Wrath, Reality And The Raw Deal: Runners ‘N Riders For Thrasher Skater Of Tha Year 2022

In these topsy turvy times of celebrity curses and automated internet warfare, when superheroes serve mainly as anchors for movie franchises or heavy-class ocean freighters, what truly matters? If you answered ‘nothing’ you have achieved a level of nihilism that may qualify you for hawking used autos or maintaining any number of illicit substance problems. If you answered Thrasher Magazine’s ‘Skater of tha Year’ award, you may possess sufficiently heightened awareness to accurately recognize the lesser import of golden medallions, money cups and corn syrup-and-caffeine-drenched riches of various description. Who has a line on it this year? Who is bound for eternal glory, and who for the flamey fires of darkest Hades, or maybe both? Let us read along and find out.

Louie Lopez: A perennial contender over much of the past decade and in the discussion once again, the ‘Rusty’ trophy may be starting to resemble Lucy’s football to the Lou stans of the world. His bona fides at this point are not debatable and he’s this year made vids for FuckingAwesome and Spitfire, held down a Volcom tour clip, produced one of those less-common covers that commands repeated close examination and came up with possibly the most-reposted trick out of CPH Pro. He’s just had another interview-length feature in the mag with a bunch of photos that suggest more footage to come, and he’s still got a month or so to film, so odds are he could produce two if he was looking to turn up the volume.

Tristan Funkhouser: Baker’s can’t-drive-55 grease fire had so far probably the most classically ‘Thrasher’ video part this year in last spring’s Baker production, mixing his typical hairball shit like the drop down to nose manual on the Union Square block and the ferocious rip all the way through the China Banks with other pulls from his increasingly deep bag, like that switch heelflip down the SF triple set. He was all over last summer’s GX video too, most crazily the nosegrind down the Mason Street rail into the hill, and maybe will have some more before the year is out. That jaw-dropper cover shot of the frontside ollie across the long China Banks bench, a trick that was landmark enough to cap off a documentary, and with the checkerboard slips and Jagermeister shirt, seems a credible deal-sealer that would be tough to argue against.

Tyshawn Jones: After flying the FuckingAwesome coop earlier this summer, Tyshawn Jones now is fully in album mode, in the past month putting out an all-time cover for the magazine and unloading the first of at least a couple promised batches of footage in a ‘Hardies Hardware’ video that seemed comprised mainly of clips that would rank as enders for a good deal of other dudes. His bar for the tricks and spots he chooses and judicious dispensing of footage and photos makes his stuff hit harder when it lands, and it’s a strong case when he’s firing on all cylinders like this. But there’s way too many credible candidates year in and year out to hand the award to the same dude twice; the Thrasher brain trust should let Tyshawn’s current run, like Ishod’s and Kyle Walker’s in various years past, function as further justification for the years they won, and show that the title is just as much a bet on longevity beyond one or two big years or vids.

Fred Gall: In years past a half-joking response to this question that after a 25-year run now seems fairly credible, Uncle Fred has evolved from a beloved ODB-style wildman into one of the culture’s more unlikely elder statesmen, maybe even more deeply beloved. This year he did a heavy video part that stands up with some of his best stuff going back to the Sub-Zero days, has been DIYing spots all around New Jersey, presided over a more-official relaunch of his longtime homies’ board company, is helping people kick drugs, and stood for a rare portrait cover for Thrasher wearing a stained shirt and war-weary stare. It’s probably not him this year, but imagine if it were.

TJ Rogers: The leading contender for biggest pants on a Canadian — itself a heavily contested title from year to year — TJ Rogers also has represented one of the more upbeat storylines in another tumultuous year, battling cancer and appearing in recent months to have gained the upper hand. He has pumped out video parts while doing so, with some heavy stuff like a really scary nollie backside 180 over the fence at Hollywood High and an earmuff headphone save after a big backside lipslide; whereas 20 years ago riding for Blind and Es could put a pro like Ronnie Creager comfortably atop the sponsorship food chain, these days it gives TJ Rogers kind of an underdog sheen.

