Mid 2000s Surf Industry Redeemed In Western Australia By John Florence And Kolohe Andino

The surf industry was invented in Irvine, California in 2003.

Shortly thereafter, it experienced a rapid period of growth thanks to core surf shops such as Macy’s and TJ Maxx. When the industry was at its prime, John John Florence and Kolohe Andino were the princes. They were the heirs to the throne and all of its doubloons. There was not enough room in the future for anyone else.

Then the financial crisis of 2008 hit and people had to stop living their baller ass lives in ill-fitting Quiksilver logo tees because they couldn’t afford to pay the mortgages on their $85,000 houses in Midland City, Ohio. And everything changed.

Times are totally different now. Stab is headquartered almost 20 miles from Orange County and the WSL has adopted a much more methodical system of racism to replace the overt version made popular when Jihad Kohdr was on tour.

The economy bounced back and the surf industry has since proven that it is perfectly capable of destroying itself without the aid of a financial crisis.

But with both John John and Kolohe in the final at Margaret River, the Costan Mesan prophecies of yore have proven true. Does that mean the surf industry is officially back? I don’t want to sell anybody some flip flops and a mortgage I know they’ll default on yet, but it’s on the right track.

See you at the Sublime cover band show.

On to the rankings.

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#27 Deivid Silva

I once used Limewire to illegally download a horrible reggae song that was set to Raoni Monteiro’s part in a Rip Curl DVD that came for free in a magazine. I wouldn’t do that for Deivid Silva. Not worth the risk.

#23 Barton Lynch

He has the general demeanor of a middle-class family’s golden retriever. In honor of that, here’s my list of the current top 5 middle-class family’s golden retrievers in surfing.

5) Ricardo Christie

4) Ace Buchan

3) Dane Gudauskas

2) Ian Crane

1) Evan Geiselman

#18 Wade Carmichael

A bit disappointing to see the people’s champ walk away with a 33rd this event. After Andy Ruiz Jr’s win last weekend, bet on Wade making at least the semis in Rio.

#14 Wilian Cardoso

It was unfortunate for last year’s champ that the event wasn’t held at WA’s northernmost province of Bali again. But what can you do? The answer to that is to eat it a few times at The Box (nice) and lose to Kelly Slater.

#13 Ace Buchan

He looks like a scoop of white rice on a churrasco platter.

#11 Leonardo Fioravanti

Never seen somebody so deep and yet so on the shoulder at the same time.

#10 Julian Wilson

With each passing day, he looks more and more like he belongs on the PGA tour.

#9 Caio Ibelli

Without the WSL not giving him the injury wildcard for the year, he would have never had the chance to get the injury replacement wildcard for this event which means the WSL pretty much did him a favor.

I’ve noticed a lot of Brazilian fans gushing with support for Pat O’Connell lately. Maybe it’s time for Caio to do the same.

#8 Seth Moneys

If that’s how Australians are going to pronounce it, that’s how I’m going to write it.

#7 Gabriel Medina

I stacked up his results to start this year against a train that had crashed into what appears to be some sort of a building in Canada. Although he’s known to go off the rails in the early season, any train expert can tell you that this could have easily been prevented if Charlie Medina had a whistle like Ricardo Toledo.

#4 Kolohe Andino

Remember when you had the one friend that just couldn’t lose his/her virginity? And not because they were ugly or they were saving it to have sex with Jesus or whatever — the stars just weren’t aligning. As bad as they wanted to, they just couldn’t get laid. And the harder they tried, the harder it became.

We could be approaching this level with Kolohe Andino. I think he’ll either win J-Bay or the frustration will get so high that it will blossom into some sort of BDSM fetish by the end of the year.

#3 Tatiana Weston-Webb

She gets the Occy of the event award for being the highest place goofy footer. On the men’s side, this honor was between Ryan Callinan and Italo Ferriera. Tie goes to Ryan though because of his head.

#2.5 John John Florence

He looked like a Taj in a sea of Bedes out there. Next step will be to look like a Filipe in a pack of Petersons, then a Mick amongst Mellings at J-Bay. And then just to not lose when Gabriel wins the remaining 5 events after that.

#1 The kid who arm-wrestled Slater

The hero surfing deserves.

Acai Bowl of the event award

Lowest heat total at The Box with 2.40 points. Bon appetit.

Meditation of the event

I’ve been watching highlight reels of the ISA World Games and getting drunk in dangerous neighborhoods.

Conspiracy theory of the event

The WSL broadcasts some of the commentator’s voices at 432 hertz and others at 440 hertz in order to create drama and manipulate your brain into a hysterical state in which you actually believe that the second round is worth watching.

Kelly Slater playbook

He’s currently sitting on the bubble at 9th place, which could be huge in the grand scheme of things.