"He don't got it anymore! It's over!"
Shortly after Kelly Slater was narrowly beaten by Ethan Ewing, the baby-faced Australian with the “plumpest and most spankable bottom in surfing” at the Sunset Pro, he threatened to call it quits for the twenty-sixth consecutive year.
Kelly said he was “questioning competing…I haven’t surfed in about something like five or six days. I just haven’t been practiced up. It doesn’t help the confidence. But I felt fine out there.”
The week previous, Kelly Slater referenced his recent hip surgery where doctors “took a cadaver’s labrum, inserted it and tied it to my bone” as reason for his inability to shine in the inconsistent three-foot waves at Pipe.
The first time Kelly retired was in 1998, the then six-time world champ having just-turned twenty-six.
This year, however, with Kelly nearing sixty, the final curtain is near.
And Chas Smith, who hates surfing, says:
“There’ll be no more heat wins, no more bolts of nearly smashing a man half his age into the water. He doesn’t got it anymore, it’s over. How does that make you feel? Be honest with yourself. Look at yourself hard in the mirror. Can I go on if Kelly Slater doesn’t?
“He has been such a part of our lives, a part of every professional surf memory I have. I can’t picture life without Kelly Slater. I don’t know where we go.”
Commented on Disqus? Log out, tap the Disqus button, and your old name and comments come back. The box is ours.
Your comments are still here. Every one of them.
Twelve years of BeachGrit comments came across from Disqus. Connect and we will show you how many are yours. We get your username, nothing else.
Connect Disqus to reveal.
So is your camera tilted or bookshelf really unlevel?
rodeo clown…he.he.he…
Can I get some action on this insanely hot take? If Kelly competes at every event – I got 1000k he’d win at least one heat. Between Tahiti and Fiji, this is a no brainer.
Don’t the Aussies say “backhand”, like they say “natural foot”, “leg rope”, and other vaguely odd things?
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Better vlog those week. Wondering who in the Smith household is responsible for the tapestry cushion covers ?
Beachgrit
“The wall of Negative Noise”
Don’t you guys get tired of being so annoying?
Abraço!!!
No
BG is the lemon and honey to the WSL’s saccharine. Now slither on back to the Inertia, little worm.
Why so negative bud?
“I haven’t surfed in about something like five or six days… and before that I(only) surfed several days at Pipe and pumping sandbar . A few solo sessions at my pool(s). A quik trip to Oz and Fiji…other than that I just haven’t been practiced up.” …meh.
The fact he was allowed stay on tour after being humiliatingly “cut” from the elite last year doesn’t argue well.
If spending $$$ and sponsor a event I’m sure he will ( as always in his quicksilver career) get a last minutes score he needs.
But I get the vibe pro surfing is about to move in a totally different direction.
President day off Provide more content and more entertainment than the contest to date!
What direction?
I watched some youtube thing on him turning pro amd winning that trestles comp. Simply amazing to watch how far ahead of everyone else he was.
I think we forget just how good he was and surfing really is pre and post slater, like before and after the fosby flop in high jump.
If only he was a likeable sporting icon like kipchoge or even tony hawk. Its just that hes an insufferable wanker like bloody Nat Young but worse.
We will miss him when he’s gone and its a damn shame it wont be in the olympics like it was supposed to be.
I struggle to find one professional surfer that isn’t a bit insufferable once you get to hear them speak their mind a bit. Dane possibly the exception for me by way of avoiding the microphone.
therefore, he types rapidly…covers many pressing issues…
Rob Machado, who used to be good friends with KS I think, never seemed insufferable. He always seemed to be a bit annoyed at the Tour. He’s all about endless childlike curiosity, not endless childish behavior.
Curren wasn’t insufferable. Maybe he would have been, but he didn’t say much.
But for the most part, pro surfers are big fish in a small pond. Only in our little, insular subsubculture do they matter. Nobody else in the world cares how well they surf. That creates weird people.
I didn’t even see your comment about machado when i wrote mine.
Pretty much yeah, though I dont mind Machado, who hasn’t been a pro for about 20 years.
You skipped a troll. Knowing that he’s 52, I noticed your previous trolling of suggesting he was 54 and then 56. Subtle poking of the bear. Now the leap to “nearing 60”? You could have dragged it out a little further with a solid 58 before this!
Love the reverse phycology. Kelly will win heats in Fiji & Tahiti.
I think he’ll surf until he falls off tour. Which I don’t think he’s ever done
He fell of when he hurt his foot at j bay but got the injury wildcard. And then went surfing in barbados or somewhere, when he was supposed to be injured.
