"Alright, alright, alright. Just 'cause I gave Griff a ten don't mean I'm biased. No sir."

Furore over UFC judge sacked mid-event raises timely questions for World Surf League as Finals Day looms!

By Derek Rielly

4 months ago

Instant dismissal for terrible judging! Yes or no?

Whatever you wanna think about the UFC’s frontman Dana White and the nature of blood sport with its ring girls and that ballbearing wiggle of their honey dews between rounds, he’s a straight-shooter.

And, so, yesterday, after one of his three judges made an error so egregious it couldn’t be ignored, the call came in and the judge was sacked mid-card, a decision MMA fans hailed as “landmark.”

A couple of typical responses on Facebook.

This is incredible and such a landmark moment for holding these terrible judges responsible for their actions. I have been saying for years that judges with these kind of atrocious scorecards should be escorted out of the building and it finally happened The company needs to keep this up. That is one of the worst score cards in MMA history.

MMA will now be absolutely changed. I felt relieved seeing him relieved of his duties. Abysmal judging.

Howie Booth was one of three judges at UFC305 hitting the score cards for the heavyweight bout between Australian Tai “Bam Bam” Tuivasa and Surinamese fighter Jairzinho Rozenstruik.

Jairzinho Rozenstruik beat hell out of Bam Bam for three rounds but when it came down to read the score cards, turned out ol Howie gave every round to Bam Bam. The other two judges were the mirror opposite, all three rounds to Rozenstruik, making it a split-decision.

Wild judging decisions have long been a hallmark of the UFC, less so in WSL events although it does happen.

And, so, to bite off the particular cancer tough decisions gotta be made. Mid-card, zero minutes notice, judge sacked.

Which leads to surfing, the WSL and Finals Day which runs real soon, September six through fourteen, whenever waves are good or good-ish, this is Southern California after all.

Should judges be ripped out of their seats mid-event if they’re not punching the right buttons, and not just ’cause they had a photo taken with a competitor?

Elo was disappeared overnight, could not the same levers be pulled?

And what would that mean for the Brazilian surf fan army? Neutralised or emboldened?

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Occ and a very cute, very young Brendan Margieson from The Occumentary.

Surf film god Jack McCoy on the miraculous longevity of Italian-Scot father-of-nine Mark Occhilupo!

By Derek Rielly

4 months ago

Come grab a slice of a rapidly disappearing surf culture! It ain't gonna be around forever!

A couple of months back, the surfing film god Jack McCoy toured his seminal film The Occumentary, expertly remastered from VHS-friendly 4:3 aspect to big-screen 16:9, turning on a spigot of joy that had McCoy and the film’s subject, Mark Occhilupo, swapping anecdotes in front of hundreds of hollering fans.

Problem was, says McCoy, all those shows quickly sold out and he had to field dozens of calls, emails, messages, from all of us, me included, too slow to get online and buy a ticket before they were gone.

So, he figured, let’s do a few encore shows through August, starting on the Gold Coast, detouring slightly north to Uluwatu in Bali, before hitting Sydney, two shows, Margaret River, one show, Perth, one show and Fremantle, one show.

The GC and Bali are done, now it’s time for Sydney and West Oz.

If you didn’t know, it’s the twenty-fifth anniversary of the film’s release and twenty-five years since Occ, then thirty-three, became the oldest surfer ever to win a world title, although Kelly Slater would later claim that crown in 2011 when he won the thing aged thirty-nine.

Los Angeles born McCoy, who is seventy-six and who’s been in rough health with an unspecified illness the past few years, speaks with a ragged whisper, although his love for surf, and for his old pal Occ, is evident.

“This is Australia’s most loved surfer and his story, well, you know we all love seeing new talent come up and succeed and we sympathise with them when they crash, but we love a damn good comeback story. Everybody who comes out and does, that is still relevant today. And Occy’s surfing in the movie is mind-bending!”

I tell ol Jackie it’s a miracle Occ has nearly made it to sixty.