Jeff Carlyle: His shaved head/beard combo helping to pick him out in the various GX1000 productions, Jeff Carlyle could be argued to have gotten the gnarliest in ‘Right Here for Pablo’ a few months ago, hitting up a burly rail while the authorities close in, going back to back with Jake Johnson on a bump to bar to ledge, backside lipsliding to plunging down Mason Street, and certain other notables. All that being said, while Greyson Fletcher and Nick Boserio have done a lot to bring the flowing wizard whiskers to the fore in recent years, history shows that nobody has won Skater of the Year whilst sporting a big, full beard.

One Louder

Where tightly plotted intricacy doesn’t work, apply overwhelming force — such is the Skater of the Year-centric read on Mark Suciu’s ‘Flora III’ vid, the latest and most dizzying in a flurry of fourth-quarter footage releases that it is tough to consider through many other lenses. The sheer quantity of tricks and lines that Mark Suciu has digitally distributed over the past six weeks must stand as some type of record, likely matching in the entire career output of multiple early 1990s pros.

The focus, discipline and ‘clean livin’ required for such feats still are relatively new behaviours to the skateboarding sphere, where the misfit rebel motif remains as beloved to the average skatepark vibe as it is to beverage conglomerate marketing campaigns. This is also the source of skateboarding’s conflicted attitudes toward effort — specifically letting it show too much, versus putting it in at the spot — and the ensuing queasiness toward overt SOTY campaigning, as contest podium-standers don Thrasher shirts and turn up the heavy metal for November video part drops. It’s uncouth to talk much about it. Several decades removed from the industry crashes and societal rejection that put a gravestone on Thrasher’s cover and affixed a chip on skateboarding’s collective shoulder, there remains a risk in coming off like you’re trying too hard, or believing your own hype; in the same way dead-eyed casualism is the preferred roll-away, aloof detachment is the preferred career approach.

“I tried that year,” Mark Suciu said on the ‘9 Club’ pod cast last summer, in response to a question of whether he would make a ‘push’ to win Thrasher’s legend-making Skater of the Year award. In 2019 he had a head of steam built up with his landmark ‘Verso’ project nearly done and plenty more footage to spread around, and the Thrasher powers seemed to take notice, inviting him on trips and making him confront the question of whether and what type of effort he ought to make. “At first I was like, what? Nah. Then I was like what, wait, what if I was? How do we start backwards, how do I prove to myself that I earned it? So it made that whole year really fun for me because I was trying to skate hard, trying to live up to that.”

The nod wound up going to longtime Thrasher favorite and certified madman Milton Martinez, probably cemented the moment he rolled across the street after kickflipping into the monstrous Sunset Carwash bank. Mark Suciu wound up putting out yet another video for Habitat that year, then took a break, and while he voiced no ill will on the 9-Club, the whole process sounded sort of draining. “I found out like everybody else, on Instagram,” he said. “Which was fine.”

Two years later, Mark Suciu’s assumed a commanding presence in the last days of skateboarding’s 2021 award season with a consummate professional’s approach, spreading his output among his sponsors and friends in an increasingly deafening torrent. At one point this web logging website had suggested his prodigious ability would show in sharper relief via fewer, more distilled vids centered mainly around the tricks that only he could do or think of, but as this bold year of the ox nears its close, it’s clear he is going the other way, a precision operator instead choosing max volume.

The last minutes of his two most recent video parts* lay it out there — in the Spitfire one, he deals out tricks at the NY courthouse before literally heading across the street and continuing with a battery of tricks at the Blubba. The more western-coast ‘Flora’ section peaks with two minutes of shoving, spinning and increasingly contorted handrail tricks that draw on his earlier feats and spray a bunch of new ones, like a fakie take on the Davis Torgerson nollie frontside hurricane, a Lutzka type spin to blunt, a nollie 360 backside nosegrind, and various others fit to test a blog post’s daily allotment of hyphens. Whereas the final ‘Verso’ segment was a puzzle to try and figure out as Mark Suciu linked tricks and lines into nested bookends, the last couple minutes of the ‘Flora III’ vid on initial watch are one of the more visceral experiences in recent memory, the tricks blasted out in shock-and-awe fashion with no slow-mo or fades to black, evidence laid out in a case that leaves very little room for doubt.

