It is all said and done. We now have our 2022 World Champions of Surfing. Big congratulations to Filipe Toledo on his maiden World Title. Eclipsing the young Brazilian’s expected outcome was Stephanie Gilmore, the now winningest female surfer of all time. She broke a tie with Layne Beachley for the most World Titles ever, now sitting at 8.
In rather tedious fashion, the entire finals day spanned over 7 hours. One thing I wanted to shine light on was the stark difference in commentary from the WSL, their team, and anyone who came on the broadcast, versus the comments from their fans. Let’s have a look:
2nd Heat of the day, Italo vs Kanoa –
On the live WSL broadcast, Conner Coffin – “Definitely the right call to pull the trigger. Super clean, really rippable. The tides a little high I think maybe around 9, and then once that goes out it’ll probably just be that perfect, good tide, and really rippable size Lowers.”
On the WSL’s Instagram post around the same time –
User @doguidk – “Final day? Small like that? WTF”
User @oficialrafafranco – “Terrible format. Especially at trestles this size.”
Early discrepancies.
4th Heat of the day, Italo vs Ethan Ewing –
“I think it’s really, really good. I mean, there’s no wind right now. The size is ideal for Lowers. Sometimes, like last year I thought was a little too big, and today you can get rights and lefts, both perfect, almost the same. I’m liking the way it looks.”
Special Guest, Griffin Colapinto
What say the public?
On the WSL’s IG post announcing the start of this heat
User @rexhaaaan – “Such a crapy finals day you guys should resign”
User @jeremy_labsix – “Looks like we’re going to have an all Brazilian chop hop grovel off for the world title”
Searing retorts.
All of this culminated with Joe Turpel’s scripted finishing speech – he was reading from notecards – combined with Erik Logan’s unapologetically enthusiastic clapping.
Fast forward to ELO’s speech –
“How was today for the final five?! YES!!! No question that we are crowning the undisputed World Champions in the water, for the first time in the history of pro surfing, for the second consecutive year.” – YOUR CEO
Excuse me, what?
Lets go to the comments:
IG user @matthulme666 – “We just witnessed the death of pro surfing”
Twitter user @lukewallace – “Im enjoying the finals. But we cant decide world champions in waves like this again.”
He repeats “Undisputed” when announcing Steph’s 8th world title.
“I wanna be the first to say this to Stephanie, and to the world – Stephanie, you are the #gr8st. And we will spell great, with eight. Great with 8.”
Erik Logan
It was a bit cringeworthy.
This address from ELO, the use of the word UNDISPUTED, all of the flack I have seen about Cote wanting to be Bruce Buffer, the WSL is looking like the new WWE.
Where is the UFC and who is Dana White?
Cheers,
-hwilsin