Following on from Part 1, The Outsider has cornered Kelly on the beach during the final day of competition at last years Bells Pro. He has a small window of opportunity to question him...

'Don't fuck this up', was what I was thinking, as someone passed Slater his cap and the most famous dome outside the Sistine Chapel became decently covered.

My opening gambit was phrased thusly. "Considering all the hype about the New Generation, how important is it, or how conscious are you, about making a statement to the judges on your opening ride?"

And he responded with. "You have to surf within yourself. You have to surf with what you know and what you're confident with, and don't get pulled into someone else's game because that's what's hot at the moment. If you're in a fight, you don't jump on the other guys fight, otherwise next thing you know you're in territory you don't know about. But you gotta learn from everyone who's coming along: apply different moves and approaches."

Which I mentally translated thusly: These pricks can come in the cage on my terms. Everything they can do I can do better, and in the heat of competition. Let's see them pull these tricks out in the heat of battle. I ain't some Mod Coll fashion follower who needs a beret, baguette, Vespa and 50 attempts to stonk an alley-oop and I will still beat yo ass. Anytime I goddamm want to.

I then asked him: "Is there a general feeling amongst the surfers this year, with the new criteria, of having to step up and make a statement to the judges?"

To which he replied: "There always is at the first couple of events; every year there's talk of new judging, every year there's talk of new manouevres, rookies and new guys (shrugs). Yeah, you have to evolve and you have to advance and you have to surf better each year. I'm surprised to hear people in interviews saying, 'It's the best tour we've ever seen'....well it's not gunna go backwards, you know what I mean? (laughs) Guys are getting better every year, you know."

Which said to me: Forget all this ridiculous hype peddled by mags about these new rookies and judging criteria. It's the same as it ever was. And I am improving just as fast as these new guys, if not faster. We'll see how these hype merchants fare when the blowtorch of pressure gets applied.

And then I asked: "So you think this is an incremental step forwards and not a quantum leap?"

"No, there hasn't been a quantum leap in the two months we've been off tour (grins). It's just constantly evolving. It may be increasing quicker now. But it hasn't gone somewhere that no-one's ever seen. I mean it was a year or two ago that Jordy did that big flip: we've been working on that for a long time but Jordy finally nailed one perfectly. And this stuff that Dane's doing; everyone's gunna agree it's pretty rad what he's doing. Those guys are setting the bar higher and higher."

My translation: I was doing Rodeo Clowns in the fucking Pipe Masters Finals 10 years ago! And Jordy is just catching up now after 100 attempts at perfect Maccas? And you expect me to be impressed by that? Sure Dane is rad but it's hardly something that hasn't been done before and he'll need an IV drip feed to win a final.

I continued. "It just seems now, as a spectator, that guys are prepared to to do that in competition. And not just in competition, but as their opening ride, hell, their opening manouevre on their opening ride."

He responded. "Yeah, well if you do that and you nail it, you control the heat. So there's nothing bad about trying, even if you don't make it. If you try your first move as an air and you feel solid on your feet and you're straight back into the flow of the wave, your going to be putting pressure on the other guy immediately, so you might as well try that to start."

Which translated reads as: Haven't you idiots been paying attention all these years? Shit, I've only been doing this for 15 years now and you still haven't figured it out. It's not fucking rocket science.

And as a closing question: "What's your analysis of your performance out there compared to how you surfed on the Gold Coast?"

His reply: "Umm, I felt like I surfed really good in my first heat or two on the Goldy. I felt really on. I felt pretty inspired and stuff. I didn't feel confident or very good in the heat I lost, but that tends to happen in heats you lose (laughs). I haven't felt exceptionally good here, obviously with my foot too, it kinda puts an..ah, ah...anything I get in this event is a bonus because I had expected to lose my last heat y'know (laughs). Right now, I'm two rounds past where I thought I'd be".

Which is easily translated as: I'm fucking psyched this year and the loss to Jordy means nothing....just a bad day at the office and nothing more. With the foot now operating as an inbuilt pressure valve and having dodged a bullet against Dusty Payne I've got absolutely no pressure on me, so look out chumps.

The crowd stayed hunkered down as the rain held ground and the gloom deepened. Fanning advanced to the Final and he found his foe Kelly Slater hobbling to the waters edge to meet him. Hobbling, if you can believe it! Like he's just copped a mortar fragment in the leg in the Tet Offensive. "Belly! Belly! I've been hit!"

And Belly, solid as ever, "Don't worry Kelly, keep breathing little buddy. I'll get you home safe." You get the picture, right?

