Make or Broke. Photo: Does it even matter anymore?
Make or Broke. Photo: Does it even matter anymore?

World Surf League’s much ballyhooed “Make or Break” Apple Television series rumored cancelled before third season set to feature Kelly Slater’s brutal decapitation!

That's all, folks.

Things are not boding well for our World Surf League. Writing very clearly on the leaderboard, presented by Bailey Ladders, that it is underperforming and, possibly, near an extinction event.

No hard hat able to protect from that vicious fall.

Take Bailey Ladders, for instance. It was one of the celebrated MOMENTUM IS REAL sponsors of the 2023 Championship Tour. Yes, a regional Australian ladder company. Jeep has been downgraded to Great Wall Motors and Barefoot Wine to… I honestly have no idea what is worse than Barefoot Wine, aside from Great Wall Motors, so par for the course.

And let us re-read the exciting and/or exiting press release from just four years ago.

The World Surf League (WSL) 2019 Championship Tour (CT) season kicks off today in Australia and will see the world’s best surfers returning to the global stage, with the Quiksilver and Boost Mobile Pro Gold Coast. The 2019 CT is set to be the biggest year in surfing yet with incredible partnerships, broadcast innovations, the launch of WSL Studios, equal prize money and the WSL Women’s Initiative.

WSL is proudly supported by global partners Anheuser-Busch, Red Bull, and Jeep, in addition to many of our regional and event partners all over the world – some of which include Quiksilver, Roxy, Rip Curl, Billabong, Vans, Boost Mobile, Hydro Flask, MEO, Woolmark, Swatch, Barefoot, Jose Cuervo, Polo Blue, TropicSport and many others.

The WSL is equally excited to welcome new partners Red Bull, Breitling, Outerknown, Harley-Davidson, BFGoodrich, Boost Mobile and New York State Division of Tourism.

Quik, gone. WSL Studios shuttered. Boost, chilling in the amateur ranks. Vans pulling out of the biggest surf competition on earth, the only one they sponsored. Anheuser-Busch, Kelly Slater supports shooting. Red Bull still maybe supports various athletes and maybe an athlete zone, New York State Division of Tourism poking the World Surf League’s corpse with a stick but nothing more.

It’s over, folks, and so relatively quick. For new rumors suggest that season three of the much ballyhooed Apple Television program Make or Break has been cancelled, Apple Watch and all its failures likely with it, and how to keep making lemonade out of these lemons?

Seriously.

Programs cancelled before Kelly Slater’s blood sprays everywhere after mid-season guillotine.

Kelly Slater’s body miraculously revived due late night rule changes.

Now that is must see Apple TV but no.

Done.

Finished.

So what to do?

Chief of Executives Erik Logan has insisted on going back patting weird, exhuming the bones of “Throw Back Thursday” to celebrate himself and country music.

Chief of Sport Jessi Miley-Dyer protecting dogs from Covid while also not social distancing.

It’s an official wrap and I’d dare the aforementioned to prove me wrong. The erosion of legitimate sponsors plus cancellation of Make or Break dead giveaways to all but the most delusional.

Though what comes next?

Where does professional surfing go from here?

What would you like to see?

That momentum actually is real.

David Lee Scales and I, anyhow, discussed all this on our weekly chat alongside much more including, but not limited to, Erik Logan being Max Headroom’s nerdy younger brother and never washing beach towels.

Sample here and dare not to keep listening after long discussion of tongue sucking.


Sam George (pictured) with guru (insert): Photo: Sam George
Sam George (pictured) with guru (insert): Photo: Sam George

In hotly anticipated follow-up of “Death to Secret Spots,” his holiness Sam George gifts secret surf spot to friend in exchange for undying love and respect of everyone in the whole wide world!

All hail.

Surf fans have had trouble sleeping of late. Oh, certainly Kelly Slater’s impending forced retirement is depressing and chimeras of future lost earnings due the World Surf League’s new exciting betting program are enough to pry eyes open at night but these are merely background noise to a greater tension.

For Sam George, days ago, teased a follow-up to his The Inertia missive “Death to Secret Spots” that had surf fans busily refreshing internet browsers from sun down to sun up, not wanting to miss the golden glow emanating from his singular wisdom.

Yes, the universally beloved surf guru had decided, after years of being hosted around the world, being shown waves that were unknown, or unavailable, to the masses, that it was exclusionary and unchill. Oh, he had felt that way the entire time, in actuality, and told those bastard gatekeeper hosts that he would not sign their NDAs nor go along with their evil schemes.

Brave.

Though now, he offered to include your words alongside his, an honor akin to being quoted in a papal encyclical.

The enlightened one began Death to Secret Spots: Readers Respond by sharing the location of a secret Baja Mexico spot named Punta Hughes that had been shared with him, that he surfed gloriously with his brother, giving directions, before moving on to the bit where he provides illumination to those who commented, his words in italics, before ending thusly:

Okay, Inertia readers made it pretty clear how they feel about secret spots (and equally clear that very few read the title of the feature closely, it being “Death To Secret Spots”, not “Death Of Secret Spots”) Some find their continued veiled exposure inspirational, almost all support the idea that they exist and should continue to do so, everyone hates crowds, and more than a few think that having worked in the surf media for almost 40 years I’m a big hypocrite for even writing about the subject. Fair enough. Consider what happened when I got back from my trip to Punta Hughes. Nah, didn’t do a story for Surfing magazine, but I did tell one of my best friends with whom I’d been sharing surf trips for years, and he told a few of our other friends, and they all eventually went down there and somehow made it out to Punta Hughes in sea kayaks (think about it) where, with the waves pumping and no other humans in sight, they experienced one of the greatest surf adventures of their lives.