Presuming a Skater of the Year win doesn’t lead Mark Suciu to step away from professional skating as he’s contemplated in the past, is a bowl part bound to be his next medium? How many more k-grind to switch k-grind iterations could he have tacked onto the 3x combo if that one double ledge setup were longer? How much runtime would a vid like this have if Justin Albert were to have chosen a Screwed Up Click/’Baker2G’ approach? If the award going to Mark Suciu doesn’t all the way dispel the side-eye toward overt SOTY campaigning, will having a literary minded, college educated Thrasher laureate help sketch out another archetype for the kids?

*this is over the last two weeks dudes

Experimental Drugs, Dead Gods And Locust Swarms: Runners And Riders For 2020 SOTY

And this calamitous year shifts now into high gear for the final quarter. The USA president, administered experimental drugs to save his life from a suspected bat-borne disease gone global. Eddie Van Halen, guitar deity, claimed by the Grim Reaper. Brawny hurricanes pummel our valuable beaches and locust swarms afflict Africa’s farms.

Anti-Hero Skate Boards, that atoll of relative calm betwixt the news cycle’s fearsome winds that also employs Frank Gerwer, this past week took the unusual step of sponsoring and affixing its famous eagle logo to the political debates (seen above) to remind any seeking cranium-ready sand openings that Skater of The Year season is again in full swing. Must Chris Pfanner’s cool-headed and European approach to existentially risky handrails be considered in any such conversation? Will 2020 be the year that ‘at last’ delivers the coveted Rusty artifact to the doorstep of a perennial contender? Could a hazy concoction of absentee ballots, hanging chads and unknowable identities of persons most mysterious forever cast an asterisk-shaped shadow over this, the first SOTY of these new roaring ’20s? Let’s read on.

Alexis Ramirez: With a solid grip on curtain-closing activities in Sk8Mafia’s video productions and a pungent tailwind from 2014 SOTY Wes Kremer, Alexis Ramirez has impressed with various IG-ready full-circle planter grinds while covering nearly all bases in last summer’s ‘2020 Promo’, from rooftop bomb-drops to rainbow-ledged SD schoolyards to the big bars. He returned this week, with another six-minute segment that drafts off the life-affirming TikTok of the moment and includes a head-scratcher of a backside lipslide bounce-out.

Louie Lopez: The first line in that ‘Lola’ part from August pretty much says it, 360 flip up a curb, hop up onto a ledge, frontside shove out to backside nosegrind on a planter, precise and easygoing and velvet-soft. Louie Lopez is one of those skaters whose highly nonchalant execution can distract from the hairyness of the tricks and situations, like his backside lipslide shoves-out for instance, and stuff like the tailslide pop to tailslide in his concurrent ‘II’ vid for FuckingAwesome makes it all look like kind of a lark. He’s got a Thrasher cover and likely more on deck, but is he the ‘right’ SOTY for such a grim, tumultuous year?

Mason Silva: Owner of the year’s most beastly Thrasher cover so far, the whiff of inevitability follows yung Mason Silva, hopping from Element to NorCal’s storied Deluxe kingdom and dropping video parts with unsettling regularity. It’s a real shame about the filming on that gargantuan bank ollie, but the dude skates like he’s got plenty of gas in the tank and the sponsorship firepower to make a formidable fourth-quarter press. The remarkable clips in the Nike part, Mason Silva’s effort toward a ‘Dylan’ statement-of-purpose, are too many to fully list — the 180 fakie manual half-cab out at the bumpy NY banks, the halfcab wallride over the rail, the snowboard kicker 360, the #fakiehard — and at this point it seems much like his award to lose.

