The Woz Finals Series on the Rocks...Again
Thwack!
That's the sound of the Woz slapping global surf fans in the face with a cold fish in a wet sock by announcing the 2022 Finals Day will be held at Trestles.
While the 2021 Finals Day was held on a day at Trestles that was as “big as it gets and as good as it gets”, and was “fun to watch”, it failed to provide the drama and excitement promised to fans of the sport. The number one seeds, especially Gabe Medina, cantered to easy victories and the most dramatic moments were supplied by Kelly Slater in the booth, not the action in the water.
Trestles is great as a regular tour stop. By returning there for the Finals Day the Woz has stolen defeat from the jaws of victory. The CT schedule this year is shaping up to be insane. It includes many A-grade waves and with the mid-year cut removing the backmarkers the potential exists for a tour year to finally live up to the promise that the top tier surfers like JJF, Medina, Italo deserve. As well as surf fans who gritted their teeth through multiple beachbreak events last year. Even the wavepool event, the bane of the modern surf fan, and which Kelly Slater himself described in a recent interview with MMA journalist Ariel Helwani as “boring"- has been quietly taken down to the bottom paddock and euthanised.
Which makes the decision to hold Finals Day at an intermediate-level wave incomprehensible, if not mind-bogglingly dumb. It's robbed fans of the chance to see the women challenged at a proper surf spot on Finals Day, after a year in which all their skills will be tested at Pipe and Teahupoo.
Why put them back in the kiddie pool for Finals Day after throwing them in the deep end all year?
It's eliminated any miniscule remaining chance Kelly Slater may have had at a World Title in his fiftieth year, and final year as a full-time tour competitor. It's likely vaccination requirements for the Aussie leg will guillotine those chances anyway, but with Pipe, J-Bay, and Teahupoo on the roster an unlikely outsider run at, say, finals day Cloudbreak could have remained a tantalisingly remote possibility.
Not any more. Kelly cannot match the Brazilians on the cobblestones. That storyline is now kaput.
The crumbling lip of the Lowers left was a gymnast's vault for Medina and his air game
How can they not get this right? UFC, the global franchise which has been massively in the ascendancy during the past COVID-derailed years, and which the WSL has tried to copy, routinely, almost mechanically, gives fans the match-ups they want to see. What the fans want, the sport delivers to them.
"Lame", "weak", "disappointing" is the feedback I've got this morning from the surf fans in my local hood. “Beyond exciting,” is how Brooke Farriss, Rip Curl's CEO described the move.
Do you see the problem here? The disconnect between the corpo speak and direction of the WSL and its partners with the average surf fan is not something a global sport should be happy with.
Ten days to the start of Pipe with the tantalising prospect of seeing JJF in god-like form at his local break and the WSL throws a rotten egg at its fans - and then tries to pretend it smells like roses.
Just another classic misstep from the WSL, and more proof that the people at the top have no idea about the sport they now own.
// STEVE SHEARER
Comments
Kelly may not get into Tahiti either if it is subject to the same rules France is. Yep the ramp will see a Zilla on the podium on an average wave. People bag Bells but it is a lot more challenging at a size Trestles can't even hold and never gets to anyway,
It seems a sad and ignominious end to his career.
It’s like a most top athletes. But in 10 years time people will just remember the glory not the days of days of slowly ageing into defeat.
Haha, you think Kelly will be retired in 10 yrs time? C’mon
He’s pretty much retired now. He’s just being an arsehole about leaving the tour so he can cherry pick comps he wants to surf at usually crowded spots with no one else out. But hey I guess if you are good enough to do it and still qualify…
IF any WSL stooges are lurking, this is what finals should look like.
https://www.worldsurfleague.com/posts/64601/2014-billabong-pro-tahiti-se...
I don't understand how an organisation that is in the business of 'selling' surfing can be so tone-deaf to their market.
+1.
I believe the answer (not surprisingly) lies with those running the show at the top, both running it and funding it. Complete disconnect from reality and actual surfers.
Bought in December 2012 by Zosea Media Holdings, this season will be the tenth year that WSL have run the tour.
TBH I didn't think they'd make it this far, though I'm sure they thought they'd be level pegging with UFC by now.
Ten years, wow time flies.
Didn't think they would make either.
E.Logan:
'This new format captivated our audience and drove consumption like never before and was the most-watched day of professional surfing with the largest live digital audience in WSL history'
Was it though?
Couldn't help thinking of an old blues lyric ; "It's a slow consumption killing you by degrees"
I hope he meant to say "engagement" rather than "consumption", but alas I fear he really meant what I he said. How TF the WSL going to party up with Corona x Parley for face saving environmental micro efforts, then waffle on about increased "consumption" being a good thing.
Personally I hope E.Lo leads the WSL to its ultimate demise and the whole corporate 'wanna be tennis tour' circle jerk goes down the drain once and for all.
On Google trends, the WSL as a search term is like heart beat slowly heading to a flatline.
