The finals for the X Games Real Street contest are upon us. The finalists are two extremely heavy hitters: Guy Mariano and David Gravette. Both great skaters, and in my mind, both were practically robbed of a SOTY trophy. So which one gets it? Let's take a look at the submissions. After you've checked them out, you can cast your vote here if you haven't already.
Well I guess Guy got tired of doing super technical tricks, so he decided to just find the most chunky, gnarly spots that he could. First trick is a boardslide coming off of a bank that looks more like World War II rubble. He then ollies about a car length out of a back 50. Next trick is one of the longer nosebluntslides ever done into a bank that, again, has taken more abuse than seems appropriate. We are then showed more clips of Guy skating some super messed up spots before we get to the NBD ender, which I'm not really sure what to call. Backside... 270-ish... Smith... I really don't know. The most accurate name I can come up for it is a backside 270 to fakie smith grind to half cab out. for the sake of simplifying it as much as possible though, I think I'm gonna go with a backside 180 to backside hurricane, since the last part seems to pretty much be a hurricane, he just gets into it differently. In summation, there literally are no words. Alright Gravette, whatcha got?
Holy hell! Guy Mariano's part was really good, but Gravette pulled out some stuff out of nowhere that is so next level that I thought it could only exist in another dimension. That first boardslide out of a manual (which starts off with a wallie) is messed up. Just, so messed up. It doesn't seem that ridiculous until you notice how high the concrete rail is and that it couldn't have been all that easy to get onto. The guy then does a 5-0 on a handrail and then a proper backside flip for poops and giggles. The next clip is the scariest nose manual ever done. I don't want to go through and mention every trick, but at the same time, it seems like an injustice not to, because every single one kicks ass. And yet they are somehow dwarfed by comparison to his ender. If I'm counting right, I do believe that was a round rail with 8 kinks (as long as you count both up and down). Maybe my eyes deceive me. Maybe it's special effects. But if you had told Pat Duffy 20 years ago that guys would one day be doing 8 kink 50-50's, he would probably try and take back his double kink just so he wouldn't feel responsible for the death of any skater trying something that insane. Oh, yeah, and this is for a video competition. Gravette wins it in my eyes. Sorry Guy.
Check back tomorrow for my comments on X Games Munich.
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