No longer the darling of the surf industry?
Kelly Slater is no longer king. The “Brazilian Storm” (man, I fucking hate that term. It sounds like a poorly maintained pubic region) has arrived and has de-throned the king. In the Brave New World of the WSELL, Kelly Slater is no longer sexy to the judging powers that be. They are squeezing him out heat by heat. If he had a trade union rep I think he would have good grounds for a case on ageist discrimination.
The simple fact is this: if Gabriel Medina, Filipe Toledo, ANY rookie, or even JJF had pulled off what Kelly did for his soon-to-be-infamous 4.17 then they would have been awarded a score in the excellent range, at the very least. And they would have been lauded to the heavens for innovation, progression, and other ambiguous judging criteria. This sentiment has been echoed by thousands of disillusioned surf fans on social media and with good reason.
Remember in the not-so-distant past when Dane did this?
9.97 for one turn. Are you kidding? Well no, because Dane was sexy at the time; Dane had selling power!
Now, Dane’s turn was radical. I loved it, but according to the “criteria” (which seems just about as substantial as Martin Potter’s vocabulary) by which the WSL have justified their scoring of Kelly’s wave, Dane should have been awarded virtually nothing, let alone a near perfect score.
The thing is, the WSL have got it backwards. Did either surfer complete the maneuver cleanly? No. Did it look completely intentional? No. Did he use the whitewash to get back to his feet and salvage the move? Yes. Did it make the collective audience gasp and piss their pants a little with joy and excitement? Yes. Fucking yes.
Where’s the difference between Dane’s 9.97 and Kelly’s 4.17? (Aside from the fact that Kelly kept riding and smashed some other solid turns, which should only strengthen his case).
The difference I’m afraid, surf fans, is that Kelly Slater is no longer marketable in the eyes of the WSL. I mean, he couldn’t sell competitive surfing to the masses during 20 years of domination; so where is the public interest in yet another world title now? Yes, of course he’s still good enough for a bit of social media hype fodder, but he’s not the face of the “sport” anymore. If Kelly had beaten Mick in that heat it wouldn’t have been nearly as beneficial in terms of interest in the title race. Where’s the selling point in Slater being in the title mix again? And Fanning is the media shark baby! It makes commercial sense for him to win again this year, even if he has done it before.
In this ground zero year for the WSELL it’s time to make new history. I can just imagine their board meetings:
Let’s throw a few results at someone unexpected like Toledo early on (but make sure that we have lots of different winners to keep it interesting. We don’t want that baldy bastard winning everything again!)
Let’s chuck someone a couple of perfect heats in one event! That’ll be new, won’t it?
Let’s make sure that all the rookies get overscored to get rid of all these middle-aged guys!
And can someone please forward the mandate for gushing praise towards mediocre surfing to the commentary team? And for fuck’s sake, make sure someone reads it aloud to Potz.
Yep, it’s definitely out-with-the-old-and-in-with-the-new for pro-surfing this year. It’s just a shame that those in power can’t see that this directive should be applied to the judges and (the majority of) the broadcast team, not the surfers.
