"The Brazilians are ruthless. It's great theatre but dismal sportsmanship, and it's such an insight into Brazilian sporting culture at large."
The two-time Golden Cone winning sports journalist Jed Smith, a gentleman normally so refined he rarely passes wind in company, at least not in a noticeable way, has publicly slammed what has become the new normal on the world pro surfing stage, the comportment of Brazilian surfers, including world champs Yago Dora, Italo Ferreira and Gabriel Medina.
In a fiery exchange on Ain’t that Swell with Vaughan Blakey, who can be slipperier than a woman’s vagina, let’s be frank, Smith says,
Smith: I wanted to acknowledge what happened at the start of that Yago-Italo heat. Shades of the Yago-Chippo incident at Margies, this time it was Italo trying to draw a foul on Yago, almost an action replay, with Italo giving Yago a bit of his own medicine.
The Brazilians are fucking ruthless. It’s great theatre but dismal sportsmanship, and it’s such an insight into Brazilian sporting culture at large, one where they grow up watching soccer players milk fouls. Contrast that with Australia, where if you go down after getting stiff-armed you get called a pussy and booed by thousands.
It’s cold-blooded to go out of your way to milk an interference. It’s a total fizzer. It ruins the heat, ruins the spectacle, and doesn’t let the surfing do the talking. It’s everything you don’t want to do as a competitor, yet they’re so willing to do it.
VD: It was so perplexing. Baffling, nearly. Because the body language, if that were any other nation in the water, would have been completely off the charts. But Italo literally gets one finger out like a cartoon character, scratches his head like Inspector Clouseau. What just happened? So mellow, so void of all that radical, over-the-top outrage. No adrenaline, no anxiety. They just sidestep all that and get on with surfing the heat.
And then our dear friend Ed Sloane gets his toe nibbled like pate on a Jatz cracker, and just like that, the whole narrative flips. Yago’s energy runs out. Wild heat.
Smith: It really cast the Yago-Chippo incident in a different light for me. Looking back, Yago was absolutely playing for that interference. And then to spend the rest of the heat blowing up about it, from an Australian sporting culture perspective, that’s just not the way you do things. I could happily watch that style of competing disappear entirely.
So many bludgeon strokes!
Are you team ATS or would you prefer a Brazilian ATM?
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Simple Jack sent in
Kind of in defense of Brazzos, they come from a country that might easily shit you out into inescapable grinding poverty if you fail. And a lot of their surfers start hard scrabble poor. Doesn’t surprise me they go hard
Ok I bite……..history is a bitch !
Australian surfers were responsible for nearly all the rules the WSL uses in their current rule book…..everything from drop ins to take off interference…to behavior outside comps…….has been ruled and regulated into todays current format, because the first couple of decades of Australian dominated global surfing and we were the biggest aggro cunts possible…
When I read peoples opinions , like Jeds….the question is how the fuck would you know…have you competed at that level and do ya know your history……rhetorical question……he just doesn’t have the cred…….
I remember meeting you at boardroom once and you said to me: “The ‘good ol’ days’ are today mate.”
Has stuck with me.
The Australian whinging has been poor form.
wow……how long ago??
Will be there this year again as the Honoree…drop by please!
Pre Covid surely!
Et tu Brute?
Don’t you think being a journo in Aussie surf media for 25 years means that he should be able to share his opinion? Or that he’s earned the right to have us believe that his opinion is valid?
absolutely, yes he shares his opinion….I just pointed out, it’s a narrow opinion as he does not know/understand the nuances of being a high level competitor and seems to not understand the aussies were the worst of all…bloody pirates,LOL!
What would Kelly do? We know.
Ohhhhhhhhh……Blow Me!
“Contrast that with Australia, where if you go down after getting stiff-armed you get called a pussy and booed by thousands.”
As if Aussies don’t play the same bullshit. Bunch of whiners and wingers, the lot.
Why do Aussies always try to represent as the toughest core lords?
fuck me, but they were the first to all get on their knees, when their government Codized em’.
bunch of sheep….which is probably why they like to travel to NZ so much, where sheep are greatly apprecited.
