The Ariel Helwani Show - Kelly Slater

Episode Date: December 9, 2021

The greatest surfer of all-time joins the show for a wide-ranging conversation, beginning with his MMA fandom and an online battle with Paulo Costa a few years ago. Then, Slater opens up about the dangers of surfing and why he doesn't fear death like most people do (27:18) and why sharks don't worry him too much. Plus, he reveals to Ariel how much longer he plans on surfing (45:08) and also talks about his controversial decision to not get the COVID-19 vaccine and failing to qualify for the Olympics this past summer. Lastly, Slater discusses his role on Baywatch in the mid-1990s (59:44) and the relationship with Pamela Anderson that ensued a few years later. Kelly Slater is widely considered to be the greatest surfer of all-time. The winner of 11 World Championships, he is both the youngest and oldest surfer to ever win a WSL title. At age 49, Slater still competes at a world-class level.You can follow Kelly on Twitter and Instagram @kellyslater.Today's episode is brought to you by Manscaped! Get 20% off plus FREE shipping today by using the code "HELWANI" when you visit this link: manscaped.com/helwani.We're also brought to you by Pristine Auction, the most trusted auction site for sports memorabilia and collectibles. Use the registration code "HELWANI' for $10 off your first purchase TODAY.For more episodes of The Ariel Helwani Show, please follow the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your favorite podcast app.To get more from Ariel, subscribe to his YouTube channel, read his writing on Substack, watch his work for BT Sport, and follow The MMA Hour or The Ringer MMA Show.Theme music: "Frantic" by The Lovely Feathers

Hello friends! I hope you're doing well. It's Ariel Helwani. Welcome back to a brand new edition of The Helwani Show. It is Thursday, December 9th, 2021. to our good friends over at the lovely feathers for this intro music and thank you so much to all of you for your continued support and thank you so much to our guest this week the legendary kelly slater as i said to kelly at the very top of our conversation it's rare in life that you can speak to someone who is quite literally the greatest at what they do and he is the greatest at what they do. And he is the greatest surfer of all time, 11-time champion, youngest champion ever, oldest champion ever. He's still competing. You'll hear a bit of an exclusive about his future in this conversation. But this man, I mean, even if you have never surfed, watched surfing, know anything about surfing, I am pretty certain you have heard

of Kelly Slater. I mean, this man is omnipresent. I mean, he is synonymous with the world of surfing. He is the one that helped make surfing into such a popular phenomenon in the 90s. He was on Baywatch. He was sponsored by Quicksilver. He was everywhere. Quite the good-looking fellow as well. And so he has seen it all. He has done it all. and it was a massive honor for me to talk to him he's a massive mma fan he loves the sport he competes in jujitsu he trains i should say he doesn't compete uh but he has you know he has a blue belt and he's got some famous friends and he likes to dabble and so this was really great i could have talked to him

for two hours i really appreciate his time he was very candid about his career, about the ups and downs, about death, about his friends dying while competing, all that and more. So stay tuned for that. I really think you're going to love this conversation. I loved every single second of it. And I know I say this a lot, but trust me, these are really special conversations for me. Before we get to that conversation, though, I do want to let you know that today we have two sponsors. Two. How about this little engine that could? We're blowing up over here.

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What a huge, massive honor this is for us. I don't know if I've ever been able to say I definitively am talking to the greatest of all time in any kind of field. So this is a big deal. Kelly, thank you so much for the time. Well, that's a huge intro. I better live up to the hype in the interview. But yeah, thanks. I've been watching you for a long time and following everything you do. And so i was surprised you know sometimes reaching outside of your own world i was a little surprised you knew anything about me but i'm sure you studied you studied up a little bit but hey surfing and and um mma are not exactly um the same thing although although there is a lot of crossover that comes out of brazil um you know obviously from bjj um going back through the the

gracie clan and all that stuff you know those guys basically growing up in rio on the beach and they're surfing and they're doing jiu-jitsu and and um it all kind of goes hand in hand so the mma was a natural evolution from there for for so many people who have an interest in both surfing and jiu-jitsu. And we're going to talk about your interest in that. I do have to say, though, one of the craziest parts of my life, and I'm quite certain that you must experience this as well, is like sometimes, you know, I will just post something and then I'll go in my comments. I try not to read the comments too much because, as you know, it could be somewhat of a cesspool.

And then it was just like a few months ago. I'm like, Kelly Slater is involved in like a debate right now. I don't remember what the topic was, but you were literally going back and forth with some random fans about something that I posted. And then I saw later on in the DMs, like you're writing to me about my show with DC.

I was like, wow, this is Kelly freaking Slater. Just to tell you, I'm a kid of the 90s, right? So anyone who grew up in the 90s, like you're writing to me about my show with DC. I was like, wow, this is Kelly freaking Slater. Just to tell you, I'm a kid of the nineties, right? So anyone who grew up in the nineties, just like Tony Hawk, we all know who Tony Hawk is. We know who you are. So it's, it's somewhat like, this has been a thing that I've experienced over the last few years where I was like, wow, these people who I, and I don't want to age you, like literally grew up knowing about admiring, watching now actually know who I am is somewhat surreal. So I appreciate your interest in the sport and my work. Could I ask you, when did you first become a fan of MMA? Because I feel like you're like an OG fan, like early 2000s pride, right?

Yes. So I was in Japan in 2005. Well, I'll even go go further back when i was eight years old i was um i was doing taekwondo in coco beach with don the dragon wilson um he was actually he had a dojo here in town six months a year he lived here because i think he lived in canada the rest of the time but his mom had a house had a place here in coco beach and he used to come down here and train and i actually remember being on the beach for the first shuttle launch that ever went off in 1980 or 81 and sitting there watching it

and then watching Don run by doing his daily jog on the beach and I waved, hey Don, how are you? I've always had an affinity for martial arts since I was a little kid. I think everyone who had an inner Bruce Lee in their, in their, in their body somewhere and in their mind. Um, but then, uh,

in 92, I went to Brazil for the first time and all the security guys did jujitsu. And so as just, just to kind of show us a little bit, they gave us a little rundown and we all they showed us each had to do an arm bar and a couple basic things in 94 i was in uh france and i ran randomly ran into a guy who's become a good friend over the years named peter mcguire he wrote the he wrote a book about hickson and he was a he became a black belt under under hickson um but he gave me my first sort of formal jiu-jitsu training session and and then it was many years later i think 2006

i um uh hickson invited me and a friend over to his house and gave us some privates and that was the first first time i kind of got into doing a little jujitsu and and um uh but it just kind of was connecting with these guys a lot of different people in mma over the years and in 2005 i was in japan and i ran into hoist at a bar one night in tokyo and he's like oh what are you doing i said i'm leaving to california tomorrow and he goes no you got to stay hoiler's fighting them all so i stayed and watched him fight um i think it was a pride fight i don't think it was k1 it was pride and um he fought kid yamamoto and he got knocked out he was out cold for like two minutes man i was like i was like oh this is not good i came to watch you know came to watch my boy and he just got got flatlined. It was kind of scary.

But I became really enamored with the sport at that time. And sometime the next year, I remember watching a fight with Ricardo Arona. It must have been a pride fight. I was watching it on TV, and I was like, oh, man, who is this guy? He was one of those guys that just stuck out he was so powerful and unbelievable and um I don't think it was the Fedor fight but it was I forget which one anyways I've come to find out a few months later that one of my really good friends I travel with is good buddies with him and Ricardo was a fan of me a fan of mine he used to wear my shirts and stuff and quicksilver started sponsoring him and he actually started traveling on tour with us and

training us um wow so yeah ronan was like kind of like uh you know obviously he was a god to us but he traveled around with us for a couple years uh through like 2010 or 11 he was sponsored by quicksilver and and um actually was who came to bali with us um hung out in france and hawaii with us and stuff so and and and to top that off two years ago when i was in brazil last night i hired him as my bodyguard so he was the only one to clear the beach to get me through through those crowds of people. So, yeah, I, I, I have a real connection into the world and, um, um, you know, from, uh, obviously jujitsu, but judo and all sorts of things. Flavio Conto is a friend of mine from Brazil. Um,

and he does a lot of great work with the kids in the favelas and in Rio and trains them all for free. Um 400 kids in his dojo. So anyways, I just, I could talk all day, but, you know, I really love and appreciate and respect just everything in the jujitsu and MMA world. And the level of skill that people have is amazing to watch. You know, I love watching people

who are as passionate about their thing as I have been my whole life about my thing. And so, you know, I'm not a great jujitsu fighter in any way, shape or form, but I love it and I appreciate it. You're a blue belt, purple belt? I'm blue belt, yeah. Blue belt, okay.

