John Florence Surfs The Wave Of The Day And Loses To Mikey Wright

There are a number of unspoken rules when it comes to high performance surfing.

Master a thruster before you move on to stranger craft. Don’t over hype swells. Only wrap your leash around your fins if you are an actual dentist. Cultivate an unexamined hatred towards competitive surfing events at the beachbreaks of Brazil.

It’s just the way our world spins.

Regardless of dental hygiene, truth be told, the waves in and around Rio aren’t special — at least not in the politically correct interpretation of the word. But guess what bozo? Neither are the waves you and I surf everyday. And there is something enchanting about seeing the world’s best surfers in the world’s most approachable waves.

Right?

Right.

So, sure, I could write that the Oi Rio Pro is a cesspool of average surfing which blatantly exposes the massive hindrance to innovative surfing imposed by the WSL’s entire way of operating. But as a PROFESSIONAL ACTION SPORTS JOURNALIST, I would never say that.

Instead, here are some observations from Day 1.

Barrinha, the wave the event is being held at, looked like a poor man’s Barra de la Cruz this morning. But a very poor man’s Barra De La Cruz — a man too poor to afford the internet, therefore not being able to search for images of Barra, only knowing of it after once reading about it in a magazine during a date at a cheap restaurant before having sex with his obese wife.

Filipe Toledo surfed it well.

Mikey Wright is breaking John John.
Mikey isn’t even supposed to be on Tour, but this is already setting up to be something of an Andy/Kelly thing with less drugs and a better hair distribution ratio. John got the best wave of the day, a beautiful 9.10 that looked as pretty as a View From A Blue Moon, then Mikey big-dicked him with a 7.83 to win the heat in the last few seconds.

I don’t think anybody else could do this to John — John’s team either needs to figure out the seed situation or stop letting this mongrel in their events.

Barrinha, for a brief moment in the mid morning, looked like the aforementioned poor man’s Keramas.
Julian Wilson surfed it well.

It was not a wave pool. Big ups to the WSL on holding the first ever professional surfing contest not held in a wave pool.

Gabriel Medina doesn’t know that rodeo flips are very dead. For my money — $750 and a stash of international nudie mags in assets — Gabriel is the best backhand surfer in the world. He is the sparky Bobby Martinez. He makes going backside actually look fun. However, from a scientific standpoint, rodeo flips are fucked and he should stop doing them.

The Griffin Colapinto hype is real because he is worth mentioning after winning a heat with an 11.60 point heat total. And no, not because of his performance today. Because of this. 

Other notes
-Ezekiel Lau is strong. Willian Cardoso is large. There is a difference.
-Yago Dora is too talented to fit into the WSL criteria.
-With the highlighter-yellow board, Pat Gudauskas looks like John John battled a severe drug addiction for a few years and tried to mount a Kenny Powers esque comeback. Which is nothing against Pat Gudauskas — he’s fantastic — but best practices for all professional surfers include avoiding potential comparisons to John, unless it involves growing hair on one’s face.
-We’ll be back on tomorrow.

Oi Rio Men’s Pro Round 1 Results: 
Heat 1: Filipe Toledo (BRA) 13.70, Kanoa Igarashi (JPN) 13.07, Ian Gouveia (BRA) 9.73
Heat 2: Miguel Pupo (BRA) 13.10, Jordy Smith (ZAF) 10.66, Tomas Hermes (BRA) 8.23 
Heat 3: Wade Carmichael (AUS) 12.60, Owen Wright (AUS) 11.26, Wiggolly Dantas (BRA) 11.17
Heat 4: Mikey Wright (AUS) 14.83, John John Florence (HAW) 13.93, Joan Duru (FRA) 10.93
Heat 5: Gabriel Medina (BRA) 14.17, Jesse Mendes (BRA) 13.43, Alejo Muniz (BRA) 12.86
Heat 6: Julian Wilson (AUS) 12.93, Deivid Silva (BRA) 10.30, Patrick Gudauskas (USA) 8.83
Heat 7: Italo Ferreira (BRA 10.64, Connor O’Leary (AUS) 10.47, Keanu Asing (HAW) 10.36
Heat 8: Griffin Colapinto (USA) 11.60, Michael February (ZAF) 11.47, Adriano de Souza (BRA) 11.00
Heat 9: Yago Dora (BRA) 12.13, Michel Bourez (PYF) 10.67, Conner Coffin (USA) 2.87
Heat 10: Ezekiel Lau (HAW) 13.60, Adrian Buchan (AUS) 12.30, Sebastian Zietz (HAW) 6.57
Heat 11: Willian Cardoso (BRA) 11.16, Matt Wilkinson (AUS) 9.60, Jeremy Flores (FRA) 9.30
Heat 12: Kolohe Andino (USA) 13.40, Frederico Morais (PRT) 11.76, Michael Rodrigues (BRA) 7.00

Oi Rio Men’s Pro Round 2 Results (H1-6):
Heat 1: John John Florence (HAW) 12.24 def. Deivid Silva (BRA) 10.94
Heat 2: Alejo Muniz (BRA) 10.57 def. Owen Wright (AUS) 10.40
Heat 3: Jordy Smith (ZAF) 12.70 def. Wiggolly Dantas (BRA) 9.94
Heat 4: Ian Gouveia (BRA) 15.53 def. Adriano de Souza (BRA) 11.83
Heat 5: Keanu Asing (HAW) 9.77 def. Michel Bourez (PYF) 9.66
Heat 6: Adrian Buchan (AUS) 12.63 def. Michael February (ZAF) 3.96

Oi Rio Men’s Pro Remaining Round 2 Matchups (H6-12):
Heat 7: Matt Wilkinson (AUS) vs. Michael Rodrigues (BRA)
Heat 8: Frederico Morais (PRT) vs. Patrick Gudauskas (USA)
Heat 9: Jeremy Flores (FRA) vs. Jesse Mendes (BRA)
Heat 10: Sebastian Zietz (HAW) vs. Joan Duru (FRA)
Heat 11: Conner Coffin (USA) vs. Tomas Hermes (BRA)
Heat 12: Connor O’Leary (AUS) vs. Kanoa Igarashi (JPN)