El Salvador Pro 2025: Day 6

Is it Day 4?..3, 5, 6? It's been almost impossible to keep up with the contest in any normal way with the dribs and drabs, days and lay day, and general malaise surrounding the event.

Anyhow, we finally got back to competition with a full day of men's surfing completed, that being the immense Round of 32. Variable conditions for the day, from hard offshore tending devil wind in the morning, to light onshore for most of the day, although conditions didn't completely disintegrate like previous days.

Levi Slawson (WSL/Hughes)

A constant was the inconsistency with maddeningly long lulls where not much happened apart from being suffocated in mountains of gibberish from commentators, chiefly Mitch Salazar and Joe Turpel. More on that in a minute.

Tight heats abounded with favourites ending up on the wrong side of razor-thin margins that could have easily gone the other way. On first blush, judges got them wrong to my eye. Confirmed by second viewings. Or vice versa.

One that ended up going the favourite's way: Italo versus local Brian Perez, looked clearly like it should have gone the local's way. Bigger, sharper turns, and better waves from Perez ended up going Italo's way by 0.27 on the two-wave combined total.

Brian Perez (WSL/Hughes)

Griffin Colapinto ended up on the wrong end of an even tighter heat with Matty McGillivray. 0.24 between the two scores at the end of the heat. Four different flavours of six-point ride had to be adjudicated between the two surfers. First viewing looked like Griff had been pickpocketed by judges. Second viewing looked to confirm Matty as winner. You could watch it a hundred times and see a different winner everytime.

That doesn't help Colapinto's cause though, stuck down in the arse end of the rankings below the cut line with only three events left before the guillotine drops. He's too good, everywhere, to be cut. Surely..? And he's not in any type of form slump. Everything is there working perfectly. It just shows pro surfing results can often rest on intangibles that defy logic. A shitty wave in Abu Dhabi that inexplicably crumbled on him and cost him a heat. Backdoor bombs that could have been 10's but were denied exits by millimetres. Heats decided by less than half a point.

Griff (WSL/Hughes)

When cosmic forces align against you, there's not a whole heap you can do about it. Personal agency in the face of these forces is very much overrated.

Yet it does play a role. Griff's brother Crosby turned a loss into a win in the last 90 seconds of his heat with Kanoa Igarashi by playing for a tiny chance that he would be able to get a wave that would enable him to force a priority neutralisation by being on his feet as the siren sounded. Thus forcing Kanoa with priority to either concede the ride or take off and force an interference. Whether Cros actually played for that outcome as he claimed or retrofitted that explanation afterwards is irrelevant. He put himself into a position where that could happen.

More tight heats, more event and world title favourites gone. Jack Robinson went down to rookie George Pittar by 0.33 of a point. You watch the replays. I thought the high scores should have been reversed. Jack did bigger turns. Pittar had more variety. In the end it went Pittar's way.

Rookie Marco Mignot used an air game to best Rio Waida by 0.16 of a point. It doesn't seem to me that Mignot's turns are really up to CT standard but if he is prepared to throw airs at anything that moves judges are prepared to pay it. Can he pull the same stunt in Australia? Sure, why not. Big airs have won heats at Snapper, Bells, and Margies.

Marco (WSL/Hughes)

Tight heats happen. Numbers have to be thrown at waves and in a subjectively judged sport where a range of approaches can be utilised, all in flux according to what is in fashion and how individual skill sets are employed, the result can go either way.

But do the individual numbers matter?

"Judges don't care about numbers," intoned Joe Turpel, backed up by Mitch Salazar. It was getting late in the day and they'd turned the gaslighting up to 11. They tend to egg each other on, Joe and Mitch, trying to outdo each other with the most outlandish versions of anti-reality.

Bitcoin babes nursing Corona Zero's lounged in the shade whilst they blathered.

If numbers don't matter, why throw them at all?

Why have an “excellent range” for instance, if a 7.87 is the same as an 8.17 which Mitch insisted was true?