“It’s not so much a miracle as it is hard work,” says McCoy. “The best thing about this tour is that Occy has really matured into what I believe is one of surfing’s greatest ambassadors. He speaks really well. Everything comes from the heart. He loves sitting there at the end of the movie signing autographs, talking to kids and people bring their books and their posters and their underwear and whatever else they want for him to draw on. And when you think about longevity, at the end of the movie Gerry Lopez says, ‘He’s a real surfer through and through. He’ll still be surfing in another ten years if he plays his cards correctly.’”

Occy, as you know, has been largely ignored by the ravages of ageing and is a finely balanced combination of enthusiasm and confidence.

Here, McCoy hoots.

“He’s done twenty five and he’s still surfing as good as ever! And he’s stoked on surfing! He surfs every day. He just wants to ride waves. And he’s got nine kids! When I call him up and ask him what he’s doing he says, ‘Taking the kids to school. Picking the kids up from school, taking ‘em down the beach, going putt-putt golfing!’”

Legends don’t stick around forever, of course.

Grab a ticket to one of the remaining shows and get a piece of rapidly disappearing surf culture before it’s gone forever and you’re stuck listening to hedge fund VALs and Inertia Bro’s comparing surf ponchos and beach carts.

Details here!

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Kelly Slater (pictured) having fun in Fiji.

Surfline calls “fun waves” for upcoming Fiji Pro in now-patented “under promise, over deliver” form

By Chas Smith

4 months ago

"We’re monitoring the progress of a developing, complex storm to track across the Southern Ocean and Tasman Sea..."

There is one real event left on the 2024 World Surf League Championship Tour season and, my, how it all just flew by. It only seems like yesterday when the recently crowned Filipe Toledo declared he would take the year off, after a Pipeline boo, thereby opening the doors for a guaranteed different number 1, on the men’s side, come Finals Day.

As you well know, the best small wave surfer on the planet has his Lower Trestles wired, virtually unstoppable. After Toledo bowed out, it became anyone’s game though here we are, near the end, with John John Florence, Griffin Colapinto, Jack Robinson, Italo Ferreira and Ethan Ewing currently in the top 5, Yago Dora, Jordy Smith and Gabriel Medina just outside looking in.

Will the Fiji Pro shake the very timbers?

Surfline, in its now-patented “over promise, under deliver” form is claiming the ocean will be flat at the opening day hooter (Aug. 20) but…

We’re monitoring the progress of a developing, complex storm to track across the Southern Ocean and Tasman Sea this weekend, with merging lows en route to the Southwest Pacific. Over the past couple days, the models have come into much better agreement for this to be a decent setup for Fiji — nothing major, but certainly better than anything the region has seen lately, and probably the best of what we’ll see within the event window.

So, potential “fun waves” on Weds, Thurs and Fri of next week.

Some pertinent matchups:

Griff comes up against the ageless wonder, who happens to be 58-years-old, Kelly Slater in heat 3. Slater’s mastery of Cloudbreak needs to burnishing. Hawaii’s Barron Mamiya is also in the heat thus making a potential early event exit a possibility for the current world number 2.

John Florence, already a final 5 lock, has a walkthrough, facing local wildcard Tevita Gukilau and Japan’s Kanoa Igarashi.

Yago Dora, needing a result, faces Australia’s Liam O’Brien and Encinitas’ Jake Marshall in heat 6.

Gabe Medina, in a raging form this tour back half, will sink his teeth into Griff’s brother Crosby and Japan’s Connor O’Leary.

On the women’s side, heat 2 features surfer of the year Caitlin Simmers against phenom wildcard Sierra Kerr. Maybe the most interesting matchup of all, to be honest.

There we have it, anyhow, and are you excited or do you wish the whole season will wrap so we can get to next year’s Abu Dhabi Pro brought to you by the World Surf League in association with Greenpeace and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation?

Understandable if feeling the latter.

More as the story develops.

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American princess Ivanka Trump and Tahitian Viagra Raimana Van Bastolaer.

