"My pain levels have dropped significantly!"

As first reported on these pages over the previous week and despite being given no chance by fans, Ethan Ewing will be competing in the WSL Finals three weeks off busting two vertebrae in his back. 

Ewing, a baby-faced twenty-five-year-old Australian with the “plumpest and most spankable bottom in surfing”, was driven, we were told, by a desire to keep Medina out of the Final Five and to mop up the blood from last year’s failed title attempt. 

The favourite to win the contest is the small-wave wizard and reigning world champion Pip Toledo, whose daddy claimed yesterday the only reason Pip don’t charge Teahupoo is ‘cause she wants to save himself for the Finals, something that didn’t bother mad-dog Ewing.

“His focus is on the world tour final and another world title. Now is not the time to show that you throw yourself at Teahupoo,” said Ricardo Toledo. “Look what happened with Ethan Ewing… You have to know the moment to expose yourself and the time in which can expose yourself.”

(I’d suggest Pip throw this Patton quote on this wall, “Some men will get over their fright in a minute under fire, some take an hour, and for some it takes days. But the real man never lets his fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his innate manhood.”)

Now, in a stirring message to fans and foes alike, Ewing has demonstrated his fitness and strength with a series of clips from a gymnasium workout, even a  cursory glance at Ewing’s quadriceps will strike fear into the bowling pin-shaped Toledo, and concludes his posts with a photograph seated in biz class en route to Los Angeles.

Only eight days ago, the World Surf League was accused of “passive aggressively trolling Ethan Ewing” after including him in promotional material.

The one-day surf-off will run some time between September eight and sixteen at San Clemente’s Lower Trestles, likely around 14 or 15.

“He says he can catch every wave he wants because he is Brazilian!”

This magnificent video sketch of a Mexican surfer being attacked by a Brazilian mid-wave at Desert Point brings to light the absurdity of the once-secret wave, a wildly unforgiving left on the southern tip of Indonesia’s Lombok.

It’s a brutal lineup at Desert although once, and in the not too distant past, you and a few pals might’ve chanced upon it for a few hours, empty. Some years ago now, your ol pal DR jumped ship from a charter boat that was headed for Sumbawa for two hours of slick four-footers. Only one surfer out, a man called Jim Banks, who chewed through the drainpipes like a cornered rat.

Now, ooowee, ain’t nobody finding any sorta peace out there.

Puerto Escondido’s Alejandro Garza, pink shirt, is pictured here apparently dropping in a man before getting his comeuppance, as they say, clipped with an ass grab and tee pull.

Or so it seemed.

 

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“I’m the guy with the pink shirt,” writes Garza. “So this guy dropped on the wave behind me after I was already on the wave. He pushes me down and then yells at me saying he can catch every wave he wants because he is Brazilian and been surfing at Deserts for 20 years.”

And, so ensued many thousands of comments on the rights and wrongs of putting a slug into a drop-in and how surfers who snake should be violated.

And, for Rio Waida, an Indonesian tour rookie, an innocent “Ha! Ha!” led to one troll’s call for his dismissal from sponsor Quiksilver.

“Is this really the mindset of your athletes promoting violence in the surf? I mean regardless whose fault this was this could have ended up with a serious injury and you literally promoting this shit? If that’s the athletes you pick @quiksilver_indonesia then it’s for sure the last boardshort I bought from BOARDRIDERS. What an embarrassing role model u are @riowaida_”

Meanwhile the big-wave surfer Koby Abberton, a habitué of Deserts, summed up the mood well.

“No fun anymore,” he writes.

 

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"The fear he has is hitting himself there and suffering an irreversible injury."

Two weeks ago, biz as usual for world champ Pip Toledo in Tahiti ladelling, as Smith described it, “shame onto World Surf league Championship trophy yet again with timid Teahupoo performance.” 

His round of sixteen heat against local wildcard Mihimana Braye, surfing in his first ever contest, featured the exact same timidity the cowardly lion has displayed in each of his trips to “The End of the Road.”

There he bobbed, holding priority, while Braye paddled, dropped, became barreled and was spat into applause. There he took off on a small closeout just to hand that priority over and not be forced into actually trying.

There he lost 15.50 to 5.73

It was a shameful display and would be semi-forgiven if Toledo finally, and for the first time, admitted that Teahupo’o terrifies him.

Well, Smith’s wish almost came true yesterday with the re-appearance of Ricardo Toledo, daddy of the champ who gained many fans years ago with his no-holds barred blood feud with the big-wave surfer Alex Gray.

“Sorry, Gray, I think you wanting suck my dick!” Ricardo posted, along with a photo of himself in a bikini brief. “Sorry but will not give. I am well settled sexually, and besides, my wife will you!! Fuck yourself…”

Now, on a Portuguese podcast Ricardo has admitted Pip’s fear of the iconic Tahitian wave is real. 

“The truth is that he is afraid of hitting the coral bottom. That is the fear he has, of hitting himself there and really hurting himself and suffering an irreversible injury. It’s something that stays in his head… He’s already surfed big Waimea and Pipeline. He doesn’t have the know-how like John John has, like Medina has or as Italo acquired over the years. It is something that we know but at no time does it detract from the quality of the athlete that he is.”

Although it doesn’t explain his zero heat in 2015, Pip’s brave act of cowardice as it were, Ricardo says his son’s timidity this year was to save himself prior to Final’s Day.

“His focus is on the world tour final and another world title. Now is not the time to show that you throw yourself at Teahupoo. Look what happened with Ethan Ewing… You have to know the moment to expose yourself and the time in which can expose yourself.”

A start yes? Acceptance etc.

Ricardo also said he’d be setting up a large tent at Lowers adjacent to the judging platform “to put pressure on” the five men charged with scoring the Final, and has told Filipe if he wins the second title he’ll do an Ironman event, forty-two k run, 180 k’s on a bike and a four-k swim to celebrate.