Paper tigers posing as Tradies who build the cheapest homes and whose interior designers find painting interiors completely white is edgy.
But if ol Trump calls for their boys to storm Tehran front lines, total compliance. Look at their society, copied all the worst of ours.
Look at the guy that got banned…. for example.
Such a toughie. Hates Victorians and Sydney’s. Loathes Israeli’s and Euros. Hates Kiwi’s, sheep jokes baaaahhhhhaaaahhh aye, Hates Seppo’s, hates Hawaiians…. the only redeemable people to that person are people from Tweed. Everyone else is a kook.
I think he liked Taj as well.
Makes sense. As my real life West Oz buddy says, “Taj is a bit of a lad”
Yeah fair.
have no idea what this has to do with POTUS…but yeah, Aussies have become pussies.
true…..but please….proud pussies….and you guys have the proud boys,LOL!
Lefty kooks like jed have bred like flies here, reversal coming up.
yes pauline will save australia…..just like….??
I remember at Pipe once, that year Adriano was in the title race – but Kelly eventually won releasing his video of the Ranch – and he’d drawn Jack Robbo. Without priority, he just crazy-paddled zig-zags across Jack, back-and-forth, knocking him around with his wake. Still the wackest thing I’ve seen. Although, followed very closely by drone footage Aussie darling – and a two-time-gold-cone-award-winning journalist’s favourite – Soli Bailey at the Nias QS, paddling back to the takeoff and sitting, touching Rabbit’s boy.
Soli is ultra competitive?
Dunno bro. On that occasion though, the whole scene was idyllic – pumping waves, big, consistent and ruler edged. Indo as good as it gets and all the surfers losing their mind at scoring it with one other guy out. Then, out-of-the-azure-blue, Soli starts hassling the gastro out of Jaggar. Just weird.
What about that interference JJF pulled on Slater at Sunset , bassiccaly ending taking off at the Peak during sunset comps …WSL loved it as it turned Sunset into a bowl take off two turn to hail mary finnish , shit result.
Rielly descriptions are magic
We are so lucky to read JP, LT, DR and Chas
Worst bullshit I ever saw in heat was Kelly V Beschen, lost respect for Kelly that day. Shane scared him, he got despo and nothing was below his avarice
The Maldives from the ISS.
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Saw a video this morning of people lifting and relocating a house, in OBX, North Carolina, 50m back from the coastline. Very interesting. The 3-storey home saved from erosion while others around it will be washed away soon.
heard someone describe property in those parts as “galloping real estate,” i.e., galloping into the sea
Seems about right
Castles made of sand…
One of these Australians need to paddle out with a roll of 80 grit and scratch up Italo’s Red Bull spray mid-heat.
Those two are just cartoon characters but not as cool as pepe le pew.
Brazzos being dicks both in comps and just sharing your line up has being going on since Peter Troy
I’m confused: Jed said it was “great theatre” but it ruins the heat and ruins the spectacle.
How can it be both?
Gives you a villain to rag on. Everyone loves booing the bad guy.
Yea. That’s the theatricality part. I’m not a fan, but then maybe others are. Maybe the controversies, such as in Lemoore, are better for the visibility of the sport than the Koombaya vibes.
He’s acknowledging the theatrical aspect of the behaviour, while stating that he wants more than just theatre from pro surfing. He’s willing to give up some of that for authenticity.
I agree with him, that it’s a shit part of the way that they compete. Had it not been Yago in that incident then Italo would have gone ape shit and would have riled up the judges and the internet mob.
I’ve seen over the years that viewers’ online commentary, people such as you and Jed and Vaughan, have been able to nudge official policy so if would be nice if the judges were to keep a video list of all of these incidences and use that list to keep the surfers’ behaviour in line the next time something like this happens. To show them that there’s no need to overreact, the way that they didn’t overreact when you clashed with your fellow countryman in NZ, etc, etc.
Both soccer and NBA arc fucked from the theatricality of the the baiting of referees. It’s cheapened the game and so many of them do it now. It might be too much to ask for, but it’d be nice to see surfers willing to let their surfing do the talking.
okc eliminated , so 94% of NBA floppers now out of playoffs
So do Caity and Alyssa scrapping for a wave at the start of heat get a pass?