Thus spoke Sam George.


Billionaire-owned World Surf League pivots away from trans-inclusion debate and into online gambling in latest bid to “empower massive global audience”!

It just got a whole lot easier to bet the farm on your favourite pro surfer!

You ever get the feeling ol Dirky Ziff, who leveraged his friendship with super-producer Harvey Weinstein to launch the new-look world tour over ‘hot summer cocktails’ in 2014, feels like the one-dollar he paid for the ASP in 2012 was a little too much?

In the company’s latest bid to raise cash, it’s turned to ALT Sports Data to “unlock new markets in the world of regulated sports betting” or as ATL calls it, “empowering their massive global audience to have a stake in the outcome of WSL events.”

I ain’t a huge fan of gambling, personally, worked the tables in casinos and saw the misery it brings. The excited kid who snatched five-hundred out of the five-dollar blackjack table at seven is wide-eyed and desperate at three am as he attempts to recoup his rent and savings.

Nobody gets out of a casino alive. Yeah, you hear stories. But they’re stories. Nobody wins.

Howevs. I get sports gambling and often wet the toes to make a grim day of low-tide Portugal closeouts interesting. And the WSL’s pivot into the world of online gambling will make it easier to throw the family house on, say, Jackson Baker scoring a nine-point right at three-foot Winki.

What are the odds! A thousand to one?

According to the WSL’s chief revenue officer Cherie Cohen, “Working with ALTLT (sic) Sports Data to advance our position in the global gaming marketplace is a great opportunity for the WSL. We know that legal sports betting drives fan engagement. We are excited to scale our offering by partnering with a company who knows our sport well and has deep relationships with global operators.”

What bets do you wanna see? Pip to catch a set at Teahupoo? A Brazilian or mainland American to reference the helping hand of God in a post-heat interview?

Blue skies ahead.

 


Kelly Slater (insert) with life accomplishments. Photo: Twins
Kelly Slater (insert) with life accomplishments. Photo: Twins

51-year-old surf legend Kelly Slater stuns world after announcing arrival of twins as he nears forced retirement!

He's a dad!

The Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach is, now, officially in the rearview with certain professional surfers looking onward, to Margaret River, with the greatest of trepidation. For it is there, on Australia’s rough and tumble western shore, that sees the guillotine drop, axing underperformers for the season, sending them to places where sounds of wailing and gnashing teeth fill the air.

Challenger Series yikes.

Amongst those poised to die are Kolohe Andino, Jake Marshall and the best to ever do it Kelly Slater.

Yes, the winningest of all-time finds himself below the mid-season cut line and, likely, unable to make up what he must. Being old, the retirement, albeit forced, should come as a relief to the man who simply could not stop though, hours ago, the 11x world champion threw a monkey wrench into the proceedings by announcing the arrival of twins.

“Twins!” he penned on Instagram.

Their misshapen appearance suggests much money necessary in the future for care and development. A good thing, I suppose, that the World Surf League changed its rules, under the cover of night, to allow former champions named Kelly Slater to continue competing, and earning a paycheck, even after his neck has been severed.

Whew.

Those twins are…

…special.

More as the momentum develops.


Morita (pictured) still fighting. Photo: Today
Morita (pictured) still fighting. Photo: Today

Hawaiian surfer recounts punching and wrestling eight-foot tiger shark while beast feasted on his leg: “My hand went right to the gills and as soon as I got to the gills, (it) released me!”

"I just felt the pressure and the strength of it..."

We all, each of, have read many tales from shark attack survivors. As surfers, I suppose, we imagine what we would do if a shark began molesting us in the ocean blue. Be strong and brave, fighting back, and making a good show of it or melt into a puddle of scare and cry?

Impossible to know or, as Iron Mike Tyson says, “Everyone has a plan until they get bit on the leg.”

Well, days ago we learned the harrowing tale of a then-unnamed 58-year-old surfer who was attacked by an eight-foot tiger near Honolulu. The horrible business occurred early in the morning, surfers helped him to shore and he was transported to the local hospital where he was announced to be in critical condition.

Today, we learn that his name is Mike Morita and he is as heroic as it comes. Sitting down with Today, he described the moment when he lost his foot.

“I just felt the pressure and the strength of it,” he said after initially believing it was a seal. “I started to pray to God and I said, ‘God let this shark let go of my leg. ‘I was going back and forth, back and forth with it, and it didn’t let go. So I guess God wanted me to fight.”

Fight he did. Morita began punching the shark in the head, even though his fists felt slow and weak. He then wrapped his legs around the beast and tried to squeeze. When that didn’t work his h”and went right to the gills and as soon as I got to the gills, (it) released me.”

“I have God in my life and I have a lot of faith and trust and at no point was I scared,” he added. “At no point was I thinking that I was going to die.”

As other surfers rushed to help he looked back to examine the damage, realizing his leg was only bone from ankle to mid-shin.

No meat.

But how does he feel now, in the hospital, that bone sawed off? “So with the pain medication, and this nice, soft hospital bed, I’m at about a two or three as far as pain,” he declared before pivoting to praise his friends.

“I cannot believe the courage my friends had because I’m getting attacked and they paddled towards me,” he continued. “They’re my heroes.”

They don’t build them quite like Mike Morita anymore. Here’s to a quick recovery.

Pitch in for his care here.