Which of us has never told work we were injured or sick, then went surfing?
gone surfing?
Either way it sounds wrong.
Kelly called in sick from work to do more work. He should’ve jumped on the tools to make it legit
There were only two injury wildcards that year and three injured surfers. Jjf, caio (broken foot) and kelly (bruised ego).
WSL gave them to jjf and kelly. Caio got the shit sandwich.
Kels foot was so injured that he had to surf cloudbreak while convalescing.
https://stabmag.com/news/sl…
He has mate, sorry, he got chopped mid last year.
How’s that truth?
Yeh but does Jesse cum monotone
He’s always dribbling cum mate
I may have conveniently forgotten
Maybe because I can still recite black & white
I put it down to Stockholm syndrome
Wrong. He technically didn’t make the cut in 22? was awarded a wildcard through now…
Tahiti and Fiji both on 2nd half of tour. He will be cut by then almost 100% certain.
I say he announces retirement right now… then he will probably get wildcard at Tahiti and Fiji for swansong.
Imagine winning in 10’ Cloudbreak in August? And elimination a top 5 contender in the process? Possible
What’s the reverse study of algae?
boiling mud bath?
Dez really loves double E’s arse
Kelly has no
socksclothes.one title he’s never earned: emperor.
If winning Pipe at 50 and being number one in the world wasn’t reason enough to retire on top, I don’t know what high he is expecting to achieve to justify actually retiring gracefully, being cut a West Oz surely isn’t it..
He thought hed qualify for the olympics and then surf for gold at teahupoo and retire.
“nearing sixty”?
unless you are 60+, you have no idea what nearing 60 is.
hint: when you consider ordering a fun shape (mid length) surfboard.
Who’s just ‘considering’ it?
Who watches these tedious overlong events apart from 50+ terminally injured shortboarders of yore?
So why not let the youth do their thing,YouTube Short,Ticktalk etc,and leave these statistical snoozefests to the veterans,Occster,Curren,Robb,Machado,Egan,Fanning,Burrows et al.
The format is done.
Slater’s hints at retirement always feel like subtle threats to the WSL to me. His “blood boy” is winning and the WSL can provide those wins in close heats if they want. The exact problem is Kelly wants that destined high note story book ending to go out on and not just any ending. It must be scripted by the gods! But when the gods gift it to him (like his Pipe win a couple years ago), that hunger sets in… Ke11y must feed on more miraculous wins divinely gifted to reaffirm his greatness. Ke11y’s need for wins and adoration is like Scott Baio’s sex addiction. As one’s youthful gifts slip away there’s still that fleeting rush that tricks you into feeling like you still got it. When really, ya don’t.
What happens when Kelly retires? Especially considering most people that surf these days are in his age demographic. Will Kelly be freed from the shackles of competition or will the WSL be freed from the nagging aches of old age?
He doesn’t say it much anymore but when he won his 11th, a numerologist told him that 11 was unlucky and he should go for 12.
I wonder if it still plays on his mind.
Gotta wonder what keeps him going. I doubt Slater could beat JJF, Felipe, Ewing, Gabriel, Colapinto, Yago, Italo, or Robo at Trestles so that puts 12 even further out of reach. Though his carving 3’s should get scored a little higher. Not sure why the judges are so against scoring variety. Surfings the dullest boardsport when it comes to variation and creativity, partly thanks to the judging.
Maybe he got a dead trans mans labrum , thatd slow you down
I don’t know how many of you have had the pleasure of being at a Surf EXPO party featuring Gunner Down but they are awesome and the whole band is older then Kelly by 15 years I’m guessing. Well one of the guitarist has some health issues so his wife, whom looks like the sweetest grandmother ever, wheels him up to the stage and sets up his gear. It’s amazing. Pretty sure Kalani goes to sleep at night deathly afraid of this as her plight. Imaging a 65 year old Robert Kelly needing a bit of help getting ready for a heat. Waxing up, tying up the leash string, pulling the rashie over his wrinkled back, and helping him into the water. I believe that is as likely as him hanging it up and pretending to be a normal person. Poor Kalani will be a 47 year old (but looking 12 and a half) women with so much life to live as R. Kelly is even balder and more self-centered than today who’s last heat win was in 2023. Long live the king.
Is Slater the reason we no longer have masters events? Tommy Carrol and Tommy Curren would smash that shit up
It’s possible that R. Kelly is the poopoo touch.
emperor of all water, chlorinated or not.