I mean, that's a lot better than a lot of other people out there. When you were young, correct me if I'm wrong, doing Taekwondo for a little bit, you didn't like getting punched in the face, right? Or the idea of it? No. I told someone this story yesterday. So when we started to spar, I kicked a kid. I actually used to like to fight a lot when I was a kid. I used to get in fights at school all the time. I had no problem getting punched. But I think when I got older, I didn't like getting punched. But no, I kicked a kid in the back of the leg, in the thigh or the butt, and he started crying and I felt really bad. I didn't want to fight anymore. And that was it?

That was kind of it. I kind of quit. I did it for about six months or a year. But there was a surfer that um that surfed at the beach an older guy he was probably in his 20s at the time and he surfed at the beach i grew up at and um he noticed how limber i was because i could stand and literally kick straight up in the air i could do the splits pretty easily and he's like man you got to come and do some taekwondo some karate and um so that was kind of how it started. So my brother and I and a couple of friends did it for a little while. But, you know, unfortunately, I didn't stick with it.

I wish I had. I just think it gives people a lot of confidence in themselves. And it's a great skill. All the martial arts are great to have for your confidence. Yeah, I believe you have said famously that the first sport that any young kid should go into is martial arts, you see, obviously you have the black belts at the top, but, but everyone who's, who's there is trying to learn and whether you're better or worse than someone, you're still teaching them something. So you can, you can be a guy who's not nearly as skilled as someone else, but you can teach them something because of a

mistake or because you're trying to learn something and they're trying to learn how to teach it um so i just think there's always a constant um give back from everybody um i mentioned you uh you debating with fans in the comments and whatnot a few years ago somewhat famously you drew the ire of paulo costa when you uh wrote in a comment about his physique and he was very upset about this. Do you remember this incident? I'm assuming you do. Yes, you do. Of course.

I mean, how often do you get called up by Polacosta? I'm 18 years old and he puts a post up about you. Yes, he was not happy. I guess you were insinuating, correct me if I'm wrong, that you believe based on his physique that he was on PEDs, correct? He's just lucky I didn't run into him. Yeah. Have you ever? Because I think that was 17. Have you ever seen him? his physique that he was on peds correct he's just lucky i didn't run into him yeah have you ever because i think that was 17 have you ever seen him no i've never seen him but he and i

dm'd after and he was totally cool but okay you know i said look at the end of the day if you're not on any kind of pds and you look like that you're freaking man right you know like he should take it as a compliment he shouldn't be defensive about it and um you know but he's got a physique like few people on earth will ever have and he's a beast um you know but then you know there's always somebody bigger right so is he is he and him obviously had an interesting fight i really i actually really thought um and and i'm i'm friends with Izzy a little bit um

you know we've run into each other and kind of I took him surfing and yeah just last year right yeah so I kind of keep in contact with those guys him and Brad

and those guys a little bit here and there just say hi but um I really thought you know with what with what Paul Acosta had done in the lead up to that

with you just demolishing guys um i actually thought izzy was maybe a little scared um wow you know well just not not knowing how the fight would play it play out but izzy obviously saw something that he could pick apart and um he knew where to exit those interactions you know get his thing in and get out of there. And he just showed what a dominant martial artist he is in that in that situation. You know, I don't know if Paul Acosta was hungover or whatever he said, but, you know, I I I expected more because I because how intense the guy is and how much he brings it. And, you know, the the fight with yo romero was was proof he could take a shot like few guys can but um yeah i didn't i didn't mean that to to necessarily be rude but

the the reason that even happened the post was on an espn uh post and um they showed a picture of him and he was like throwing a punch and he's got veins just like ripped on an ounce of fat on his body. And there was 2,300 comments that were all like, this guy's on juice, you know? And I just wrote, I said, um, I said, if, if this guy's not on it, you shouldn't even bother testing anybody. Cause like, he's the pinnacle of like what you would look like. And, um, you know know unfortunately somehow that became the comment of all those ones we got pulled out i understand it but um you know i think i think paulo and i squashed it you know lucky for him because i don't want to have to put him in line

yeah no no that would have been embarrassing for him uh i don't know if you know this i could literally like pick me up with two fingers and like throw me across the street you know i love how closely you follow this stuff like you're just referencing the romero fight the wine thing is this is this your favorite sport to watch like if you have a sport yeah i'm i play golf a lot like um i mean i'm crazy about golf i play golf every day so that's my favorite other sport to do but as far as watching ufc's weekends bellators can't come fast enough for me. Wow. Everything. You're even watching Bellator. I watch Bellator fights.

I've been to Bellator. I've been to one Bellator fight. Okay. I'm not as knowledgeable, obviously, about the fighters. It's, you know,

you got to dig a little more. I think with the outlets of UFC at this point, it's pretty easy to learn about most everybody pretty quickly without even trying. If you just follow a few feeds, you're pretty much in on it. I would like to see some of that cross promotion though, and just see what happens there. You know, I believe you're good friends with someone who can help make that happen,

who would never make it happen. But you know, that's, that's Dana White's call right there. That's your good buddy. When did you guys meet? When did I meet Dana? I probably met Dana like 10 years ago. Oh, wow. I went to that Dos Santos-Cain Velasquez fight where Cain got knocked out in the first two minutes or something. UFC on Fox 1, literally 10 years ago last month.

Yeah. I, I, I, uh, I won my 11th world title in San Francisco and I flew down and watched that fight. Wow. But, uh, I think I met Dana around that time. I might've met him just before then, but I don't know. We met around then and his kids like to surf and they go to Fiji where I go. And, um, I don't know, we just, and he comes to Hawaii, uh, usually in December and we have our finishing event of the year, most years that has changed now, but usually our last event of the year is this week and, um, at pipeline. So he came out to watch that. And, um, yeah, we've just stayed in contact for a long time.

I'm just a, you know, I'm somebody on the outskirts of the sport that isn't a big fan and obviously like having access to Dana's kind of fun for a guy you know, I'm somebody on the outskirts of the sport that isn't a big fan. And obviously like having access to Dana's kind of fun for a guy like me, that is just a fan of the sport. Um, and also you guys did that show together very recently, which he was an executive producer on ultimate surfer on ABC. Uh, will there be a second season of that? I don't know. I really don't know the thing for me with because the the goal of it is to pick

someone who's then going to have a chance on tour um the thing is that we have a challenger series that leads up to picking that person so we know who the best couple guys are that might make it on tour the next year it's not like some mystery um there's not like some guy who's going to come out of Croatia, you know, or, or out of Dagestan or something, you know, like UFC,

MMA, you see guys come out of these countries and you're like, Oh shit, these guys are scary. They're so skilled. They've spent every waking breath on this sport, on these skills. And then they're going to come smash people um that you just don't

have that in surfing so we know the whole crop of people but i'd like to see i'd like to see them do it with younger kids like a fun kind of young thing for um maybe 12 to 15 year olds um because i think it'd be really fun for them to be at Surf Ranch all that time, get that time in the wave. And also, we don't know how good somebody is going to be yet. But when they're about 15, you start to get an idea. But at that age, it leaves a lot of mystery. It leaves a lot of wonder in the skill set coming forward. And so I would like to see that age bracket have a chance.

