Yup. This about sums it all up.
Richie Cabeza paid several thousand dollars to his jiu-jitsu academy in 2022. Money well spent, he insists, considering he averaged one lineup scrap per month throughout the year…until December rolled around.
“Maybe they were just super busy with holiday shopping and holiday parties and all that holiday nonsense, instead of surfing,” he says, shadowboxing while he theorizes the noticeable drop in kook, transplant, and “beginner assholes” at his local spot since Thanksgiving.
Normally, Richie would be glad to know fewer kooks have been packing his favorite lineup. But the very thing he hoped and prayed for has come to fruition and now he’s conflicted. Why’s that? Honestly, he just wants one more fight, dust-up, or “at least a reason to yell at some kook” this year. Just once. It’s all he asks for. Because he’s resolved to stop doing such things in 2023.
“Turns out you can get canceled for ‘surf rage’ now,” Richie mockingly notes. He’s referring to The ‘Angriest Man in Surfing,’ whose Malibu outburst went viral, cost him his job, and most important, garnered a moniker Richie pined over for years: the angriest man in surfing. His shadowboxing intensifies.
“Give respect, get respect, man. Yelling at people in the lineup got me a lot of respect over the years. They were scared of me. But now it’s a crime to teach somebody a lesson.”
So, the resolution takes effect on January 1, 2023. No more yelling. No more fighting. It’s a shame too because Richie’s armbar became the best in the game in 2022. But there’s still hope to finish the year strong, declaring the last 48 hours “an open season on anybody with a soft-top or twin fin with a traction pad.”
“I tapped out four people with that armbar this year. I think I can at least get one more down the stretch.”
Editor’s Note: Johnny Utah is an “Eff-Bee-Eye” agent and an expert in works of satire. More of his investigative work can be found here.
