X games big air

i to would rather see smaller tricks that have style up the ass that makes for good skiing and a lot of people see style instead of. OOOO shit that was a mute 14 peniled up the ass. I like style instead of penil. I am now trying to get as styllish as i can. An getting a super stylely 900 with a double grab or so, is way harder then a 1080 with no grab or a 12 with no grab. I say we chill out with how big we can go and go back to style
 
i agree. i'd definitely like to see vanular, casabon, laurent, and you riding in the comp. hopefully things don't get too out of control. i dont mind some dubs that have style, but dont want to see them all the time.
 
I know a lot of people hated on Duduemont for winning last year with a dub superman front but... that's because it was styley.

Less tech, but more style. Is that really a problem?

I dont think so.
 
The X Games is about making money. They don't care at all about "showing skiing as a whole" or trying to represent it as skiers want to be seen. Ad dollars trying to reach teenagers make the X Games happen; the fact that there are people on skis going upside down is more likely to make people see commercials and the advertisements on the course. There's no soul of skiing in that, and the only reason that skiing should even be in the X Games is that our pros can get paid and our companies can continue to sell product so that we, as skiers, can continue to enjoy what we do.

Contests in general don't and can't "show skiing as a whole", because skiing is compromised of many aspects, and contests generally focus on only one or two. I'm not advocating that there be some big air/skinning/heli-lines/rail jam; I don't want competitions to even try to "show skiing as a whole" because skiing as a whole isn't a contest--it's about variety. Today, are people hiking rails in the Midwest, skinning for freshies in the British Columbia backcountry, and hitting jumps in Tahoe , and contests will never encompass what these aspects mean by themselves or in combination to any person who calls his/herself a skier. Skiing is life for me, and the fact that there are many aspects just makes it better. Trying to encompass something like that is barely (if at all) communicable through a TV set; competitions will never even come close.

Contests, be it a slopestyle or a rail jam, show one aspect well. The world of the big air contest is totally filled with double flips these days, but those don't represent what skiing is to me or to most people.I refuse to compare entrainment (the contest) as a way of showing ads (the TV broadcast) for people selling services (Taco Bell) with a representation of my sport/lifestyle. For me, and I think for a lot of skiers, we'd much rather show Hornbeck's segments in the last few Level 1 movies if we are going to take that entertainment/advertising/selling services model as a way to represent skiing to the public.

 
i agree with whoever it was that said there should be a style jump and a technical jump.

kind of like freestyle.ch... there was a lot more variety throughout that contest.

 
i think the text to vote thing is the real problem. if they would get some real judges or look on ns and see that noone likes the curent voting system, i think it would fix itself and not just become the bigest flip spin. thats just an opnion tho.
 
I can appreciate that you are posing questions rather than simply ranting, and i see where you are coming from but threads like this bum me out. especially coming from someone as influential as you Hornbeck. I love big air comps, just like I love pipe comps, slope style comps, and rail jams not to mention any other event within the greater sport of skiing. it is easy to critisize the x-games format. Text messages should not change standings (that format was embarrassing), but what is your goal here Mike? No one event will ever embody the entirety of skiing, so wouldn't you like to see more events, not fewer? If skiing big air pulls additional dollars into the sport and into the x-games then it is a means to an end. If a few thousand more kids open their eyes to skiing and start looking to see more of it or do more of it then everyone in the sport benefits. It means the dew tour coverage will benefit in its wake and mainstream media will be more inclined to take further notice of skiing.

Rollerblading x-games vert died because of hate. (hate just like this). Its not like the sport stoped progressing, it was just that hatters threw down hate for long enough that ratings finally fell off. You are one of the most admired members of this site... If you hate 1,000+ little kids who look up to you are inclined to hate to all their friends and eventualy skiing's audience deteriorates from the inside. Bad play man! This kind of thread hurts the sport.
 
i disagree, questions like this need to be asked by prominent people in the sport so something can maybe be done.

either way, x-games is dying, dew tour is growing
 
I'm totally agreeing with both this quote and Hornbeck's thread. I can't ever be bothered to watch big air comps anymore cause everyone is doing pretty much the same dub cork whatever, and that's it. I'm not going to complain about the sport progressing too much, and spin to win and all that, but it would be way sicker to have more variety...