And I don't know what that would offer them in the end, but, you know, some nice reward. You know, a couple of weeks ago on this program, I interviewed the F1 star, Daniel Ricciardo, who is from Australia, and he's a huge MMA fan as well. And he was telling me about a conversation that he had with GSP a couple years ago where they were debating who's crazier, F1 drivers or MMA fighters. GSP said the F1 drivers, Ricardo said the MMA fighters. I would actually like to throw one in the hat. I actually think you guys are crazier than both of them. I think the stuff that you guys, the surfers go through, have to deal with is absolutely

insane. Would you agree with that? Do you think that surfers are crazier of that bunch? And maybe there's another athlete that I'm not thinking of, but I feel like those are the ones that really are putting their lives on the line every time they compete. I actually feel like the surfers are the ones who are the craziest. And I say that with all due respect. Yeah, no, I get that. I think we're up there. But I think if you're going to talk about like statistically the odds, the batsuit guys, the free climbers, those guys, there's a lot of deaths in that. And we've had quite a few deaths in surfing um you know i've had a bunch of friends that have drowned and um there's some terrible stories out there and a lot of near

death um happenings for anyone who surfs big waves mostly a lot of the injuries happen in small waves in in small shallow reefs you get a lot of cuts and and boards hitting you and stuff when the wave's small all that energy is closer in one spot and the water's shallower so it's easier to hit the reef it's also easier for the board to kind of hit you because it's not getting thrown 50 feet away um um so yeah it's really everything's calculated though for each person in their own skill like wakeboarders are scared of sharks surfers are scared of alligators and i've had this debate with a few of them you know i see an alligator i'm like that thing's fucking hunting me you know a shark will just kind of come up and give you a

bite and take off and so like sharks don't really scare me but alligators kind of well alligators are one problem crocodiles saltwater crocodiles are a real issue and you go down to costa rica and some of these places where they're protected and there's tons of them, it's frightening. I think each sport has their own level of danger. MMA, boxing, where you're sustaining a lot of hits over a long period of time and the issues with CTE. We've seen a lot of suicides that don't make sense. Exactly. So we, I think we're having trouble with that long case study of what exactly is causing. I mean, we know it's causing the injury, excuse me. We know it's causing the injury but um as far as if that's the cause of people deciding to

end their lives lives that's a that's a you know it's a connection that needs to be made and um studied more and that kind of thing but formula one guys are crazy but their skill is um it's a calculated risk just like big wave surfing would be lewis hamilton's a friend of mine um lewis said if he could stop doing everything and just surf, he would, because it's his favorite sport by a long shot. Wow. Um,

but, uh, and, and when you watch, when you go to a formula one race and you watch these guys up close, it's so frightening. There is such danger, but their skill level is so tuned in.

And there was a, there was a quote that, uh, a friend of mine, um, Shane Doranian who's regarded as maybe the biggest way big best big wave surfer of all time and one of the top pro surfers of all time um we used to have this quote that we loved from back in the early 90s or a

formula one driver that said you're never as real as when you might die and that fear creates an intense focus an intense presence and I think that's part of what draws people to sports that are filled with adrenaline and danger is it kind of defaults you into the place where you should be all the time, present and here and not distracted. And the modern world is making that even harder, right? With our phones and we're all addicted to that and information information and and news and all this stuff and and especially with covid now everyone wants to be up to date on the latest thing so things that bring in a certain level of danger and fear and the reality that you could die

obviously bring you into that present moment and it is like a drug you know that's that's really what drugs do for people drugs kind of replace that and they make you just feel. And so many people have lived such a hard life growing up, had such bad situations in their families or traumatic events happen in their lives. That everyone's looking for that feeling of being just here right now and not worrying about the past, not being scared of the future. And so it's understandable why people gravitate towards certain things, whether that's drugs or the other side of something healthy that kind of puts you in that place. You have had some near-death experiences, correct? Could you even possibly describe what that feels like, what it feels like to feel like you are almost about to die? I don't know if I've had a near death or not. The reason I say that is

because I've been knocked out a couple of times underwater. And one time I was 19 years old, I was in Indonesia on a boat trip, chasing some surf in Tim timor and i caught a wave and i was doing a certain maneuver we call floater it's where you're on top of the barrel and you free fall off it and i was going really fast and i probably fell about eight feet going as fast as i could sort of down the line in this wave and when i landed the outside of real caught and it just pancaked my temple on the water and knocked me out. And I eventually sort of felt like I was in a dream and I just eventually woke up and just went, well, I should like something hit me all of a sudden. I kept seeing like light and dark.

Like I kept, my eyes were open, I guess. And I kept seeing like the bottom and then the surface and the bottom as I was rolling and something just said, oh, you should probably come up and i was like i better come up and as i came up a friend of mine was on another wave and he almost ran over me and right then i realized oh man something traumatic happened and i went into shock i paddled past the waves and was sitting on my board and um then my friend started paddling up to me and realized something was wrong. And we asked to meet. I was probably in the water for like 30 seconds, an incredibly long period of time, but long enough to where I could have easily breathed in water and been the end of me. But I had amnesia, which was really strange. And, um, I, I had that for about, you know, 12 to 24 hours

where I didn't really remember much other than my family's names and where I was from. I mean, I was with friends of mine and I didn't know their names. Um, you know, so, and, and I, I had always seen that in movies and thought, um, you know, it's just like, it seemed like a thing in movies. It didn't seem like a real thing but um all my memory came back uh but i had whiplash and i had a concussion and um that was you know it was pretty scary but i was 19 and i don't know i didn't think too much about it being near death till later on and um but i've been knocked out a couple times since then in the water you you mentioned like just earlier you you, you mentioned,

unfortunately you've had friends who have passed away and I've seen you mention this and you say it's somewhat nonchalantly. Like it's just like a thing. Like, you know, I don't have a lot of friends. I don't think I have a friend, maybe one who passed away. My point is like, how do you, how do you, how do you experience that? That's incredibly traumatic, incredibly sad. And then go back out there. You know, it's like, I remember talking about Chris Weidman breaking his leg. I'm like, the difference between an MMA fighter and me is that if I did that, I'm saying to myself, I'm never going to do that ever again, right? Like that will dramatically change my life. This guy is training to go back and do the exact same thing. You have been with friends who have died, and yet you still want to keep doing this how is that possible well i think you know bones when they break they get stronger afterwards they fill with more calcium okay you know so i i it's i do i did trip out i've sometimes i say that and it does i know it sounds nonchalant. I've just,

I've, I've had a lot of, I have a lot of friends. I've probably thousands of friends around this world. Um, I've had countless number of friends pass away from all sorts of things from suicide, drownings, murders, um, drug overdoses, you name it. Um, cancer. Um, it's, it's, it's astounding how many people, I mean, I don't know what it is, but, um, I think last year I had like 20 friends that I know around the world pathway. Um, and it's, I hate to feel, I hate to say I've become conditioned to it, but you start to understand the emotions around it, you know?

And when someone passed away, you experience it and you get through the emotion of it. And then you realize that, you know, life goes on and you got to remember them for the good stuff and, and, and be present enough to just spend good time with the rest of the people you have and the time you have here i i was i was 15 when the first person i knew passed away she was a dear friend of mine maybe the kindest person i ever knew in my whole life and she was murdered um she was strangled by a guy in california and it was really life-changing i don't think I stopped crying for like over a week. In fact, I, I think about it now I want to cry. So it's all, you know,

the emotions in there, it might sound a little nonchalant, just because I've known a lot of people pass away, but yeah, it's, you don't ever, it's never just like, right. Yeah. I don't know. I've just experienced a lot in my lifetime, so I'm, I'm okay talking about it and stuff, but, um, it's, it's, uh, it's just part of life. Do you think because you've experienced all that, especially at such a young age, 15 is, I mean, I can't even imagine a friend passing away at that age makes you fearless. Like, because I haven't been conditioned to that i haven't been exposed to

that the idea of doing what you do is mind-blowing to me but because you experience it so young and so many times the idea of facing a 50-foot wave or something like that is is not so scary to you no that's not true it actually puts it in perspective. In 1997, a good friend of ours named Todd Chester passed away. He drowned at a spot on the North Shore, a big wave spot. And there's a whole set of circumstances that led up to it that he shouldn't even have been there. And he happened to be there. He was supposed to be in California for a job stunts for In God's Hands, this movie In God's Hands that a bunch of our friends were in, a theatrical release film. And he said he didn't want to do that because he didn't want to kill himself doing a stunt. He drowned that same day in Big Surf. um in big surf um that one shook all of us like to our core because todd was the most fit going home like big wave ready guy in the world at that point and um he was surfing with two other friends and one of the other friends blacked out underwater too and he he just barely made it um that one just made us all kind of go what are we doing like what why do we do

