I was out for last week so Im playing catch up on my surf bro content.. who do you think won this final and why? Fanning was hacking the $#1% out of the Bells Bowl but Kelly was pushing the performance level.. leave your opinion in the comments!!
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The highlights don’t show Kelly’s full wave. Mick had 3 sick turns, and fell trying a 360 tailslider on the inside and judges gave him a 9.3. Kelly had a similar wave with 3 huge hacks (the 3 turns in a row in the highlights) and landed a sick 360 tailslide on the inside, and gave him an 8.1. Shortly after he landed that huge reverse and got a 10. Mick was surfing good, but I feel Kelly got robbed. Even pancho and other judges said kelly’s wave was better, and were shocked that mick scored higher on the one wave. anyways, good contest, bobby would of been watching tennis tho.
Ya, Kelly did get robbed. I watched the heat over and over and what we all
saw was a 40 year old taking everybody to school. I watched a few heats of
the girls the next day and Pancho contridcted himself and said that huge
360 air he did was a 10 but it didn’t deserve a 10. He also said that Micks
carves were more laid out but Kelly’s weren’t as drawn out. Mick was ripping
in that heat but it seemed his moves were all kinda the same while Kelly
mixed it up a little bit more, my opinion. I don’t know how Kelly does it,
but I think he’s from another planet(haha). I think this will motivate him even more for this year… We will see.
Fanning could never in 100 years pull off the moves Kelly pulled off in that final. Kelly was robbed!
This heat left me both disgusted and delighted. I was delighted by the fact it was high energy heat and was a blow by blow boxing match, but it disgusted me the way that Kelly was absolutely robbed on the first 8.07. It was so underscored that I nearly threw my laptop, especially when the judges gave Mick that 9.70 on that exchange when the dude fell. It was fun to watch, but Kelly should have been ousting the bell for the 5 time. The judges rewrote surfing history with a poor wave score.
as long as the judging criteria is centered around speed, power, and flow, heats like this one will always be up for debate. imo, kelly’s first 8.07 was underscored by a minimum of .50, while mick’s 9.7 was overscored by about same amount. it’s kinds funny that almost 20 years ago a guy named beschen was always busting the judges balls for not rewarding “progression,” and the main person he pointed to for not progressing the sport was kelly. today, nobody is more progressive than kelly, but the judging is still lagging & incredibly inconsistent.
(who knows, maybe the reason(s) behind mick’s win could be as simple as looking at the event sponsor & the host country…just sayin’.)
Kerrzy drops some wisdom on the matter: http://stabmag.com/tomorrow-gets-me-higher/