Eli Hanneman Was Put On A Surfboard To Kill Egos

The recently aged 16-year-old, Eli Hanneman is a prodigy.

His skill set is mature. He looks like a micro Julian Wilson above his board. He’s a shy, soft-spoken teenager, who understands his gift. And, jumping Jesus, the kid has a gift. We can only wait and wonder what awe-inspiring feats young Eli has in store in the next ten-fifteen-twenty years.

When we brought him out to our surf contest, Stab High, Eli made the finals. And, in those finals he flipped himself into third place across a field of Noa Deane, Chippa Wilson, Mason Ho, Eithan Osborn and Ian Crane. Many believe he should have won the event, Matt “Mayhem” Biolos posted to his Instagram in the wake of Waco, “I still believe that @elihanneman should have won the @stab event, over the Varial/shuvits done by #NoaDeane, mainly because I watched and documented #JustinMatteson and #JoeCrimo pull off dozens of of shuvits and Varials daily, literally 25 years (a quarter century) ago. They had them on lock. But the corked flips Eli was doing barley existed just a few years back. Furthermore, he’s riding out of them, firmly planted, with speed and can bottom turn right into another move.”

It’s worth noting, that in our and our Stab High judges eyes, the shuv-its Chip and Noa were doing sat at a level of difficulty above what Joe Crimo and Justin Matteson did back in the day. This was based purely off the sheer height and degree of rotations being attempted by the two gentlemen.

So, here are four minutes of Eli Hanneman which–although not the intention of the short–will make you feel bad for ever attempting to ride a surfboard in the ocean…or pool!