For me, I prefer to not see that sort of thing unless it’s at the very beginning of a heat (because how else do you determine priority?). It’s fine then, unless they come up with a better way.
But that’s just me, a person who’s not competitive and doesn’t know what it takes to win. I think what it comes down to is that i want to know that the competitors truly respect each other. They don’t have to like each other. But proper respect. So that shit that Yago and Pupo pulled is some weak shit that says they don’t care and that rubs me the wrong way. Many people, especially here, might like a return to the dirty days of the 80s when almost anything went, but that just ain’t my style. I acknowledge that I might be wrong and having some level of friction and antagonism may actually be better for the competition, if not for the competitors most of whom seem to want to just enjoy their time on tour without negativity in their lives.
I personally enjoy the camaraderie I see on the women’s tour , and think that it makes it a unique experience in sport/competition in 2026. I wouldn’t want to see anything destroy that, even if a stoner like Caity and a jesus-weirdo like Alyssa will likely not be friends.
That’s just jed
Close to unlistenable.
The hassling for the inside is the theatre, the priority interference that results from it is what ruins the spectacle.
He’s right, we just want to see these guys go head to head, not try to get a walkthrough by playing these stupid games at the start of the heat.
100% the Brazzos do it every time, trying to milk an interference, sporting cheats
SHOCK HORROR
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UNBELIEVABLE BUT TRUE…
“when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”
‘but the ticket, take the ride…”
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By happenstance I just listened to that podcast yesterday whilst working on my place. Can I just say it was brilliant. Brilliant in that it’s still just two fellas talking dung about professional splash slash , but actually brilliant that it was such an entertaining, insightful and genuine conversation between people that know their shit. And love the fuck out of said shit.
Impossible to imagine such discourse within cooee of a WSL broadcast.
Eloquent in the style of the vernacular. Enthusiasm that draws you in its raging slipstream.
Anyway…fuck the Brazzo culture of theatrics, intrigue and feigned outrage. Shut the fuck up and surf.
Particularly when they pull that shit on locals in their home countries, when the surf-loving punters of that country are paying the bills and writing the checks in the form of sponsoring the contest. Show some respect you ratbag cunts. Don’t come to our home and collectively shitcan us after we’ve laid out the welcome mat. Get an act….that’s nots an act.
Culture matters.
PS. Big thanks to Derek for taking time out from his pro-sodomy routine by throwing a bone to the hetero readers with his rare mention of the Holiest of Holies . Shame he still hedged his bets and specified it was a woman’s vagina as opposed to the putrified rot of a trans man’s surgically-rendered faux- pussy. Classic Coke vs Zero sugar diet cola ( with a perpetual requirement to mechanically dilate the bottleneck).
PPS. Al Cleland looking comfortable in boardies, in the Americas, in chunky waves. I reckon he’ll get a scalp or two under his belt in this Comp if the swell stays sizey. Hope so. As a fan of surfing I believe he’s got more to offer when given a decent canvas. Get some.
The “happenstance” Raygun signature move between the ” huntsman” and the “kiddy fiddler”
I agree Al could make it a little ways through comp with some size but his surfing needs more variety if he is going to stick around much longer.
also, the false premise that any WCT comp will feature swell that ‘stays sizey’
watching those guys at Chopes and in Mexico the past week , (especially Kusitino going nuclear on that pin bailout) just makes the tour seem a little pathetic in comparison
no amount of Aussie bloke surf slang commentating will fix that
Or Al could end up being the Mexican Seth Moniz where he somehow keeps making the cut year after year but nobody knows how.
the fact that these guys who excel in heavy water and throaty barrels can barely survive year after year says a lot about what the tour is these days
Exactly
Is there like a season tamecard they giving Seth? Domesticatedcard.
And…oh its pathetic all right.
i think Jack Robbo laying out backwards in his Raglan heat speaks volumes. that and the fact that pros being interviewed must be terrifying.
Lol
Al is up against griff in his first heat. Sorry mate