Evan Smith: The starry-eyed rambler’s seat among likely finalists seems de rigueur in these last few years, as does multiple crazy parts from him within the 12-month calendar. There was his blurred, kaleidoscopic part for Anti Hero’s Grimple imprint, where he at one point did a kickflip backside wallride backside 180 out on a roof, and then another 5 minutes for DC Shoe, including that long k-grind drop down to backside 50-50, kickflips over and down and through a bunch of stuff and the occasional, sort of incongruous Droors shirt. A rumored new board company could provide the platform for yet another Evan Smith vid by early December, but you wonder whether his moment to capture the SOTY trophy is passing, sort of like longrunning runners-up Dane Burman and Clive Dixon, both of whom registered powerful footage this year — Clive Dixon noseblunted the Staples Center ledge to one of our time’s illest-advised musical selections, remember — but seem again like long shots as the time draws nigh.

Tiago Lemos: There is a sort of confusing sequence toward the beginning of New Balance’s August ‘Trust Tiago’ vid where some dudes seem to be cutting/removing a bar after Tiago Lemos skates it — perhaps this symbolizes the international discomfiture over his not having been awarded top prize, gilded crowns, chestsful of golden doubloons and other special honors corresponding to the skill level required for the fakie flip backside nosegrind shove-it out and other feats that Tiago Lemos has completed for several years now. Hopefully his moves toward deeper-pocketed sponsors over the last couple of years are supplying certain amounts of golden coins. As far as SOTY goes, Tiago Lemos must continue to be included on any contenders’ shortlist, and not for nothing he’s put out two more video parts this year, including the head-exploding emoji repeater hardflip frontside noseslide toward the end of his one for ‘Crupie Wheels.’

Elijah Berle: Flicka was the name of a mysterious mustang with a dangerously waving dark mane, and so shall Elijah Berle be considered. He assumes a sort of ‘dark horse’ position with not a lot of footage or coverage to show as the seasons change, but now a bracing cover hinting at the long-deferred promise of video footage commemorating his migration to the lush but increasingly crowded FA stable a couple years ago. Elijah Berle’s teeth-chattering handrails and transition charges are Thrasher-approved, but it seems like he’d need a document of Tyshawn Jones proportions to command the nod after working away in the wings most of the year.

Last Days Of The ’10 SOTYs, For 90 Years Anyway

As another decade winds down, uninterrupted* by rogue asteroid strikes, Mayan doomsday prophecy or thermonuclear holocaust, we remain fortunate enough to ponder which professional-level skateboarder will absorb this, the final Skater of the Year trophy to be handed down before the dawn of a new decade, gilded with Olympic golds. It is an auspicious moment, the first short-pantsed bronze boarder awarded in Thrasher’s post-Jake Phelps era. Will the Knights Templar of Hunter’s Point raise up Mark Suciu, who screeched a precision frontside blunt across NY’s Con Edison banks, incredibly back to regular? To the bloodthirsty Milton Martinez, who ollied over the whole damn thing? Let’s read on.

Mark Suciu: Cultured, poised and stepping into the moment, streetstyle codebreaker Mark Suciu is the obvious contender if only because of the buckets’ worth of elbow grease he’s applied across the spectrum this year: Turned in a truck part, won the final Grotto Lotto, landed a Thrasher cover and interview, ripped the Dime Olympics, and wrangled not one but two media cycles out of a marathon, epic part that somehow managed to match the hype and map new dimensions of the form. Given Mark Suciu has ample time to film another couple video parts between now and mid-December, his candidacy has a certain whiff of inevitability, but two months are a long time.

Simon Bannerot: One of the increasingly reliable tentpoles of Girl’s new era, young and wavy PNWATV Simon Bannerot has done his bleeding and gotten it in that most Thrasher of theaters, the road. His turn on Thrasher’s ‘Am Scramble’ franchise netted a rare no-hands inverted cover, he conquered the Bronx’s four banks, unleashed the ender-ender for Girl’s UK tour vid, and conceivably could release some other video before the year is out. His comeback from a gnarly car accident would seem to answer the ‘has he suffered enough?’ Hewittism, but he may be deemed to require further seasoning.

