Back in 2016, Rip Curl stuck Mason Ho and Mick Fanning on a boat and sent them into the frozen blue yonder. Do you remember that? I’m reasonably sure that they did so for a variety of reasons, but the main one was the fact that Mason and Mick are entirely different people.
Mick, a slab of blonde granite, stoic in the face of tragedy, a calculating competitor, a man who thinks before speaking. Mason, a flash of colored Tannerite powder, entirely filterless and devil-may-care, a live wire on wet pavement. But things have changed since then, haven’t they? Mick is no longer a jersey man. No longer bending to the whims of the judging tower. No longer strapped to the unyielding schedule that is the CT. He’s a free man. Free to explore the world, and free to search for waves while he’s at it.
And oh, can’t you feel that he’s a changed man? The world looks different now, and he’s looking at it all with fresh eyes. Mason, of course, has always seen the world through a different set of tinted glasses than the rest of us—and it sounds as though he might’ve passed a pair to Mick. And you know what? It looks like they suit him just fine.
