Gabriel Medina shrugs at the crowd at the 2021 Surf Ranch Pro. This year, everyone’s talking about it because it’s like a soap opera. Photo: WSL
The Surf Ranch Pro is done and dusted, but the dust has yet to settle. Surfers and fans alike are up in arms about (gasp!) the judging. And you know what? All that screaming and shouting, all that hand-wringing and pearl clutching, and all that anger is good for competitive surfing (death threats aside, of course).
Gabriel Medina voiced his displeasure on social media with the judging after a heat loss to Ethan Ewing. Ítalo Ferreira and Filipe Toledo, albeit in slightly less pointed ways, took the opportunity to make their feelings known, too. Fans are sending death threats to Ethan Ewing, who didn’t win the event but beat Medina in a heat, as though he had something to do with the judges’ decision(s). They’re furiously hammering their keyboards, silently screaming in all caps about the unfairness of it all. WSL CEO Eric Logan felt the vitriol was acidic enough it required a response. But you’ve certainly heard the phrase “any press is good press,” haven’t you?
I, like many other viewers I’m sure, wasn’t exactly enthralled by the Surf Ranch Pro. Sure, it’s a wonder of engineering, and sure, the surfing is ridiculously good, but there’s just something — and I hesitate to use this word, but it’s fitting here — soulless about the whole thing. Surfing, at least in my opinion, isn’t just the act of riding a wave. It’s dealing with Mother Nature. It’s paddling and wave choice and all that other stuff that surfing is made of. The actual surfing part, if you think about it, is probably the thing we do the least of when we go surfing. But when everyone was yelling at everyone after, and sparks are flying and blood is boiling, you better believe my ears perked up. It’s impossible not to slow down as you drive by a car crash, right?
Although it’s part of the tour, the Ranch still feels a bit like a novelty stop. It’s strange that other wave pools don’t get quite the same amount of irrational hatred as the Ranch does, but people are complicated. The wave there is mechanical in a literal sense. In surfing, describing a wave as mechanical is generally a good thing, but when it’s actually made by a machine, it loses something. The wave at the Surf Ranch puts the surfer’s skill on the wave on display. And while that’s a good thing when it comes to judging, it’s a bad thing when it forces repetition. Wave after wave of mechanical perfection with little to no difference between them turns the event into something akin to a gymnastics routine.
In gymnastics, however, everyone is used to praising the routine. No one’s praising the mat the gymnast is doing it on because it’s just a mat. In surfing, the mat is what makes things incredibly exciting or incredibly boring. That’s what makes surf events so wonderful to watch: the waiting, the expectation, the hoping against hope that Teahupo’o or Pipeline is going to dole out conditions that most of us would turn and run from. The Surf Ranch has none of that. No waiting period, no build up of excitement, no shifting conditions. Just a hard and fast date for the event, a wave that will 100-percent be working, and the allure of an air conditioned casino down the road when the sun begins to set. Great for training and great for planning, but, depending on your particular wants, not so great for viewing. Unless, of course, there’s drama. Then it’s great for viewing. There’s a reason why the Scandoval pushed Vanderpump Rules from plain old reality television to a trending hashtag and the talk of the town: people love drama.
The ire we’re seeing after the Surf Ranch Pro means that the Surf Ranch Pro is on the lips of the public. Without it, we’d likely have forgotten about it already. Now, though, it’s like an HBO show. There’s a story arc that’s unfolding around it, and the story arc is more interesting than the thing it’s unfolding around. It should be noted here that I completely denounce death threats. That’s a step way, way too far in the wrong direction. But boy oh boy, I’m a hell of a lot more invested in what’s happening after the event than I was in the event itself. And that, as I said, means that more people are talking about the Surf Ranch Pro. Which is exactly what competitive surfing needs.
