Three years later and it’s just as baffling as it was watching it live. In the Round of 96 at the 2012 Reef Hawaiian Pro on the North Shore of Oahu, Dane Reynolds pulled off one of the most unbelievable maneuvers in surf history. Period. It was so unbelievable that there is no real name for it, and simply calling it a frontside reverse would not do it justice. Maybe an inverted-layback-under-the-lip-reverse?… We’ll leave it up to Dane to decide on that one.
“I’m gonna go out and say that’s pretty much one of the gnarliest turns I’ve ever seen in my whole life,” said Shane Dorian in the commentators booth. There’s probably one person on Earth that could do that turn, and it’s Dane Reynolds. Pure and simple – that’s a fact. Honestly, in the whole surfing world, if you gave everyone on Earth that same section and said ‘I wanna see you do that,’ there’s probably only one guy who can do it, and it’s Dane Reynolds.” This second video is glitchy, but listen to Shane Dorian and Rob Machado’s commentary.
As equally unbelievable as Dane’s turn was the score that the judges gave him: a 7.33. Was this warranted? It was a single turn, but The Inertia thinks absolutely not. What do you think?
