Tom Wallisch (ESPN bracket)

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Oldmann1584

Active member
I'm sorry but honestly I don't think Tom Wallisch deserves to win against Kelly Slater (which he is right now). He already beat Travis Rice in the 1st round but I honestly just think thats kind of ridiculous and almost embarrassing to Travis...

Don't get me wrong I love Tom Wallisch and he's an awesome skier and everything but lets be honest, Kelly Slater has won 11 world titles, that is ridiculous! Could you imagine winning a world title 11 times? Not only that hes won a shit load of events and even Travis who's a pioneer in the sport of snowboarding and has come out with some of the sickest snowboarding films I have ever seen. I don't even like snowboarding that much but those movies absolutely blew me away.

I know this is a skiing website and all and I rarely rant like this but I just think its kind of unfair towards these athletes.

I don't even know why I'm getting worked up about this considering these polls don't really mean shit. Probably lots of hate coming my way but thats just my 2 cents...
 
Fuck it man if we can support our skiers why not? Its just an online poll anyways, who really cares who wins or loses?
 
I agree, as much as i like tom, travis should definitely have taken that one. Travis is a pioneer in not only snowboarding, but action sports as a whole.
 
this. Travis Rice kills it harder than anyone i have ever seen on a snowboard. It's absolutely insane the stuff he does
 
PAST STATUS MATTERS NOT. Tony Hawk would always win this shit if it was all about how well people have done in a long period of time before, this is about how the person has done in the past year. Wallisch deserves the vote guys, it doesnt matter that 5 years ago he wasn't winning championships. He had a better year than kelly. He had a better year than essentially anyone in action sports.
 
Yup, its about this year, Twall has been KILLING it. Definitely one of the best action sports athletes this year. Shaun White will win though :(
 
It amazes me how people still take ESPN seriously when it comes to extreme sports. So maybe it is ridiculous that T-Wall might win, I'm sure none of the athletes actually care about that poll at all. What's it to them if the win a little ESPN poll when they all have word titles or X-games gold medals? This poll is a joke because you can't possible put Tom against Kelly Slater and evenly compare them.
 
this contest is not about "legends"

we know the winner will be the one to have more fans and thats it

i hate people like you because we know who is who!
 
fuck that shit. its not about wallisch vs slater.its skiing vs surfing. and ill be damned if we let a bunch of dumbass surfers smack our lip,wipash, and get pitted while we watch and not afterbang in our tall tees.
 
Wallisch has essentially done nothing but win this year... taking 2st at 2 of 3 dew cups, podiuming in european x games, winning war of rails, and winning X Games here. He doesn't have as many competitions to enter as Kelly, no but average wise, he is technically doing better
 
Skiing is still VERY young in comparison. Think about if Candide was still winning X games, and did for the previous 8 years. Surfing is on a different level than skiing, sorry. Don't get me wrong I think skiing is A LOT more fun and I would take a powder day over a double overhead any day but Surfing and skiing are two Very different sports.
 
danny way is beating shaun white right now, and in the last round i remember when i checked, ken block was winning over shaun. maybe espn was doing their thing again...
 
I get that everybody hates shaun white, myself included, but he is the best halfpipe snowboarder in the world right now and does not win anything with subpar performance. Sure he didn't deserve the 100 at X, but he deserved the win.
 
sorry but he's killing it harder than kelly slater this year and really... surfing is not even hard. "oh man totally felt earth's energy on that wave brah". yeah tight you stood up on a board, congrats now get the fuck away from me you dirty sand hippie.
 
well it would be nice if they chose a skier for it that can do more than little ballerina moves on pieces of metal...
 
what about pastrana? he completely revolutionized the sport of freestyle motocross. i think he's gonna win. dont get me wrong i love twall i just think pastrana is a boss
 
lawl.Normally I dislike your hating but this was just funny.

And yeah, if it gets to Wallisch vs. Pastrana, we are gonna have to come up with some crazy NS vote-swinging magic. Pastrana is way more known that Wallisch, he's been winning like 90 - 10 each matchup.
 
Yes, surfing is on a different level than skiing, not necessarily a superior level. Neither are extremely well watched sports, HOWEVER slope skiing is now big enough that is in the olympics and is on prime time television. I'll be damned if surfing is like that. You can't vote for Kelly just because skiing is younger in a sense. Your argument about Candide... not sure what you did there, i don't really get it.
 