this what is the thrill what is the reason for this um and for a long time like i've never surfed that place again where he passed away um i've i only surfed it once before that but it it just got it just has this certain energy to me now that, that scares me. It didn't make me feel, um, immortal by any means. Um, uh, big, being out in big surf and bit in the ocean when the waves are 50 feet or something, you, you know, how small you are, you, you know, how insignificant your life is to this earth um

and and um so you you better be trained up well you better be ready to be calm you know the whole thing for us is like we're doing something that's super adrenalized so in terms of big waves it's like the most adrenaline you can biggest adrenaline kick you could ever get at the same time you need to be super calm you need your heart rate to be low you need your oxygen to be full of your blood to be full of oxygen and you need to just be calm in those situations really calculated really decisive comfortable with your decisions don't don't want to second guess things you know if you're out there second guessing it you probably shouldn't be out there that day um or in situations like that um but yeah it's all we're not going to stop what we do based on the consequences you know it's it's we're just going

to adjust and um now you see there's such good training for big surf um shane dorian invented this inflatable life vest you basically just you just pull this CO2 cartridge and it inflates. And it's like, you have four times the amount of lung capacity, not your lung, not for your breathing, but, but in terms of how much air you have in your body and it just shoots you to the surface faster than you could swim. So you can relax down there. Um, you don't want to have to rely on that. You want to have to rely on your breasts and no jet ski and nothing you know if if if the worst case scenario happens you want to be comfortable relying on yourself but we do have backups and backups to that now so we have jet ski safety teams um really good lifeguards

especially around competitions or big wave events big wave contests or or just big wave big wave happenings they'll always be a bunch of skis they're doing safety for friends um and everyone's trained in uh cpr and life-saving skills um so that it's it's allowed in the last eight years or so it's really allowed people to push the boundary of what's ever happened in our sport by a long shot um and you know i feel like i feel like big wave surfers like guys who are really focused on that are like astronauts man they're just doing stuff that no one's ever done or seen and it's happening almost every big swell you'll see guys do something else that you just go i can't freaking believe guys

are pushing it that far and it's amazing to I mean, I'm not a big wave guy per se. I like to go out and surf big waves, but I'm not born and bred like into big waves. I was, I'm from Florida. I almost drowned in a pool as a little kid. And I was really scared of drowning. I was really scared of big waves. And, um, that was like a, I'll just tell you this very quick story. When I was about eight, I was in swim class, maybe younger, maybe six. And this guy held me underwater, a big guy. And he held me underwater and he thought it was funny. And he held me underwater so long. I started to take water in and,

and it really scared me that feeling of water in my lungs terrified me. So I was always really scared of any big waves. I just thought big wave means you're going to be under, you know, if the wave's twice as big as that one, it's going to hold you twice as long. And that's really not an equation. A small wave can hold you down for a long time if you're stuck in the wrong part of the energy of the wave. And so one time I was surfing in Hawaii about 20 years ago and some really big surf with some friends. And I had a total slash back to that moment being held underwater as a kid. And I was totally awake and it it was like, I was having this dream

because the waves were so big and scary that day. And I went, Oh, well, I get, I heard, you know, the theory goes, you have to relive fear in order to get past it. And so I felt like I really got over a boundary that day. I was like, I've been waiting my whole life to, to get to this place. Um, you know, but each person has to decide what they're what they're willing to risk and how far they're willing to push it and what your body can handle and when challenged big wave surfers are pushing their bodies as far as anybody doing anything so in terms of that yeah it's a it's a terrifying thing and um i i don't think statistically we have the most number of deaths. Getting back to your point before, but the danger is clearly there. And, you know, guys are just pushing closer and closer and closer to that edge all the time. It's wild to me because like the eight-year-old story, I wouldn't be surprised in a different world sliding doors.

You say you never go back in a pool again yet you are synonymous with well what plus draws came out at that same time oh my god so i was like scared the shit of sharks and i was like terrified of drowning have you ever been close to being bit uh probably yeah like you've seen the animal in there oh i see sharks a lot yeah that's not it's nothing to see sharks like do you know how many kinds of sharks are in the world i don't and do you know how many are like dangerous so yeah there's like there's i i don't know the exact number but there's something like 300 different types of sharks okay from maybe 350 sharks in the world and some are like whale sharks some are like leopard sharks there's only four kinds of sharks you have to worry about tigers makos i'm sorry tigers um oceanic white tips great whites

and uh bull sharks and those are the only sharks that have killed more than 10 people in the in history so um you know if you see a giant hammerhead, it's scary looking, it's a big, powerful beast, but they don't, they really rarely attack a person. Um, you, we see a lot of spinners like black, black tips and, and greener sharks and all, there's all sorts of different sharks. You can see all the time. If you spear a fish, if you've ever gone spear fishing, say in the Bahamas, um, went down there with some friends a couple of years ago.

And the first shark, the first fish that got speared, there were three sharks on this girl immediately, like trying to take her fish. I thought they were going to bite her. I had never really experienced that. And we were there for three days. And every fish we shot, there was a shark on us, like bang, immediately. And you start to understand the pattern. that's really that's what really what calculated risk is for anything you know for fighting or for surfing or for spearfishing or skydiving you understand those risks and then you try to address them ahead of time and um be comfortable when they happen

i'm fascinated by the idea of those who are at the very top of their field, sports, but doesn't really have to be sports as well. And dealing with things like anxiety, dealing with things like depression, with self-doubt, talking to fighters about this fascinates me endlessly. And I can't imagine if you are questioning yourself, if you are feeling down, if you are anxious before, you know, a major event that, I mean, that could be life-threatening. Have you ever had periods where you're looking at yourself and you're like, I don't have it.

I'm not good enough. I'm losing a step. And how do you get over that? Yeah. Yeah. I've had those times for sure. I think, I think if you're, if you don't have those, you're not human or you're not in touch with yourself um everyone has that you know one fighter who i've become pretty close with is ian mccall you know ian of course yeah uncle creepy uncle creepy and um you know he's been getting into his uh the mushroom ceremonies and healing people and stuff they've been doing documentaries about it and i doing documentaries about it. And I asked him about it and he goes, you know,

I got into fighting to try to beat my demons and I couldn't, you know, it didn't fix the demons. And you find a lot of people who get into something and it makes them forget about the thing that's the problem in their life, you know, and they become obsessive about it. And surfing was that way for me, I guess, as a kid, you know, I didn't have the greatest family situation. My parents were fighting a lot, but that was sort of typical. I feel like most of my friends' parents didn't get along very well and they didn't see a great

life with each other, but they stuck it out for their kids kind of thing. And that was, that may have just been something happening in that era and that generation in my town you know we were coco beach here was like a mix of spring breakers here to party um engineers here to build spaceships and astronauts uh that were partying when they weren't up in space um so there was a there was a funny mix of people and there was a bunch of surfers um so it was a funny little town like that it was kind of a it was a fun place to be back in the seventies and eighties, but I think it took a toll on families and that caused a lot of people, a lot of anxiety and depression and stuff growing up. Alcoholism, drugs,

all that kind of stuff, all the different escapes to, to not deal with what you feel inside. but yeah look i think ever anyone would be lying if they didn't say they had some kind of doubt at some point at some crucial moment in their career um i had a moment i had one of those in 2003 i was in a tough relationship i was um i i didn't feel very confident in myself i get to the, I hadn't won a world title in five years and Andy and Andy Irons and I got down to the final day. And, um, I, basically I didn't sleep the whole night before, uh, fighting with my girlfriend and stressing about Christmas and all sorts of

stuff. And I got up that morning and I walked outside and I saw a friend of mine. I just broke down, started crying. And he's like, what's going on? I'm like, I didn't sleep for one minute last night. I got to try to win a world title today. And I'm like, it's not my day. And I just, you know, I just like, I don't know how I'm going to get up the confidence in myself, the energy I need. I didn't get to sleep. And, um, you know, those times happen, but it actually, I think you learn more by losing than you do by winning um from from my own experience i i find that losing is a bigger uh teacher a better teacher because that pain makes you aware it makes you um it makes you question who you are and what you're doing and why and and what the

purpose what your purpose in life is and what you're trying to achieve and all those sort of things. And, um, you know, everyone has those setbacks, uh, you know, in, in their, in their career, maybe not Khabib, you know, but he, he ended a little early. So they say, you know, uh, um, but yeah, I, yeah, yeah, we all do what we do to try to learn about ourselves. You know, you are not ending early.