Milton Martinez: The scion of a faded industrial dynasty out to reclaim its fortunes, Milton Martinez brings the backstory and drive required for a late-innings Skater of the Year push, with Thrasher chops in spades. Over the course of the year Milton Martinez served up snippets of what he’s building toward, such as his blazing, downhill Australia line, his mountainside descent in April, the Independent and Volcom tour appearances, and now the threat of bigger things to come, a pulse-quickening kickflip into the hallowed Sunset carwash to set off 2019’s final sprint. Presumably, he has a video in the offing.

Clive Dixon: Did you remember that Birdhouse put out a video earlier this year? Perhaps not, but the Thrasher brain trust certainly does, having turned one cover over to Clive Dixon’s jaw-slackening handrail spin on Jeremy Wray’s water tower leap, and his more recent Staples noseblunt slide, with the really odd backdrop of Geoff Rowley’s bronzed 50-50 standing by, presumably missing just by a hair. For those keeping score at home Clive Dixon also nollie noseblunted El Toro last year, but does he have more to uncork prior to year’s end?

Bobby Worrest: The champion of the people, the AVE-category 2019 veteran ballot entry, the king of Pulaski, Bobby Worrest played a major role in this year’s somewhat improbable but very welcome Venture resurgence, turning in an overstuffed Gucci bag of a part that included the now-notorious ‘up the three’ line, with only the house music throbs holding it back from immediate classic certification. Bobby Worrest quickly resurfaced in Gang Intl’s ‘Facades’ last summer, made an obligatory appearance in Nike’s ‘Crust Belt’ tour, and seems like he never runs out of fuel or fresh angles on those beloved Washington blocks. With Tiago Lemos not overtly tilting toward this year’s title, Bobby Worrest is the candidate most easily imagined in a gilded throne SOTY cover along the lines of Brian Anderson’s CMB-themed entry.

Rowan Zorilla: After a sleeper part being zoomed in and out upon in Bill Strobek’s ‘Blessed’ Film last year, off-kilter Shep Dawger Rowan Zorilla in 2019 has slouched back into a more lackadaisical pose, closing out the second installment of Iphone vibe project ‘Boys of Summer’ II — a t-shirt and sweater-promoting vehicle that included him fakie 360 flipping up the EMB steps, an important trick for people to know about. A more ‘serious’ part, if such a descriptor could be applied to Rowan Zorilla’s unique, bandy-legged swerves, would seem to hinge upon ‘Baker 4’ arriving before year’s end. But this is an even-money bet at best for a proven ‘keep it skate’ company that could opt to reward nostalgia for late-90s style two-year ‘coming soon’ campaigns and pushed back release dates.

*as of this writing.

The Great American SOTY Chase of 2018

First it was a blue wave, then a red wall, smashing out a purple rain (or golden shower) over a green revolution and sporadic outbreaks of orange justice. This year, the campaign for Thrasher’s Skater of the Year appears colourful and relatively wide open amid tentpole video releases, a revitalized underground contest circuit, and Viceland continuing to provide a televised venue for which ascendant bros can make sacrifices unto the skate-goat, to the extreme. Who in the skateboarding business has the power and position to contend for Thrasher’s ultimate prize?

Corey Glick: Moustachioed Midwesterner Corey Glick’s punch-through in 2018’s back half may provide some balm to that sore question — whether it’s possible these days to capture the Rusty trophy without the backing of deep-pocketed footwear marketers, corn-syrup/caffeine mixologists and other moneyed interests. The current Foundation squad seems as painfully working class as they come, which seemed no impediment to Corey Glick’s KOTR heroics on the Super Co’s behalf, or maybe, it helped. The TV turn and last year’s ‘Am Scramble’ attendance places him in the conversation, and his scorching section in Foundation’s ‘Souvenir’ promo is a persuasive argument, wherein Corey Glick took the lead among an unlikely crop of wallie-to-noseblunt slide clips this year, and sailed an unbelievable, barely-on-his-soles ollie to wrap the vid and secure the professional bag. The backside noseblunt shove-it heavily contends for trick of the year.