Ivanka Trump falls into the arms of Tahitian surfer nicknamed Human Viagra by supermodel Cindy Crawford

By Derek Rielly

4 months ago

"Look at you!! Wow incredible," writes Kim Kardashian.

It’s one of the loveliest rags to riches stories in surfing. A poor Tahitian surfer, Raimana Van Bastolaer, raised by his grandparents and who was a bodyboarder thrashing around at a tame black sand beachbreak north of Teahupoo until 1996, now earns his keep as the ultimate celebrity surf coach at the WSL-owned Surf Ranch.

Raimana is a man of early middle age, let’s say forty-nine although his timeless island beauty means he could pass for thirty, and didn’t stand up on a surfboard until he was twenty and the Gotcha Surf Team, which included Brock Little, Rob Machado and Martin Potter, left behind a fleet of boards.

Now, Raimana will surf behind the beginner at the Slater pool, steadying them with his hands, issuing instructions, support, and as the wave moves onto the shallow part of the bank at Surf Ranch will compress their hips into the correct lowered stance before pin-dropping off the wave allowing the learner to enjoy a vision that used to be reserved for a wildly select few.

The supermodel Cindy Crawford, whose career peaked in 1987 when she appeared alongside the other OG supermods Christy Turlington, Linda Evangalista and Naomi Campbell on British Vogue, has previously described Raimana as “the Big Blue Pill. He can get anyone up! Even me!”

Recently, Ivanka Trump, the statuesque forty-two-year-old daughter of Donald and Ivan Trump (RIP), and whom you last saw on these pages when she savaged “violent, manipulating” windsurfers on a Lex Fridman podcast, has, too, fallen under the spell of Raimana during a recent trip to the Kelly Slater Surf Ranch.

In a post that was eagerly gobbled up by her eight million followers, Ivanka Trump posted several rides alongside the Tahitian Pep Pill, describing Raimana as “incomparable.”

“Look at you!! Wow incredible,” writes Ivanka Trump’s bestie Kim Kardashian, with subsequent comments from American patriots echoing the sentiment.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ivanka Trump (@ivankatrump)

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World Surf League Chief Strategist Dave Prodan and team in Abu Dhabi.

Surf fans giddy with anticipation over how World Surf League will greenwash upcoming Abu Dhabi Pro!

By Chas Smith

4 months ago

Culturewash too!

Surf fans have had trouble sleeping for the past two nights after the World Surf League announcement that it would be hosting a Championship Tour stop in Abu Dhabi. The petro-kingdom, a manmade wonderland featuring islands shaped like palm trees, indoor skiing facilities and gleaming towers lovingly built by the hands of Pakistani slaves now also stars a Kelly Slater surf pool producing the “longest barrel in the world” while precious desalinized water romantically evaporates into the hazy Arabian sky.

I have done multiple tours of the fine United Arab Emirates, first going in 2002 after spending three months in Yemen, even wakeboarding on the Persian/Arabian Gulf. A gorgeous slick of oil making a rainbow on the water’s surface.

Alas, it is the only sort of rainbow allowed as same sex relationships are criminalized and it doesn’t really rain.

Which brings us back to our World Surf League. The “global home of surfing” has positioned itself as the most environmentally forward organizations on earth what with professional surfers planting a shrub in Western Australia and others planting a coral in Tahiti. The World Surf League’s One Ocean initiative, for example, promises to focus on “WSL priorities of coastal restoration and conservation, eliminating plastic and taking climate action.”

Huzzah.

The League is also at the bleeding edge of equity, groundbreakingly supporting LGBTQIA+ surfer Tyler Wright in “using her platform as a World Champion to express a message of inclusivity” by affixing the Pride flag to her singlet. “We believe surfing is for everyone and are incredibly proud of our athletes,” the statement continued.

How, then, the World Surf League will greenwash and culturewash the Abu Dhabi Pro the most exciting bit of moral gymnastics since Sarah Jessica Parker and besties graced the desert.

You go, girl.

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