Three tomatoes are walking down a street – papa tomato, mama tomato, and baby tomato. Baby tomato starts lagging behind and Papa Tomato gets really angry, goes back and squishes him and says, “ketchup.” Ketchup.
What movie is that from?
As previously mentioned, we are getting back into the groove of things. Which means it might be time for a little Ketchup; I’ve been gone a while. I think the last contest we talked about was Lowers, in what, June? No mention of the World Title. No talk about the WSL, the new CEO, and the abolishment of Finals Day. There was a brief mention of some sponsorship changes, but aside from that we’ve got a ton of stuff to recap. Let’s get into it.
YAGO DORA AND MOLLY PICKLUM WIN WORLD TITLES
In the first year of Finals Day that was not held at Lowers, I think we all won. And by we all, I mean any of you all who watched it.
Not one heat. Not even a look at the conditions. I think I was keeping up with the scoring live, but I wasn’t watching. And I still haven’t seen how he won or how the waves were. But I know that Yago won. He beat Griffin in the Final Matchup.
Also, I’m pretty sure that Molly dropped an epic quote when she was crowned Champion. I’d have to double check but I do recall seeing some highlight reel clips in which she was very animated. She beat Caroline, which is pretty damn impressive. I’m excited to see how it goes this year.
WSL ANNOUNCES PLENTY OF NEW POSITIONS
CEO – RYAN CROSBY
CMO & NORTH AMERICAN PRESIDENT – BROOKE FARRIS
CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER – NICOLE METZGER
Following these new hires, some changes have been made already, and the Tour is starting to switch accordingly. Finals Day is no more. The Mid Year Cut is no more. There are no more Non Elimination Rounds. There are 9 regular season events, and 2 postseason events.
This guy. Mr. Crosby, right? He has gotten straight to it. I think I like him already. We’ll get into the full details of the coming year soon.
MATT BIOLOS TRIED TO SUE LADY GAGA
I guess Lady Gaga has a new album titled “Mayhem”. The logo for this album looks somewhat similar to …Lost, or Mayhem, whatever Biolos calls his brand nowadays. He aimed to sue Lady Gaga for a short $100 Million. All in all, the judge ruled in favor of the pop star, leaving surfing as broke as ever.
LOGAN DULIEN RETURNS WITH SNAPT 5
What is possibly Dulien’s swan song to surfing, Snapt 5 dropped around the time of the US Open and premiered around the globe. It’s now live on youtube for anyone to watch for free, and it won Film Of The Year in Stab’s annual awards. Worth the hour and twenty if you’ve got the attention span for it. Watch it here.
BRAND STORES BEGIN CLOSING
Liberated Brands filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in February last year, which meant companies that fell under this umbrella have started to shutter their doors. We’ve seen surfers get their stickers pulled back, and rumors of a shrinking industry abound yearly. What happens to this splintered culture we try to call an industry? There are a lot of questions to be answered.
WAVE OF THE WINTER IS BACK
I picked up on this story pretty late just like the rest of ‘em. This is not much of a catch up – this is going on right now. Liam McNamara knuckled up and put the culture on his back – reaching out to brands and companies to find the money to put this event on. I am going to attempt some real journalism by reaching out to Liam and getting a bit more info on this – but what I do know is that the first winner was Makana Pang, and he got himself a nice $5K check. Very rad that we still have some real stuff like this around surfing.
Truth be told, I know I missed a ton of events. A lot of stuff I could have touched on. And this is clearly a pretty half assed write up. I hardly even got into any of the stories, I more just led you in the direction, took a note down that these events did in fact happen, and we are moving on. See I’ve just got to pick up on what’s going on now. It’s hard to look back at things you really weren’t even paying attention to in the first place.
So we’re back tomorrow with some current events. As always, email over any stories you would like to share, or drop a comment with a significant surf event that I completely skipped over. Call me out. I deserve it.
Cheers,
hwilsin
Drew Stanfield