You are approaching 50, which is incredible. And you look amazing. What like, do you have, do you have an end age insight? I mean, I've heard you say you're going to go till you're 90.

God bless. I hope you go to 120, but as far as competing, do you have an end age in sight um i'm really contemplating this being my last full year competing coming up when i'm 50 it'll be 30 years since i won my first world title um it'll be uh let's see it'll be my sixth decade of surfing technically. Incredible. I,

uh, of competing. I first started competing when I was eight. Um, I, the only thing I wish looking back on my career, I wish I started when I was seven because it would have been in the seventies. I would have competed in the seventies, eighties,

nineties, two thousands, the 2010s and 2020. Um, so it's been, it's been a long time. It's been a lot of generations, but I, I was just watching the two days ago, the contest in Hawaii ended, um, the last one of the year for the challenger

series, which is like our qualifying series, um, to get into the tour. And there's a couple of really good young rookies coming on tour. And some years it's a little boring. You don't have that, that great a talent that makes it um they also have to those guys all also have to challenge with tour surfers for those spots too so if a guy falls off of our main tour they get to go on the qualifying and also try and requalify and generally they're the better guys but this year we've got we got quite a few good young surfers that are coming on and that's always exciting to me i i like to see the fresh new talent and a new approach

to the way guys surf waves or compete um i still think you got to be learning if you're not learning you're you're losing um you know if you're not learning you're you're falling behind and basically everyone i look to now is younger than me so i'm uh my my i think the only thing i fear is that my godson will get on tour before i get off and um he's 15 now and uh he's not far off man he's he's one of the best he's maybe the best 15 year old in the world right now but it's um it's it's really fun to watch that it's really fun to to um it's really fun to hear and and um fulfilling to hear from young guys that they watched you growing up or that a movie or a section or a contest or something you did influenced them or like excited them about the life ahead and i think that's a

real rewarding thing as an older athlete is um is it makes you feel like you've had success in your life. If people say they were influenced by what you did or how you spoke or, um, your, your approach to something, you know, so 2022, your, your 50th year could be, uh, your final year, by the way, have you said that? I haven't seen you say that. No, I haven't said that. No, I appreciate it. Well, I don't, it it's it's not an exact announcement i mean it could end earlier if i were to i'm running with this by the way exclusive breaking news you got it you got it so broken here first everyone's gonna be like who's this ariel guy that you told this to for god's sakes there's a there's a um there's a group called

box to box who did the formula one series have you seen that yes like so they just did one on the world tour this past year oh sick yeah so it's going to be really cool i've just for netflix it's going to be on apple okay yeah um and uh i watched two of them they're really good i watched i watched one that's really about italo um it's about Italo and Gabe Medina, Gabe Medina and Isola Fura. And it's really compelling to see those guys right at the top battling against each other from the same country that wasn't even in a world title conversation eight, nine years ago. And now they've won most of the world titles since then. So to see those guys going head to head and see what see their approaches to life their personal stories it's really really fun to watch um i feel like even though i'm a part

of that mix i feel like i'm a fly on the wall watching their stories and um so we're talking about maybe doing a a short series next year on my last year and um we're trying to see if we can get that off the ground it looks good um you know, with COVID protocols and all that stuff, there's some, a little bit of trickiness. Our tour didn't exist two years ago for a year. Um, there's obviously different protocols in every state. There's different protocols in every country. Um, there's within different countries, there are different protocols, you know, Australia,

each different state from Victoria to New South Wales, the Westernia and to queensland those are they all have different rules and um you know even to the point where somebody who lives 10 feet over the border in new south wales can't drive to their job in queensland because they can't get across the border so there's a lot of tricky things to try to work out for our tour when you're dealing with people from South Africa and Brazil and Tahiti and France and all these different countries all competing on one tour and Australians and Americans and Hawaiians. So they're all trying to get to different places. But if they've been in a red zone for COVID or if you have to quarantine for two weeks, but the event only has, you know, a week between the last one. There's just a lot of, there's a lot of tricky stuff that maybe goes into to even having our tour

exist right now. So we don't, we don't have the Island in Abu Dhabi, you know, to just put everyone at the ranch though. We do have the ranch, but you know, I think the word from, you know, most people are bored with it um the same wave over and over i think people like that excitement in the ocean of what could happen what might happen what what wave might come and and this it's a big part of the skill of a surfer is learning how to read the conditions better than someone else that's a big part of this the scoring and and um the dominating factor in competition so um i always envision surf ranch to be its own thing where you're where you're comparing skills you're

comparing the skill set strictly on the same wave because there were so many there's been so many competitions over the years where people are like oh he got the better waves she got the better waves and that is true many times so the idea that you could all ride the same wave and then it's about the skill well you go oh well that guy's smaller oh that guy's faster that girl's a better tube rider um it becomes a little bit monotonous and boring for people because they feel like they know what they're going to see ahead of time um so it would be nice if we could make 10 different waves in that one pool and just stay there and not worry about all the protocols. But it's one of the, one of my favorite things about surfing and the lifestyle is traveling around the world to different places and different oceans and different types of waves and new cultures and languages. So it's a,

it's a huge part of what we, why we do what we do, I think. Okay. So I have like eight follow-ups to just that answer alone. I know we're up against the clock here. Um, okay. I have no schedule. Okay. Well, I appreciate that. Thank you. Um, okay. So the first thing that you mentioned that, you know, I want to ask you about is I'm wondering if the new world that we're living in the protocols and all that, if that's the reason why you're like, you know what, this isn't exactly the world that I grew up in, and this is getting a lot less fun and a lot more stressful headaches. Has this factored into your potential decision to call it a career? And I'm assuming that's an active competitive career you'll still serve for the rest of your life but right yeah so but like has this factored into it it's probably a little bit of a factor because it is a headache to

yeah short answer is a slight yes not but no not that's not completely why it's just it's just coming and i think when covet hit and i was able to start spending like three months at a time in one place instead of like three days or three weeks, I started to realize how much I enjoyed that. And kind of pick your places to go and stay there and really live them and enjoy them. And our surf lifestyle is really like a day here, a week there and it's it's nothing in the past for me to be in Fiji for three days fly to Australia for a night get be in Bali the next day for a week chasing swell and then fly back to Australia and figure out from there where I want to go wow that's really like how I've lived for like 30 years right exhausting yeah it's exhausting it is but it's fun you know it's like it's an adrenaline rush the whole time but um uh but the excitement of going to new places all the time is really it's super fun

there's really nothing like it in the world but um the difficulty of travel now and the different rules in different places and respecting all that and and knowing what you're getting into is a it's a whole different um it is a different world now uh for the time being so uh as we established earlier you are unafraid of sharing your opinion and um you know i know those rules in australia might affect the wsl next year um and and you have drawn a little bit of criticism as well for some of your opinions on the vaccine and whatnot are you worried that you won't be able to compete in certain countries next year based on you're very health conscious and i think you're always being respectful when you're talking about things i i respect everyone's

opinion on all of this it's the great unknown but i'm wondering if you're worried that this will you know potentially cut short your final season, your final year competing? Are you worried about any of this? Yeah, there's potential for that. There is, yeah. It concerns me at this point. It's a constantly changing conversation, as you know, like day to day, there's different rules and different lockdowns and quarantines.

You see what's happening in Germany and Austria right now. They're basically saying, if you're not going to be vaccinated, you're going to be locked out of society completely. Like you're going to get fined, all that kind of stuff. I think the best we can really hope for in the end is that this thing mutates like SARS-1 did and becomes less lethal. You know, for some people, it's not even a sniffle. And for some people, it's the end of their lives.