They were referring to Toledo's tantrum the other day, but it could have easily have applied to Leo Fioravanti's performance against Ryan Callinan. That was not a tight heat. Teammate Leo (if having the same coach makes one a teammate as is now assumed) paddled R-Cal ruthlessly for the inside, showed the same level of ruthlessness on the opening ride which by the standard of the day was an excellent ride all day long to only receive a 7.67. That's a miss. Made no difference to the outcome but if numbers are to mean anything, they have to mean something concrete. Be comprehensible and consistent.

Toledo opened his heat against Mexican rookie Al Cleland jr with a long period of inactivity after Al spiked the first set (there was no wave behind it) for a miserly scored 5.83. According to Salazar, the energy emanating from Toledo was equivalent to Muhammed Ali in his prime. OK. Sure. If Ali had refused to step in the ring with Sonny Liston, ran around the ring for fifteen rounds refusing to engage with Joe Frasier, and had a case of dodgy tummy requiring he pull out of the fight with George Foreman, then yes, there would be a parallel universe where Toledo is the same as Ali in his prime.

Al (WSL/Hughes)

He went further. Toledo had a “mob boss energy” and was the top of the food chain. I guess that depends on your definition of food chain. If you're grazing around in gentle paddocks filled with clover then Toledo probably would be top herbivore. If it came to a more high stakes clash of predators: maybe a lion and a hyena clashing over a carcass, then Toledo would be equivalent to the hyena. I know we are really torturing analogies here, and I don't mean to disrespect Toledo, but at a certain point it becomes surreal trying to subvert reality like that to make a point.

Al smoked Toledo in the end, punching holes through another set wave with vertical power surfing while Toledo was left to feast on scraps which not even his brand of small wave wizardry could turn into meaningful scores.

Favouritism now has to reside with Fioravanti. Who seems to have found easy rhythm and impeccable reads on this wave that can make so many look ordinary.

More size is expected through the closing stages of the event, which will suit him too. Ethan Ewing is also stealthily moving through the draw. Attracting minimal attention while winning heats. Just the way he likes it.

// STEVE SHEARER

Surf City El Salvador Pro Men’s Round of 32 Results:
HEAT 1: Yago Dora (BRA) 9.50 DEF. Samuel Pupo (BRA) 4.43
HEAT 2: Connor O'Leary (JPN) 13.20 DEF. Seth Moniz (HAW) 12.27
HEAT 3: Matthew McGillivray (RSA) 13.10 DEF. Griffin Colapinto (USA) 12.86
HEAT 4: Marco Mignot (FRA) 13.67 DEF. Rio Waida (INA) 13.50
HEAT 5: Ethan Ewing (AUS) 13.23 DEF. Levi Slawson (USA) 11.13
HEAT 6: João Chianca (BRA) 12.97 DEF. Joel Vaughan (AUS) 9.13
HEAT 7: Crosby Colapinto (USA) 11.60 DEF. Kanoa Igarashi (JPN) 6.83
HEAT 8: George Pittar (AUS) 13.50 DEF. Jack Robinson (AUS) 13.17
HEAT 9: Italo Ferreira (BRA) 13.40 DEF. Bryan Perez (SLV) 13.13
HEAT 10: Ramzi Boukhiam (MAR) 11.17 DEF. Jackson Bunch (HAW) 9.67
HEAT 11: Jordy Smith (RSA) 12.50 DEF. Deivid Silva (BRA) 5.20
HEAT 12: Leonardo Fioravanti (ITA) 15.97 DEF. Ryan Callinan (AUS) 12.00
HEAT 13: Alejo Muniz (BRA) 10.93 DEF. Barron Mamiya (HAW) 10.83
HEAT 14: Cole Houshmand (USA) 13.17 DEF. Jake Marshall (USA) 11.13
HEAT 15: Miguel Pupo (BRA) 12.50 DEF. Ian Gouveia (BRA) 11.70
HEAT 16: Alan Cleland (MEX) 13.00 DEF. Filipe Toledo (BRA) 10.00