In Australia Swellnet averages a score 65 to WSL 5 over the past 12 months. Worldwide the Aussie-focussed Swellnet is still way above the global "inspirational" WSL despite the much smaller target footprint.
https://trends.google.com.au/trends/explore?q=world%20surf%20league,swel...
Go ELO.
Those weekly zoom sessions with Ziff must be awkward.
Insightful AND funny Frog … again
Keep it coming mate
That link’s a little ripper
Are you going to be doing recaps Steve?
Mostly, yes.
Awesome, at least you don’t have to sit through another year of the tub!
You cant make the world surf league championships any better then what they were.
The last events of the year at Pipe and Maui, surfers trying to make the cut for the next year running concurrent with the triple crown provided the best human dramas possible, with all the surfers on tour sharing these dramas together. And with it all televised, it was the best TV ever!!
Now its just 5 peeps all alone surfing for one day. Ho f***ing hum.
And that type of finals structure only works for team events (AFL etc) who play every weekend for a season.
Such a stupid ill thought out idea for surfing.
Exactly. mab222 is onto it and I agree wholeheartedly.
This new scheduled way is, in my opinion a disservice to the youngsters learning journey of full championship tour.
I am hoping this 'current structure' is only a short term adjustment to get through these couple of 'planning difficult as f*#k'.. years.
#bringbackrooster.
Anyone remember what Pro Surfing was like in the 80s and 90s.
Trestles would have been a high light.
Too true
The WSL finals series is an attempt at reinventing the wheel.
Apart from those years when the tour was wrapped up in somewhere like Peniche or Brazil there was always a good story to go down at Pipe. I think fair enough if someone wins the title out of sheer dominance an event early.
Hawaii nearly always delivered compelling entertainment because it isn't manufactured. It is real. Most years there were several people 'in contention' through the pipe event and there in lay the drama. Remember Mick rolling into that second reefer to get spat out and move on? Andy v Kelly? Parko's year? Every year J-dub and Jordy would choke? Italo and Adriano's heroics?
They want a story, drama, it to be decided in the water at the last event - they had that in spades. For me the story isn't always about the world champ either. It's the Wilkos or Adam Mellings requalifying at the last minute. It's Kieren Perrow becoming Pipe Master. It's the young buck Hawaiian wildcards mixing it with the CT. The drama of the REAL triple crown and the stories of QS surfers going on a run at Haleiwa and Sunset.
Didn't KP win it in a cast or heavily bandaged arm after a nasty wipeout in the earlier rounds? That was a guts effort imo.
Edit: good post too Soli. That's where stories are made and re-told over the years. I just can't feel the same about Trestles.
Can’t remember about his injury. Sounds familiar.
Know he surfed like a man possessed against Parko to win it after finishing runner up to Flores the year before.
What was commendable about Kieren was that he would just sit down at OTW on mutant days alone and pull into anything. Well deserved pipe master.
WSL trying to even think they are remotely in the same stratosphere as the UFC is laughable. I'm a keen surfer and I hate watching comps, they are boring as batshit. But I will pay $60 to watch a good scrap.
Given the world since 2020 I'll just be happy if the tour goes ahead as scheduled and there's some decent top tier competitive surfing to watch.
The winner is ... the kids in America, woh-oh. At least Trestles is a peak with long rights and punchy lefts. Plays perfectly in to the hands of another goofy world champ.
Wasn't it Medina that got onto that one puchy left last year?
Lakey peak would have been a far better option
Trestles boring as batshit
Its a perfect venue, wind a bit of an issue though.
I guess its a good thing that they dont have WSL events at place like this in Indo though, at least G-land is very well known worldwide.
Not in September though.
I am personally stoked that the wave pool event has been banished.
On the bright side , looking at the crowds at the spots I like to surf at - Im glad they are stuffing it up. Look at all the pop up UFC gyms and athletes, there is not enough ocean room for that poplularity explosion again in surfing.
W$L have been feverishly chasing this mainstream American audience for years now, at the expense of anything of value to the fans of surfing.
Listen to their commentary and the simpleton way they describe surfing each and every event....oh that's what priority is? Ahh, forehand is facing the wave. Ohh, there's a reef!?? That's why the waves are dangerous??
After watching the Backdoor shootout, with Hawaiian surfers talking story about community, history and having a no filter reaction to hell waves ridden, it's a giant chasm between the two. One doing it to chase big dollars, leaving its fans in it's wake, the other doing it to create community and share the aloha.
I'd put my money on bells being cancelled this year again
my fave thing about pro surfing is pro surfers excitedly extolling the virtues of the second rate wave where the contest is being held - its the tradition, its the culture, its the most high performance wave on tour, its the crowd, its the vibe, its the local food, its so unique to be surfing in a tub, its the possibility the sleeping giant might awaken and we score good waves this time around.
Where is Bobby Martinez when you need him?
Awesome challenging tour stops and then a slopey finals day.
Looks like a perfect recipe for JJF to be 30000 points clear in first place leading into trestles only to be shipwrecked in the Brazilian storm on finals day.
re mid year cut.
Send the cut surfers to the tub for a 1 day surf off.
top two placers on the mens and womens side re enter the draw.