So it's a very peculiar situation we're dealing with. And no one really knows if they get it, it's gonna be like for them um statistically speaking you can think okay the healthier you are the better off you'll be but that's not necessarily the case i've had very healthy friends have horrible troubles with covid um i've also had really healthy friends have problems with um you know side effects from the vaccination. Um, and, uh, so it's, it's a, it's a tough one. It's just a, man, it's such a shitty situation for the world for everybody. And I feel most bad, you know, I've looked, I've had a great life. I've gotten to travel and go do so many things and never had to deal with this stuff. I feel bad for kids now. If this exists for a decade or more, who knows if this is the way life is forever now. I don't know.

But just to not have that freedom for school and travel and all those kinds of things, it's really a daunting thing to look at. It definitely changes the future for a lot of people. Surfing made its Olympic debut this past summer, and you weren't a part of it. You were an alternate, but you didn't get to compete. How difficult was that for you? It was and it wasn't it wasn't i'll say that it was because of just the dedication of my life i've put into surfing i was really hoping for that um i also had my opportunity to um to get that spot and i didn't get it you know i wasn't the better guy at the time. I was the first alternate. John John Florence and Kalo Handino, who served in the U.S., both had injuries leading up to it and were both questionable. They both had surgeries within three, I believe it was in about three to four months of the games happening. So sorry, my dog's choking on a.

No problem. He's OK. And yeah, they both had surgery so there was always a chance that i might get in and they've both been injured a few times in recent years so um i was just waiting to see what happened and you know it's just the way i played out um i didn't grow up hoping to be in the o. That's only a recent conversation. Probably in the last decade, people have been real serious about trying to get it in. Fernando Aguirre, who was the one who really lobbied for surfing to get in, he's worked really tirelessly for, I would imagine, maybe two decades now,

trying to make that happen for surfing. And, uh, as it got closer, as it approached, as it was maybe going to be, you know, the last day or two, I had to travel and all the things I had to do leading up to it, all the blood tests I had to do, um, you know, you have to do water stuff and you have to do, um, you have to have COVID protocols and, and then, you know, there's all these, uh, QR codes you have to have covid protocols and and then you know there's all these uh qr codes you had to have there was three different websites i had to update to all the time and i'm terrible

with that kind of stuff it was just a little frustrating to go through all that and then not be able to go but oh gosh that but that was but that's all right you know it's just it's just the way it is and like i said i didn't grow up with the dream of the Olympics. I grew up with a dream of winning, winning contests and winning world titles on the WSL, which was ASP. Um, so, you know, I've spent my lifetime living my dream. And as the Olympics got closer, it became more of an exciting potential idea. Um, but it wasn't to be, and I didn't qualify through the, through the, uh, the way we need to qualify.

So, you know, you just take that on the chin, move on. It's a wild thing because if it was around for 30 years, I mean, you would be like a five time Olympic gold medalist, I would imagine, or something like a multiple time. But, you know, I think your, your, your legacy is just fine without competing in the Olympics. Uh, I have say, you seem to have lived an incredible life. You've traveled all over the world. I am jealous, though, of one thing in particular, because I'm not a big water guy. I'm not a surfer guy. I have great appreciation.

I just, I don't have the chutzpah. I don't have the cojones to do what you do. But my God, in the mid-90s, Kelly, 11 or 11.30 on a Saturday night, when everyone's going to bed on ABC, where I grew up in Montreal, there was a television program called Baywatch that would come on. And for an adolescent boy, I mean, that was, I mean, let me tell you, that was big time stuff. You were on Baywatch for, I think, 27 or so episodes. But what I've read was, you didn't enjoy it. You didn't even want to be a part of it. How could you not want to be a part of this? You're in your mid-20s, early 20s at this point. You're surrounded by Pamela Anderson and company. This is every kid's dream. And you didn't want to be there. You just wanted to surf,

right? You didn't want to be an actor. Yeah, I didn't want to. I was on seven episodes. So, just to clear that up, I was on five. Seven, 27? It feels like the greatest gig of all time. Yeah. Yeah. Come on, give me something. I know your girlfriend's in attendance here, but I mean, Pamela Anderson, greatest of all time. I'm a fellow Canadian, so she was number one in my heart.

Yeah, she got spotted at a football game by the monitor. DC Lions. And yeah, it was just, look, I didn't grow up wanting to be an actor. I didn't want to be in Hollywood. When I was a little kid, it's funny, when I was really young, I used to watch Steve Martin movies with my dad. And the jerk was a regular in our household. But when I was young, I kind of wanted to be a comedian. So it's funny too, when I make comments online, some people don't get my sarcasm. A lot of times it's super tongue in cheek and I need to be better with my

emojis. But some people take something super offensive. It's really like meant to be funny. And in my head, it's funny like meant to be funny and in my head it's funny and i'm like oh shit i look like an asshole um but no i kind of wanted to be a comedian when i was a kid wow and um uh you know i did a couple school plays and stuff but then when i was young i think i kind of look back like when my parents split up my personality changed a lot and i became real serious and i was like more of a funny kid and i and i was really shy and then i became kind of more serious and more intense um and i think that made me a really good competitor um but my whole sights were set on i want to win

a world title i want my heroes are tom curran mart Martin Potter, Tom Carroll, Mark Ocalupo. These are my guys, you know, that's like, I spent my whole life idolizing these guys and wanting to be like them. You know, I, I didn't want to be David Hasselhoff, although I love Hasselhoff. I love the Hoff. He's, he's, he's classic. He was super cool. Great to me.

But, uh, yeah, I didn't end up wanting to be an actor. And I had a, I had a manager who had a power of attorney for me because he worked for me from when I was young. And, um, he actually signed this contract that obligated me into doing Baywatch, if you could believe that or not. And so I was in Australia and he goes, I've signed this thing. You gotta be back for this. You know, you gotta do this photo shoot on this day. And I'm like, what the fuck am I flying back to California? I'm leaving Australia to go to California to be in LA, but there's no surf anyways and i i gotta go act and i did like the worst casting ever i'm i forgot my lines i was like out of character i was like okay i screwed

that up that's done done and then they called me we really liked you and that worried me i'm like man i was terrible and if you like me the show's gonna suck like i'm just i'm not good and um and but looking back now i'm like you know i did all right given given the situation but it was there was a lot of things on bandwagon that really bothered me too because it was like playing a character it was close to me but it wasn't me so i didn't know how to be someone else that was like me it was a very it was kind of like a mind fuck a little bit in that way um excuse the the the french why do people say it's french it's all cuss words it is it is weird it is weird because that is not a french word i don't know why yeah

i mean that word in french actually means seal believe it or not folk means seal so maybe that's hey maybe that's it maybe maybe i just can't imagine what it was like being on set with pamela anderson in the 90s i mean i do believe you guys were romantically linked at one point correct afterwards yeah not afterwards oh okay um we uh we were just friendly on the show like nothing at all i wasn't even um i wasn't even interested i was actually engaged um i was so in love i was i was like it wasn't even on my radar and then um that ended like a year later and and then pam and i just kind of had this connection and we we uh we dated for a while and a couple different times um but you know it wasn't it really wasn't the right thing for me um and not

for her either so um but yeah it that's a it's such a peculiar thing i try to relate now i'm like what if a young surfer got on tour at 20 won the world title was doing the biggest tv show in the world it's pretty crazy to think about um yes It's hard for me to have a perspective like that. But I just saw this thing that I didn't really like doing. I didn't have any drive to do it. I did five shows in 92 and I did two shows in 93. And I asked my manager to get me off the show and he said he wouldn't. So I went to the director and the producer the next day on set. And I said, Hey, you guys got to write me off. I'm out of here. I just don't want to do it. And producer the next day on set and i said hey you

guys gotta write me off i'm out of here i just don't want to do it and they're like what what can we pay you more and that's another thing i didn't get paid very much i get paid i made 2500 an episode wow and which you know after taxes and all that kind of stuff and and manager fees and blah blah i was probably making like a couple hundred dollars a day doing the show on the days i did it um so it wasn't something that was in any way making me wealthy or anything like that either so i didn't do it for the money um yeah just it just wasn't something i enjoyed doing and and i was a little embarrassed about and i also i would also say that I would, it probably made me do better in my career overall, but having done it because I resented, I resented it so much at the time. I was so insecure about it that it made me, anyone who like tried to poke fun at me about it, that was on the tour, I was like, okay, I'm going to smash them next time I surf against them. And so it became this driving force for me in a way.

