sizzling hot press release:

MARGARET RIVER, Western Australia, Australia (Thursday, April 27, 2023) – Kelly Slater (USA) and Johanne Defay (FRA) have been awarded the WSL Season Wildcards for 2023/2024. The Season Wildcards gives Slater and Defay entry into Championship Tour (CT) events following the Mid-season Cut and entry into the first half of the 2024 CT season. Miguel Pupo (BRA) and Brisa Hennessy (CRC) have been awarded the 2024 WSL Season Wildcards, which gives entry to all competitions in the first half of the 2024 CT season.

Slater, as a former World Champion, and Defay, as a previous Final 5 competitor, will earn ranking points as the Season Wildcards and thus will be eligible for the WSL Final 5 rankings, where the Top 5 surfers on the men’s and women’s CT will compete in the Rip Curl WSL Finals to compete for the 2023 World Title. Slater’s ranking points will also give him the opportunity to compete for provisional qualification for the Olympic Games Paris 2024. Defay’s provisional qualification for the Olympics was confirmed last week at the Western Australia Margaret River Pro.

The WSL is the Tier 1 pathway to qualification for the world’s best surfers to the Olympic Games. Of the 48 athletes competing in the games, the Top 18 competitors (10 men and 8 women) will qualify via the 2023 WSL Championship Tour’s final rankings. Each country can only qualify a maximum of two men and two women.

Wow.

Ish.

While stupidity and questionable behavior reigns supreme in Santa Monica, Slater being allowed to continue to waffle around in the public eye was a foregone conclusion. The now obviously failing league clearly needs the world’s greatest surfer more than he needs it…

…oh hell. It’s a proper embarrassing junk show all around. Slater is only, and maybe not even anymore, a threat in heavily barreling lefts. One remains on tour. And while sitting champion Filipe Toledo is too afraid to paddle, is there any thought that Cocoa Beach’s finest has anything left in the tank?

What’s more, how does Jackson Baker feel about this wicked turn?

Ramzi Boukhaim?

Let him, the greatest of all-time, prove me wrong, but I say he does not and the pandering to the past, instead of the future, lays the World Surf League absolutely bare.

No?

Please share your opinion.

"They’ve got their Bill O’Riellys and their made-up name people. People on their message board and it’s vicious."

Wild days, these, increasingly off the rails. The world’s greatest surfer Kelly Slater is no longer a member in good standing of the top tour. Those powers’ that be changed their entire rule structure under the cover of darkness in order to let him malinger. Two-time champion Tyler Wright is angry at her compromised father and both Don Lemon plus Tucker Carlson have lost their jobs, allegedly without warning and overnight.

While Lemon was… pretty lame and inconsequential, Carlson is a titan of the media landscape, drawing more viewers than CNN, MSNBC, OAN networks combined.

But why the ouster?

Rumors are burning hot that Fox had grown tired of his antics, frustrated by his personality, maybe sitting on a cache of incriminating texts, maybe angry that he just gave a speech all overtly religious but each, just that.

Rumors.

And if such a powerful figure can be disappeared without reason, what about lightly less powerful figures in the surf space?

Four years ago, as you certainly recall, essential surf voice Chris Cote took to the airwaves to declare:

And I realized, you’re gonna like this, BeachGrit is Fox News of surf media. Think about it, right. They talk to their base. They fire up their base. Chas is kind of like the Tucker Carlson of surf media. They’ve got their Bill O’Riellys and their made-up name people. People on their message board and it’s vicious. But it’s a lot of fun and it’s a privilege and an honor to give BeachGrit so much to talk about.

At the time I was frustrated by the comparison on an aesthetic level. This morning I am very scared. Might I wake up to a note in my inbox from BeachGrit‘s Rupert Murdoch, one Derek Rielly, thanking me for my service and cooly dismissing me?

What would I do?

Where would I go?

Like Carlson, I fear bridges have been torched at The Inertia, Surfer, Stab, Surfline, the World Surf League, Surf Equity, Stu Nettle, Magic Seaweed (RIP) and everywhere else.

Rip Curl?

That bridge has likely been torched as well.

Mick Fanning.

Light a candle for me, please.

A perfect storm?

The World Surf League, founded in 2015, has had a banner last few years according to Chief of Executives Erik Logan. The former Oprah Winfrey Network president has been nothing if not bullish, in his role as influencer, posting many Instagram messages wherein the unprecedented growth, synergies and vectors, partnership ragout, REAL MOMENTUM is highlighted and celebrated.

Bailey Ladders.

With the mid-season cut now in the rearview, the League can focus on the remaining stops leading to San Clemente, California and the crowning of champions at 2 – 3ft Lower Trestles.

Exciting but surf fans, ever grouchy, still find room to complain. Too many surfers, waves not good enough, judging dumb, Jessi Miley-Dyer’s sunglasses, grouse, grouse, grouse.

Might there be enough discontent for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to realize another grand sportswashing opportunity?

You certainly recall just last year when LIV Golf sprung to life heaping millions of dollars on participants who left the nearly 100 year old PGA Tour in the dust.

So long, suckers.

The thought of an fresh league upending an established one would have been impossible if not for Saudi billions and herein lies a delectable tease from Momentum Generation funnyman Peter King.

The photographer responded, days ago, to a disgruntled surf fan frustrated by the “nauseating” WSL and wishing professional surfers could “go somewhere else” by saying, “One is coming very soon. Think LIV your but for surfing.”

“Your” certainly code for “tour.”

And boom.

A paired down slam series featuring only the best surfers in only the best waves with only the best production team is certainly enticing, and long jibber-jabbered about, but what do you think? Which surfers would you like to see and where would you like to see them?

Kelly Slater, it must be noted, performs in a band with King, just got cut from the tour, has a history of biting the hand that fed (Quiksilver, Channel Islands) and would be a perfect frontman a la Phil Mickelson. His complete nonchalance after losing at Margaret River, staring at The Box, silently mocking the World Surf League was certainly telling.

But telling what?

The question must be asked, I suppose, if professional surfing would be worth anything to desert princes. The answer might be found in the World Surf League’s existing performative environmental silliness. Calling the ocean “our office and playground,” and vowing to protect it by having Connor O’Leary plant a bush in Torquay, Australia. Imagine how petrodollars could be cleaned with a semi-competent director pulling the strings.

Great Wall Motors.