Zion Wright: There is a whiff of inevitability around the yung bro, possibly wafting by association from Floridian colleague and 2017 FLOTY to SOTY Jamie Foy, who Zion Wright seems to match in handrail fearlessness and maybe surpasses in terms of transition 540s. The newly incorporated Vice component may have shrunk the number of years dudes need to suffer and burn on the national scene to qualify for a SOTY nod, though by the time of its airing Zion Wright had already half-cab backside smith grinded Hollywood High’s long pole, along with that 50-50 to backside tailslide in Philly and the no-hander QP backside 360. Last month he captured December’s cover and odds seem better than even that he releases some other type of part before the year’s out.

Austyn Gillette: His tricks settling into a nicely grizzled groove as the days of gangly switch feeble grind shove-its fade, modern man Austyn Gillette maybe is a long shot for this magazine award, stacked clip-for-clip versus various uber-achieving peers. Within the realm of the qualitative, where tricks are the products of hand-labour and all moustaches neatly trimmed, Austyn Gillette’s ringing ‘Radiant Cure’ part crunched hubbas and rewound shove-its, flexing one of the industry’s most reliable switch 360 flips. He poured his heart out to Thrasher in one of the year’s more penetrating interviews, later tucked in for the nigh-unpronounceable EPØKHE clip and put on a late-summer clinic at LES. His weightiest contribution may have been to inspire one of the decade’s most impassioned trick-nomenclature debates.

Evan Smith: The Thrasher clan has celebrated Evan Smith’s spastic precision for years, and between his MVP KOTR acronym-hoarding and the follow-up interview feature in his cover-photo issue, the High Speed powers that be seem to have fully embraced his wide-eyed, chronically curious personal brand. Finally receiving a Skater of the Year honour would be a long time coming for Evan Smith, who’s been a credible candidate for the last several years, offering both blockbuster-level tricks and a tall measure of sweat-lodge creativity, which tends to put some distance between the visionaries and dudes who can just do every trick. In 2016 he brought mirror-image, gap-incorporating kickflip wallrides; this year it’s a frontside kickflip water-whip and street 540s. He is the heaviest favorite.

Mason Silva: A no-frills ripper who put in ‘King of the Road’ miles on this year’s winning Element assemblage, Mason Silva’s also dispersed video parts for ‘Peace’ and the leather-and-wetsuits handstitcher set at Former. You can tell Mason Silva is a workhorse by the way he takes frontside bigspin tricks over rails and gaps the hard way, or the early pop commitments required to travel fakie over bump-to-bars and handrails. He arguably could come with still more footage before the year’s out, but then again on the other hand, his crewcut and love for the frontside 360 seem reminiscent of Jeremy Wray, a perennial Skater of the Year runner-up.

Tyshawn Jones: This generation’s undisputed king of New York romps through the city with the Gonz and promises a landmark part in Bill Strobeck’s soon-to-debut ‘Blessed’ opus for Supreme, and given that most of the yung restauratuer’s moves this year have been made in and around NY, odds favor a Jake Johnson ‘Mindfield’ tilt at the gnarliest and hardest-to-tackle spots on offer across the five borroughs. One of those — a train station ollie that Quartersnacks placed a bounty on months back — just landed the first Thrasher cover of the New Year, and earned the AVE endorsement.

Too Many Cooks

Roots-rocking revivalist Yasiin Bey famously claimed in space that the knack to flying is learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss. So shall it be for SOTY, and the yearlong subliminal toilings or lack thereof that may or may not place a 24th precious metaled and pantsed man atop some lucky pro’s professionally burbling toilet tank. Whereas recent bald-faced attempts to remake personal brands in the Thrasher mode, just happening to drop video projects near year’s end whilst wearing around S-A-D tees, generally have fallen flat, low-key schralping one’s fanny off in front of the proper HD lenses may yet prove to be the reliable path. Consider:

Cory Kennedy: A cheeseburger in paradise on a seven-day weekend, Cory Kennedy this year has spent much of his permanent vacation garbing himself in gift-shop merchandise on Thrasher-affiliated tours. His love affair with crust continues and ‘what-me-worry’ Oakley blading approach to life has taken him into the deep end sans pads, another plus in the Thrasher galaxy. Certain stony adventures truly put him on the road alongside various Bru-Rayers, Fourstars and the current SOTY clique, but has he been hittin hard enough between all the good times to shut the door on would-be campaigners?