No.

Big wave surfing is way more gnarly than big mountain skiing. Sand hippy? HA!

Hate on me all you want but you don't live an hour away from mavericks.

Argument for Slater? When Tom wins his 11th dew tour cup I'll consider him on the same level as slater.

Fair enough?
 
Surfing is a Very physically demanding sport, just as skiing is. Kelly slater has won 11 world titles, tom has one x games and one dew tour cup in slopestyle. I bring up kandide because he's probably close to slaters age and he's long been out of the slopestyle arena.

I'm not hating I'm just pointing out if we were to say that surfing pro tour stops are comparable to dew tour and x then it would be like kandide has been winning x and dew tour for the past 8 years.

Make sense? Just trying to put it in perspective. I don't think people outside the surfing world realize how fucking good Slater is.
 
well that's impossible because the dew tour won't be around, you idiot. i'm surprised we haven't seen slater at occupy wall street... oh wait that's right, he's a hippy WITH money. he's got nothing to complain about as long as he can buy all that weed he blazes up.
 
Slater is 40 years old, Candide is 29. Slater is on a whole other level compared to Candide. Look I've put probably 500 days on the mountain and probably twice that in the water. Surfing is exponentially harder than skiing. Look at how much better physical shape Slater is than any skier and he's fucking 40.

Pulling up to see perfect overhead throwing waves with a couple people out will always be out showing up to 40" of fresh.
 
Um its who is the better CURRENT action sports athlete. Slater is a surfing god don't get me wrong but he's on the backside of his career while is just starting his legacy as probably one of the best freestyle skiers ever. So I voted for Tom.
 
I would say the same of Tom. He's not at a point where he inventing the sport anymore, just refining his own style. He's only going to digress from here and in 2-3 years will in the same place TJ Schiller is at now. Only downhill.
 
Because it's surfing... It is fun, and also quite technically difficult, but there aren't too many possibilities in terms of what you can do, nor is there much of a danger risk and nowhere near as much of a fear factor when compared to many other action sports, with the exception of . Surfing also has nowhere near as much of an impact on your body as skiing does, hence why people such as Slater are able to stay on top of the sport for such a long period of time, it's like the action sports equivalent to golf... Surfing is certainly not superior to skiing, and I don't think people like you realize how good Wallisch is, regardless of how desensitized you've become to the sport of freeskiing.
 
*with the exception of some of the very large waves that show up from time to time, but that is hardly the norm of what is being ridden.
 
100% agree on first paragraph

Disagree on second, but to each their own.

@putty joe, read the first paragraph for my thoughts on difficulty of surfing/physical demand.
 
I don't think we're talking about the norm here. How many people charge a standard "black" run in 12" of powder? Very few people IMO that ski are capable of doing this. People on NS are an exception to the vastly gaperish ski community. I'm talking about people that are strictly committed to either sport. Sure the vast majority of people are riding long boards on 3' rollers but that's not who I'm commenting about.

I think the % of guys surfing Big waves is very similar to the % of guys entering in FWT/ak spine lines, skiing gnarly gnarly stuff.

Who really gives a shit in the end, it's ESPN.
 
I agree that there is much more physical risk in park skiing than surfing but the fear factor is way bigger in surfing. I feel way more butterflies in my stomach pulling into a double overhead barrel a blacks than spinning the jump line in freeway.

 
Skiing isn't "young." What are you talking about? Skiing is older than Jesus by about 5,000 years. Just because we turned up the tales 18-20 years ago doesn't mean we hit the reset button.

Way to go Wally. As a person that works in a building dominated by surf culture, this is simply awesome.

http://www.randosaigai.com/history.html

 
haha, NS is clearly owning this bracket...

Kaya beating Kelly, Tom beating Kelly, AND Danny Way beating Shawn White? haha, that's CLEARLY people voting against Shawn...cause, no disrespect to Danny cause he's a boss, but he hasn't really done much this year (compared to Shawn).

By the way, for those trying to figure out how to vote, if there isn't a box on the left side of the screen, click on "comments" and it'll show up there (mine keeps getting covered up or hidden by adds, but when you go to the comments section it's there).
 
It's a sport. It's fun to converse and debate about sports. That's why there's an 85 page thread on hockey and that's why there are over 110,000 threads in Ski Gabber. Get over it.
 
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