Fanning took a set wave and over-rotated on a signature lightning-fast top turn that would've been a high eight if he pulled it. Goneskies I thought. Slater fell too. They both fell. The crowd was silent and it felt like night would fall before the end of the heat. "He looks tired" I said to someone squatting beside me, meaning Slater. The two figures were losing colour in the twilight. This was Kelly Slater in black and white.

Slater took off on a nothing looking wave and took two speed pumps towards the close-out and then launched...he rotated through a full alley-oop and landed in the whitewater explosion. "Nah," my friend said.

He popped up standing and the crowd erupted like they'd been mainlined with meth. "Muthafucka," my friend said. "Muthafucka".

And that was the start of the Title Run proper.

Did Slater come into the Trestles contest in perfect southern hemi surf in second place to Jordy Smith with a bunch of newly designed rockers on small, round pins with quad/thruster set-ups?

Yes he did. And all event the talk was of nothing else but the surfing of Dane, which despite Kelly's fatherly benevolence irritated him. Pro Surfing was supposed to be his Personal Plaything and his alone, to which he could dominate in non-committal fashion like a mistress at his whim and fancy. And Reynolds was just a tiny bit too cool for school; he took the cheques didn't he? Well how 'indie' was that, no matter how much grainy Super8 you shot? And now every surfing journo was going gaga and blowing loads over Dane's every move, including acting stupid in the shorebreak. C'mon, did every sucker have to swallow the Kool-aid?

Well Kelly didn't. And secretly he hoped for a match-up so he might lay a little bit of cold hard reality all over that Reynolds sex appeal. Tap all those brainless hack hard-ons with the cold spoon of some Slater stick.

The day before the final Slater had a Round 4 heat, which was now an expression session heat with no losers against Owen Wright and CJ Hopgood. The surf was DOH, glassy and 'as rippable as it gets', according to Teebs.

Did Slater tear the nutsack off it wearing a headband and lose, feeling underscored and underappreciated which a subsequent viewing of the video footage would confirm?

Aye. He did. And then he took the extraordinary step of meeting the judges, leery of creating a disrespectful impression on account of the headband to 'confirm' the direction the new criteria was being interpreted by the judges.

Historians are now familiar with these unorthodox methods which Robert Kelly employs in the clutch situation, as a means of asserting his will, in a kind of primal foreplay prior to the Big Moment. Exhibit A: "I love you man", to Andy before the Pipeline showdown.

The message is unmistakeable, sports fans: This is the way the fully emancipated man operates, the way a commanding spirit deals with the things, people and situations it wants to master and dominate. The power of a spirit to appropriate what is foreign to it, simplify the complex, repel what is contradictory to it in order to enhance that feeling of growth, the feeling of increased power via which it thrives and distinguishes itself from what is beneath it.

Slater took down Owen in the Quarter Final and faced up to Fanning in the Semi. In retrospect, this was the World Title heat right here. The crunch moment.

When we speak of Fanning and Parkinson, it is imperative we consider the effect of Andy Irons. The fidelity of the Coolie Kids to Irons cannot be overstated. In the Irons heyday he was psychological shelter from Slater's cruel imperiousness which caused so much emotional pain, to Parkinson in particular. Irons' superfluity of emotion, talent for friendship and sensitivity as well as his naked hatred of Slater gave succour to the Coolie Kids who were being stymied in their prime from the World Titles they believed were their birthright.

Fanning and Slater had, since the Irons era, developed a strong mutual respect, more advantageous to Slater, who appreciated Fannings' lack of personal vitriol compared to Irons in his prime. Fanning's dual world titles had taken the edge off the pain in a way that Parko is unable to comprehend.

Thus was the psychological seedbed laid before the Semi Final began, not to speak of Fanning's desire to level the ledger after Bells.

Standing on the other side of the draw is Reynolds and a potential Final against the best surfer in the world at perfect DOH Lowers.

There's a bit to play for here, as you can see.

Did Slater pull a Beschen-style feint against Fanning, keeping him off one of the waves of the heat to produce a victory and then manufacture some phoney remorse in the post heat interview, and in the process wrecking his relationship with Fanning?

Aye, aye shipmates. He did. And when Reynolds imploded against Bede, Slater once more was facing off against a solid tradesman who had beaten him previously at Lowers but whom he has long since gained the ascendacy over.

He won the Comp.

He won the World Title.

He was 38 fucken years of age.

Does Robert Kelly Slater have any horizons left to conquer on his way to becoming a fully realised global superstar?

Affirmative. Jimmy Slade has yet to conquer middle American indifference. He plans to become fully realised via the method of wavepools which will introduce the Kingly Hawaiian sport of waveriding to land-locked consumers and sports fans, thus massively enhancing the global reach of Pro Surfing and ensuring his name becomes forever legend in the annals of sporting and cultural history.

The beginning.