And, um, I also thought, I kind of thought, you know, if, if I can prove myself in the world of surfing while doing this, it'll say a lot about my surfing, my competitive drive. And, you know, that was what happened. And, uh, I, I, I felt a little, I felt like a personal, I don't know if it was like a, I don't know how to say it, but I really wanted, I w I would rather have the notoriety right in the fame from surfing than I would from, from that. But that made me so much more famous than being a world champion surfer at the time um we had really no media around our world tour we didn't have the web we didn't have live stuff you had to look in a magazine a couple months later if you weren't in the country where the contests happened that was the way media was for surfing um so i had a it gave me a lot of

drive so looking back now i wouldn't there's no way I would say I would do anything different, but at the time it was like, it was really like nails on a chalkboard for me. I remember coming home after quitting the show. And I told my mom that I quit the show. And I can, I can imagine as a mother, having your son on a famous TV show is probably pretty interesting and fun. And I came home and told her I quit. She was so upset at me. And I knew at that time, I was like, okay, well, I have to just be a man and make my own decisions. So I had to grow up a lot by having done the show and the consequences of all those things around it. It really affected my life in a lot of different ways, both good and bad. But I wouldn't go back now and change a thing. It's just what it was and it's my life and my experience.

And it was a lot of fun. Okay. Two last things. And thank you so much for the time. This has been really great. Could I ask any regrets? Maybe Baywatch, you were going in that direction, but now it seems as though you're at peace with Baywatch. Any regrets from your, your legendary historic career? Anything you wish you could do over? I feel like I grew up a bit late,

you know, family-wise. I think I had to learn a lot of lessons in my life sort of later on. I didn't really have an exactly normal high school and then graduation. And then you go to college and you, you know, I have all those experiences with your friends. Mine were like, I couldn't wait to get out of my town and go chase a wave somewhere. And, you know, there's parts of me that sort of wish parts of my life were more normal. But no, I don't know.

I don't know that i'd go back and regret anything i mean there's there might be a couple waves i didn't catch or that i did ride that i hated on but um i don't have any real big regrets in my life i just wish i knew a little more about maybe who i was and what i wanted when i was say 20 years old um it would have probably made my you know the next 20 years of my life a lot easier. But it's been a fun ride and it's the way things have panned out for me, the way that the, the, the, the sort of story in my life went, it allowed me to have that freedom. You know, I wasn't,

I do have a 25 year old daughter who is, who is now actually engaged to be married, which is really exciting for me. And, and yes, he's an amazing guy. I love this guy, um, uh, her partner. Um, but I wasn't a full-time dad, you know, her mom really raised her and, uh, um, I would probably change that. That's probably the only thing I look back and want to change. Um, I wish I was just a bit more mature as a father and, uh, you know, as a figure for her and, um, as a presence in her life day to day.

And, uh, yeah, we've, we've, she and I address all that and talk about it and it's all like, there's nothing hidden, you know, but it, I think as I, as a young girl, as a little girl growing up without me being there all the time was really a tough burden for her. And that's, that's probably the only thing I'm really hard on myself about at this point. She's a very talented artist, right? She's an artist. Yeah. She's, she's actually kind of put her art aside and she got a job.

And she works at like a church in school where she grew up going to. Okay. And her partner, Sam, my daughter's name is Taylor, and her boyfriend, fiance Sam, also works there. They were going to move to Hawaii, which I was really excited about because I spend more time there than Florida. But they came home after a trip there and they're both contemplating work and all that stuff. And they both happen on these jobs they really love doing. He especially loves his job. So she ended up getting a job there, too.

So I don't know. We'll see. They get married in a year and a half and um i don't know if she's gonna get much into her art anymore or not i'm not sure i did ask her to help me paint some of my surfboards for this year on tour so maybe she'll do some art on my boards and um that would be a nice uh way to bring everything together for the potential last year yeah yeah it'd be great. Um, uh,

a side note to that last question. I'm assuming the answer is no, but, uh, is there any place where you haven't surfed or visited that you wish you'd, I feel like you've been. Really? No,

there's tons. Yeah. What? What's number one? Ariel, that'll never end. Really? I feel like you've crossed off every bucket,

uh, list item in terms of places to surf. No, man, there's so much i mean there's some place in africa i still want to go wow i've been i've been in morocco i've been to south africa so i've been to the north and south but there's a lot of oh and i've been to ghana um surfing ghana what a what a interesting place i mean those the the the genetics the dna of the people in ghana if those guys all start fighting watch out man yeah watch out those guys are physical specimens like nothing you've ever

everyone was just like a linebacker ripped it was insane um uh yeah there's so many places i want to go the philippines look at some point in my life i'm going to get a boat i'm going to go just sail across this down through the western south pacific above indonesia there through the solomon islands fish dive surf but i want to go to the philippines um there's a lot of obscure places i look on maps i look on google earth and i find all these places i want to go in the world but i still want to go to mozambique um i'd like to go to madagascar um through uh the maldives which i haven't been to um there's still a lot of places around australia just the whole coast of australia i'd love to just get in a caravan and just drive for weeks and months.

There's a million islands dotted through the Marshall Islands and the South Pacific I want to go to. I'd like to go all through Chile and Peru. It's a never-ending thing for me in my lifetime, for sure. I thought that was going to be a stupid question. I thought you've been everywhere. Ireland, Nova Scotia, Iceland, Greenland. that was going to be a stupid question i thought you've been uh you've been everywhere okay ireland nova scotia oh yeah iceland greenland all like all these places just have really interesting um geography and surf i understand this this final question could be a tough one because it's always hard to talk about yourself in this way but because you are approaching 50 and potentially your final active year as a pro, what do you want Kelly Slater's legacy to be when people talk about you in 50 years?

What do you want them to say about you? Greatest of all time, something else. What do you want it to be? Look, after dedicating your life to one thing like this, it's really nice to be in that conversation. Um, that's a huge honor. I set out to be the best I could possibly be. I wanted to be the best in the world. Um, I want to be the best ever. If, if in 50 years, I'm part of that conversation, that'd be a huge honor for me. Um, but I don't know that that's like important as a person. Um, I have done some sort of like, I don't know if you say spiritual soul searching last couple of years.

And, you know, I just want to be a good person and get back to simple things in life. You know, I've lived such an exciting, fun, amazing, incredible, never ending on the go life. And I hope that just made me a better person, more understanding person. Um, and, uh, I just want to kind of blend in at some point. You have a great clothing brand that stands for a lot of good things as well. You're very environmentally friendly, out or known, I believe it's called. Yes. Send me your address. I'm going to send you something. Oh, thanks. I appreciate that. Also, the wave pool that you were a huge part in developing. I mean, I urge anyone out there who's listening to this to watch the real sports story that was done on you a couple of years ago, where you can actually see this thing in person. I actually feel like you're 100% right. If this is ever going to be a thing in the Olympics, that's the way to go,

because everyone's playing by the same set of rules. So it's brilliant and it's an incredible wrench. So just congratulations, man, on everything that you've done. I mean, you are, in my opinion, I think I only know of one surfer, honestly, and maybe Max Holloway's wife. But you are-

Alyssa, yeah, she was on tour with us. You know, she's a great surfer. But you are the guy. You are absolutely the guy. I'm hoping for Max, she's a great surfer. But you are the guy. You are absolutely the guy. I'm hoping for Max to be like a hardcore surfer, you know? Like, he's starting to surf a little bit. I know Alessa's going to make him go out to the beach every day. Have you surfed with him?