Bobby Worrest: In recent years Bobby Worrest’s inclusion on such a list may have served merely as Facebook Timeline-ready clickbait for aging e-commercers reminiscing on early Brick Harbor clips, but consider: Ten years into his career, the DC-area’s kid beard has sidestepped various shoe-sponsor travails, only to switch backside noseblunt a handrail in one of his three video parts this year, each certified urban grade with no artificial flavors and seasonings. A hard-earned corporate sponsor paycheck may be a consolation prize if Thrasher fails to be won over by days of Pulaski clip-logging.

Wes Kremer: Similar to now-teammate Jake Brown giggling his way around the loop at Tampa that one year, Wes Kremer wobblingly cruised through to late-summer bomb the galaxy via an unassuming video that contained a wallie late-shove it over a chunky hubba, a slappy b/s 5-0 down some other hubba and one of the larger switch backside bigspin flips on offer recently. (It also copped a TWS cover for the curtain call, which you could look like as a plus or a minus in Thrasherland.) Then this week he did it again, running yet another slappy variation down the Clipper ledge, hucking massive shifty kickflips and resurrecting hallowed Peter Smolik career touchstones. Wes Kremer approaches Jake Johnson level wallrides, keeps his bushings slack and meanwhile seems like he’d be doing much the same shit whether they were handing awards out for it or not, so the Phelps brain-trust could easily do worse.

Torey Pudwill: With the mane of a virile walrus and a love interest that could’ve come off the arm of a freshly IPO’d internet mogul, Torey Pudwill hardly requires Thrasher’s most-exclusive title to achieve fulfillment, but there he was last summer, bringing back the so-called suski grind, pushing his ever-longer backside tailslides and exhibiting that generally ludicrous pop en route to what’s billed as a blockbuster entry in the Plan B video, which for real really is seriously coming out. Torey Pudwill gifted unto High Speed Productions two Thrasher covers this year, but does his wiggly armed comet orbit close enough to the magazine’s star to get him over?

Dylan Rieder: Our black leather pant-clad dark horse candidate, Dylan Rieder’s muscular pop and eye for Soviet-era public art as background flair got him onto the front of Thrasher earlier this year, sporting sunglasses to boot. For all those years of brutality when Heath Kirchart prowled under the radar, could Dylan Rieder’s zeitgeist-capturing turn in Bill Strobeck’s “Cherry” and Berlin residency — including that pop out of the noseblunt — in support of his latest pro-model wing tip be too much for the Thrasher camp to resist? No other name on this list brought nudity to the table the way Dylan Rieder has this year.

Separately, if Danny Way repeated off the strength of his Mega-RampingTM “DC Video” part last decade, should Tony Hawk merit a mention for recording two parts this year with time left over to tame the Nessie-like hoverboard? Where does Mark Suciu’s MJ-sized “Search the Horizon” opus fall for Thrasher’s fiscal-year purposes? How many Wasserman Clients this year will garner a coveted nomination?

Boil the Ocean SOTY Short List 2009

Just throw it in the bag

This year seems like last year, kind of, as far as there not being any type of clear front-runner for the most hallowed of skateboard awards that is not distributed in buckets by the Maloof brothers. There’s no Daewon or Danny Way or Arto Saari no-brainer, and while there are several semi-brainers (useful for commentors such as myself), the politics and squishy qualifications and completely opaque selection process makes it all the more interesting and fun to pointlessly speculate. And so we jump in.