Building a ridiculously large jump like Big Bertha or that super gnarly hip jump that Candide was blasting off of in Super Park a few years back might limit the athletes to try more things (less doubles and big things) and it would be a way cooler set up then the typical boring run in to booter...
 
if big air was the only skiing in x games, then there would be an issue, but slope will show off the style, especially rails and such, while big air shows exactly that, going big. Furthermore, its hard to say that dubs dont have style and that theyre all the same, there are so many different dubs around (kangaroo, dub flat, dub cork, dub misty, dub rodeo, plus all of these switch or straight) and i think theres gonna be some sick new grabs (or grap swaps) in them that its still gonna be sick, and will actually contribute to the sport.

Also,
 
if big air was the only skiing in x games, then there would be an issue, but slope will show off the style, especially rails and such, while big air shows exactly that, going big. Furthermore, its hard to say that dubs dont have style and that theyre all the same, there are so many different dubs around (kangaroo, dub flat, dub cork, dub misty, dub rodeo, plus all of these switch or straight) and i think theres gonna be some sick new grabs (or grap swaps) in them that its still gonna be sick, and will actually contribute to the sport.

Also, i showed refresh to some of my non skiing friends the other day, and some of the biggest "holy shits" were from things all different types of things whether it was henricks dubs or vanulars 4 on. Anybody whos remotely an athlete can tell how hard something is.
 
just because he tried it once and ate shit doesnt mean hes gonna do it in comp... everyone is expecting him to do it now. that would be like people saying well now simon will do dub misty like he tried at hood.
 
ya i want to see some one just do a big ass tail or blunt five so smooth the people cry. I have been thinking about this watching the dew tour, as cool as the doubles are i would love to just see someone throw a hella smooth five with a big tail or blunt off the money booter most throw their doubles off of.
 
Damn Hornbecks so right. Big air has just turned into a show. Dubs are kool and they are defenently legit but i get sick of seeing them over and over on the same jump. I want i mix of sweet ass tricks thrown down! If it wasn't just a show then they wouldn't have text voting and Dumont wouldn't have won with the dub front flip. I think that each run should be different. Maybe the first run is judged on style then the second is on tech tricks then the third is combinin the together. IDK somthing like that just to get some variety mixed in. O and by the way Hornbeck you got some killer style. The minnisota edit is so ill!
 
yea i love double but it s boring to see the same double with the same grab.

love what guys like favre, vanular, houle or harlaut are doing.

bringing something new.

if jon have a new double then it will be fun.

 
Atleast we have companies like Level 1 where we can see skier like you an delorme put out the sickest edits with no dubs!!
 
This^^^^^^^ casabons noillie onto the down section of the battle ship 2 sev. off was rediculous, no doubles just oozing style
 
i definitely get sick of the lack of variety too, but its a contest, people are gonna do what they think is gonna get them the win. These days thats a dubcork 10/12. Yes its frustrating, but i think that unless somehow contests give people incentive to not do the same thing as everyone else, its not gonna change.
 
Dude, if I knew how to do dubs of any kind, I would be so damn stoked and I would be throwin them non stop. A smooth dub with some aftabang is fucking dope man, I dont know what you are talking about.
 
okay lets just say for fun that there was a big air contest with about 15 riders, for qualifying everysingle one of them do a double cork 10, for finals they all do a double cork 12

now judge that and say that it was boring to watch
 
uhm, Im pretty sure all 15 riders would do a double cork in a diff way and with their own steeze. If you don't grab it or add steeze or you land backseat as fuck, you arent gonna win. Nobody should be winning the x-games with a shitty backseat washed out landing even if they didnt "touch down". I want to see the perfect landings. that is what I would be looking for if I was a judge especially in this day and age.

