Pro Surfing and Contests
ASP rivalries
Remember the good old days, when guys on tour really hated each other? It was kind of like professional wrestling or 1970’s professional basketball, where you had your good guys and bad guys and the rivalries were all encompassing. Australians hated Americans, calling us Seppos and other such nonsense. Americans hated em right back. Things have calmed down considerably on tour since the days when Curren and Occy duked it out at the OP Pro, and Occy was quoted saying the nastiest of nasty things about Americans. The late 80s into the early to mid 90s saw a bit of a resurgence of tensions between the “old school” and the “new school”. While guys like Gary Elkerton and Martin Potter were focusedon burying rails, guys like Kelly Slater and Rob Machado were focused on sliding tails. The “new school” triumphed with slides, airs and reverses, but they formed a new “Momentum” generation made up of a group of the best young surfers at the time, who shared a “new school” approach, and genuinely liked each other. The World Tour became the Bro tour. Then came Andy Irons… He found his stride as Slater lost his drive, winning a few world titles and sparking the most contentious rivalry in modern surfing, complete with stinkeye, insults, and Andy telling Slater he wasn’t welcome at a gathering Slater stumbled into. How did Slater respond? He paddled out at a heat with Irons a few days later and told him, “I love you”. How cool is that? Kill him with kindness. Their rivalry has died down in recent years, and the two are allegedly on much friendlier terms. Looking towards a new fight, I thought Mick was off to a good start with his dramatic “take no prisoners” approach to last year’s tour, but this year shows a calmer more subdued, possibly less focused Fanning. Where will the next rivalry come from? It always seemed to spark change. I think we’re due for a bit of good old fashioned hate!
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