Leo Romero: I kind of feel like if that Skateboarder cover had been a Thrasher we wouldn’t even be bloviating on this, but the uphill path of the inscrutable Leonard is part of his appeal – jumping ship from Baker to Toy Machine years after several former bloodsuckers headed headed the other way and left Ed & co. with their hands in their pockets, alongside a general negative attitude that many have favorably compared to Emerican elder Heath Kirchart. Leo has a potentially ground-shifting video part in store with “Stay Gold,” and while it will not drop this year, Phelps and his buddies have been known to move pre-emptively, and who doesn’t like to look smart?

Heath Kirchart: The buzz is that the Thrasher camp may not have enough love for the brooding bro with the red-carpet disses and vending machine business, but I don’t know. It’s not like the dude goes around handing out cookie bouquets to the other mags, and to a certain degree you could imagine the Thrasher powers that be digging a devil-may-care mode of operation. It would sorta be a safer pick too, since Heath K brought a show-stopper video part in 09 and potentially another one next year. Cons, he hasn’t done much for Thrasher and he skated to Morrissey.

Sean Malto: A teen heartthrob who lives his own reality show, baffling security guards with nollie frontside feeble grinds and shredding the Pacific Northwest with Julien Stranger. Green but his Thrasher cover was among the year’s gnarliest and the non-stop skateboard mission seems to always have room for a stop or shoutout to his beloved Kansas City; a pro model shoe is not far off and he’s had enough footage drizzled out here and there to mold a passable follow-up to “And Now,” but Malto’s 09 slow burn has yet to fully flare, and I’m not sure the cover, rowdy as it is, would get him over.

Dennis Busenitz: The current Slap Board messiah would seem to have SOTY at long last sewn up, with an internet-smashing video part, talked-about contest runs, many good photos and a pro shoe to boot.* He’s a Nor-Cal gnarler who can schralp transition and/or spit out switch 360 flips, he’s with the right companies. If there’s a downside I guess it’s the lack of any super-handrail heroism or mega-ramp fireworks or some type of singularly groundbreaking trick, but then again, maybe that plays to his advantage. In ten years a Busenitz SOTY win would probably come to be seen along the same lines as Chris Senn, which is to say those who know would know, the rest would be wondering “why not P-Rod” and there’d be a certain amount of “you had to be there”

Lizard King Mike Plumb: Let’s put him on the list. The zaniest Wallenberger with a stupider tattoo/carving every month, and he’s a decent interview. Kind of a long shot maybe but one could argue he’s fairly representative of where skating is these days, which is to say, both trick- and movement-wise.

Anthony Van Engelen: The odds might be stacked against him but to my mind the case has never been stronger for an AVESOTY and the brow-furrowing AWS decks it would probably produce. He has a couple magazine covers, a blazing video part, a harrowing comeback story, a bunch of tattoos and he wears Vans. As one who birthed the current fascination with speed and successfully fused hesh grime with precision tech skating he’s for sure a contender from the career standpoint and probably a SOTY everybody could agree with on some level.

Torey Pudwill: Just throwing it out there, Jake Phelps knows who he is and he’s given it to fresh-faced pros before. But, the lack of follow-through on the Wallenberg nollie flip might cost him precious support in the Yay area.

Zered Basset: the King of Zoo York coulda won it the year he made the “Vicious Cycle” part as far as we’re concerned but he nearly hit that mark again in the “State of Mind” video (still thinking the MOP was totally brilliant) and he has been on the Thrasher radar for some time. The drawback might be that he’s been kind of below the radar compared to some of the charge-happy spotlight grabbers like teammate Brandon Westgate, but an elder statesman might be the one to usher the tradition into the next decade.

It seems like there should be some kinda transition dude in here so, I don’t know, Lance Mountain. Insane as Bob’s mega-ramping has been, our view is that he’s a little bit too TWS/Fuel TV these days for Thrasher’s taste. While on the topic it seems like Justin Brock has whatever “rookie of the year” awards wrapped, unless Grant Taylor gets em.

*get it