 
X Big Air is not even a legitimate comp anyways, last years jokeshow proved that. if you want to see a real big air comp, wait for JOI. fuck that ESPN bullshit.
 
aw come on will. he wasnt hating on anybody. its not like hes throwing his hands up and saying ' fuck it! stop the x-games!'
the goal was to make the big air fun to watch. remember back when every single hit at the big air in the US open was a switch 10? then TJ did a switch 14 and everyone went bananas. lets not do that again with dubs.
either way, i think that when you give a crowd variety, that increases the potential for involvement. why is sportscenter so fucking popular? because they can ARGUE based on different criteria. Skiing has so much variety that showcasing a lot of it could make the big air very interesting even to people that don't understand it. but if everyone is doing the same dub 12 or sw 10 or whatever, that makes it boring because the crowd doesn't understand minute differences in grabs or stomped landings or whatever.
just look at tanner and dumont. obviously there's no rivalry there, tanner is the boss and dumont is boring. but when the announcers play that shit up like " OH MY GOD. ITS TECHNICALITY VERSUS AMPLITUDE." then dumb ass kids can argue which they think is more important, and that sparks discussion. think if it was PK doing a dub 12 and vanular doing a butter cork 9. they could be like ULTRA TECH AWESOME! vs SUPER SMOOTH STYLE and niggas would be shotgunning redbull and mountain dew cans left and right to celebrate the fact that they can express their viewpoint on which matters more.
this is actually sounding a lot like bipartisan democracy.
 
oops



I dont remember how to do this
 
It was cool when JOI had multiple rounds and did not allow the same trick to be thrown twice. That made it more interesting than the standard big air.
 
There is a Big Air contest like that in Switzerland, called the Survival of the Fittest. where there are 15 riders at the beginning and each run, 2 riders get kicked out, and if they do the same trick, it looses worth each time, like on Tony Hawk Skateboarding
 
i think i am expressing what is felt by many NSers, all big air skiers should push themselves to ski like guys like B-dog, i mean, it should be judged on style, and especially doing stuff no one else is doing

like, if everyone does dub 12's and dub 10's, nothing else

i will have lost all faith is big air skiing
 
X Games is about ratings and sponsorship dollars, it's not about representing a sport. The total users on Newschoolers is a drop in the bucket when compared to the number of people who will watch this on television. If you think it's about skiing you are a retard.
 
Yea, this is definitely not a new problem. Rather, the monotony has shifted. Went from like sw rodeo shit, to switch 10 fests all over the place, a brief respite as a new plateau was established, and now we're at the double cork/double shit that looks a lot like every other double cork plateau.

The one thing that seems to be prevalent in these showcased events with a few people is that it is imperative to throw the big ass trick. Last years X games big air (aside from being a farce) was sort of like that as well. FreestyleCH this past fall, while sick, showed that even doubles can be very tiresome when that is the norm. That is why, in the past, I've had a lot of respect for JOI or WSI big air, where repeat tricks were no bueno, and there was a desire to see a wide range of skills, styles, tricks, whatever (wsi in particular, where it went from 5s, to 7s, 9s, etc etc) rather than the one banger trick.

Format plays a big role in the ability to keep the experience refreshing. Head-to-head is cool and all, but it really exacerbates the need to throw some big shit to go on.

One thing I'm not concerned about is the talent pool. Good thing with skiing is that iit is pretty popular these days, so the talent level and pool keeps growing, keeping the whos-who a little more liquid than other sports. Granted, there will be some (coughdumontcough) that are, in my opinion, less relevant for a comp like x games big air (aside from ratings and shit) but it seems to change little by little.
 
Skiing is sick!!! Dubs are sick!! So are 180s!! As skiers we all need to support what is happening in our sport. The Lolos of the sport have as much of a place as the Jamie Pierres. It doesn't matter what the big air trick of the year is, everyone loves to hate on it. How many of you can actually do those tricks? Maybe the kids on top need to start trying to mix the grabs up a bit to make the tricks look different. Give HH cred for grabbing blunt. Skiers hating on ski tricks will never change but why does it have to be like that? Just be stoked that or rich white boy sport is growing and a whole new generation of kids will think skiing is cool.
 
The BIg air compitition is flawed in that it is boring no matter how different the tricks are. One hit doesnt do it for me. That is why slopestyle and pipe are better comps. or better yet, something like linecatcher.

 
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