Shredding. I haven't surfed with Max. I know Max. I see him. You know, he comes to fights. I've known him a little bit for years. But I'm a huge fan, obviously. That guy's a beast um i i mean how many

times can him and and uh volkanovski fight you know like we'd watch that five five times you know yeah hopefully we get it next splitting hairs there shouldn't even be a winner those first couple fights um yeah so i get super excited about no i love it that's the thing i was gonna say like i love your passion for the sport of mma it's so cool it's like this little community that we have and you're a part of it which is tremendous so who's your all-time favorite who's your all-time my all-time favorite um okay so it's like a two-part answer if i could uh the guy who like really got me into it believe it or not was a guy named david loazo. I don't know if you remember him. Do you remember the Crow? Yeah.

Did he fight in – wait, why do I know him? Did he fight Hickson? No, he didn't fight Hickson. He was a little bit past Hickson. He was the first famous guy to come out of Canada, tri-star. He was friends with GSP, but older than GSP. He fought for the belt against Rich Franklin. He had a very famous spinning back kick to the body against Charles McCarthy and then a flying knee.

And why I liked him was because he was from Montreal. And I was like, holy crap, a guy from Montreal is doing big things. And then, of course, that led us to GSP. And GSP, watching GSP win the belt at UFC 56 against Matt Hughes. I was at a sports bar in Montreal in 2006 and the place erupted. Like, you know, the Canadians had just won the Stanley cup. And it was in that moment where I realized I really need, like, I always had the dream of being an MMA journalist. I loved the sport. I watched it from the beginning, but I was like, the fact that this sport can elicit this type of reaction out of people, I want to be a part of it because it felt so new and fresh. And so GSP will always hold a special place in my heart. Coincidentally, and you might call me biased, 2008. It was the one where...

Who was fighting? Chuck Liddell lost his title at that one. Was it to Rashad or to Rampage? I forget. Well, he got knocked out by Rampage, UFC 71, and that is when he lost the belt famously that was a yeah that was the one damn that was a crazy one yeah i met may of 2007 i believe yeah i met um gsp briefly there and um josh koscheck a bunch of guys were all ringside and And I just remember thinking, man, this guy's got the most incredible physique.

He's like perfect anatomical structure. And you could tell he was so methodical about the way he did things and his training. And he didn't seem like a crazy guy. You meet some MMA fighters and they seem a little nuts and they're a little off, you know, but he was just like such a professional. And so,

uh, so well-spoken and, um, yeah, he just has this aura about him, you know, you know, it's interesting about that.

Uh, you may not remember, but literally a month prior was when he got knocked out by Matt Sarah. So he was at his lowest right then. Yeah. Yeah. UFC 69. Yeah.

But he was, uh, yeah, he's just incredible. I've definitely been hugely inspired by him. There was a, I saw a video of him surfing in Rio. Um,

somebody taking him surfing and he was not very good. And I was like, man, I gotta take that guy surfing someday. Can you help him out? That would be incredible. By the way, who is your favorite of all time?

Uh, MMA. Yeah. Um, man, I know, I know his career wasn't long, but I'm going to have to go with my boy,

Ricardo Arana. Oh, I love it. Ricardo is just such a beast. The way he picked up Fedor and like threw him on his head and stuff. Yes. And he's just, he's like this silverback gorilla, but he's like such a kind person when you meet him and the way he fought,

his style looks so intense and amazingly aggressive. And just like, there was no feeling out process for him, you know? And, and you could tell he wasn't fighting like, um, like I'm going to score points. I'm going to win this round. And I was like, I'm going to decimate people. Yeah. And, um, so I always loved his, as far as, um, there's so many guys I really have huge respect for, for their careers, you know, like Khabib never losing. And, um,

just in MMA, that's such a hard thing to do. And at that weight class, there's so many guys just coming up all the time and, and, and getting the skill levels and the intensity and, and over the course of 29 fights, like something can go wrong, you know? Um, uh, yeah, it's can go wrong, you know? Yeah. It's hard to say, look, I can't pick one, you know, I go with Arona for the, for the single guy, but I have a lot of friends who fight, you know,

Chito Barrow has been become a good friend of mine. That's right. Yep. I see him on, in your comments, Vito Belfort. I know that you've been friends with Vitor and BJ. He's hanging around those guys a little bit with the Ruka gym. I mean, that's a whole other part of my thing. Like I almost actually started surfing for Ruka in 2008, 2007. I almost got sponsored by them when they were just kind of coming up. One of my childhood friends, two of my childhood friends uh started ruka a friend named conan hayes and then pat tenore who i you i feel like you probably know pat um so but pat made the gym there at ruka

and i started kind of hanging around there with um perillo and those guys and vitor and bj were around a lot at that time and i just kind of hung out with that crew for a little while and um vitor i keep in touch with, he's here in Florida. I haven't seen him in a couple of years, but, um, you know, we've been, I met Vitor in 98 in Brazil actually. So I've known him a long time and, um, yeah, just an admiration for, for the sport. So I, I follow closely and intensely, um,

look forward to every weekend, you know, every Saturday. I love it. I love it. We could have probably done an hour and a half on just UFC stuff. I appreciate you indulging me by talking about the other stuff as well. And good luck if this is your final year. Let me ask you, have you ever fought? Have you ever done any kind of martial arts?

I have done it. I have done it. Yes, I've never fought. And why are you getting in hassle with all these guys all the time? Who's asking you to ask this question? Dana? No, no. There's a fighter inside you, Ariel.

I feel it, you know? Oh, I have Middle Eastern blood. My mom is from Lebanon and my dad's from Egypt. And another side of me... My great-grandfather is from Beirut. Oh, really? That's where my mom's from.

Wow. Okay, so we have a lot more in common than one might think uh i used to get into scraps as a kid i have a fiery middle eastern temper i always loved the fight game the characters the showmanship the pageantry the the fuse coming together and i would argue i don't get into things with them i just ask questions that sometimes elicit certain responses yeah yeah yeah from these fiery individuals. But I know you're the right guy to ask those questions at those times.

And that's that's that's why you've you've been so commonplace in this. You know, it's I don't try to out alpha male them. Right. So that's, I think, been part of my success because I don't look like them. And I got good luck in that world trying to. Yeah, exactly. Good luck with that one yeah no but but i think a great a great interviewer is always going to have going to address some controversy and address some tough you have to you just have to you know

you have to have the balls to do that so did we do that today did you i'll ask my girlfriend okay she was listening the whole time wow okay no she's around i don't know where she is she didn't like the pam anderson question that was the one that really probably well in your defense you're canadian yes yes you know um no i appreciate it man i've been watching you for a long time and it's good to know you and um appreciate you having me on awesome thank you so much and all the best you happy holidays as well if you're celebrating um appreciate you giving us almost 90 minutes of your time. Thank you. Yeah, guys. We'll talk soon, man. All right. So how about that? That was really great stuff. Always, always really cool

to talk to someone who's at the top of their game, greatest of all time, has incredible drive, but has been through ups and downs to kind of get a sense for what is going on in their brain i uh i really enjoyed that conversation and it's always fun when they're a big mma fan and you see the fandom come out of them as well so much respect much love to kelly slater i wish him all the best and how about that mini breaking news item that next year might be his last year pretty damn cool thanks for that kelly i appreciate you uh i hope you enjoyed the conversation i appreciate all of you out there as well. If you want to watch this conversation, youtube.com slash Ariel Helwanis, where you can do so. You can also watch our other interviews from the beginning of this venture back in September. And we've got one more coming up next week. And then we'll take a bit of a hiatus for the holidays and come back in January and keep kicking butt, especially with the help of our sponsors, our good friends over at Pristine Auction, pristineauction.com. Thank you very much to them.

And of course, our good friends over at Manscaped. Thank you very much to the crew. Thank you very much to all of you for downloading, rating, reviewing, subscribing, following, all that and more. Thank you to the lovely feathers. And I can't thank you guys out there enough. I repeat that once again. Your support means the world.

Much love, much respect from my heart to yours. Thank you for listening. Thank you for everything. And thank you for checking out this particular episode with the great Kelly Slater. The greatest of all time. How cool was that? I loved every second of it. I hope you did as well. All right, I'm out of time. Again, thanks for checking it out. I'll talk to you next

week. Thank you.