Culturally, Pipeline has, and always will be the most important wave. But it’s now more important than ever now. Photo: Bielmann//World Surf League
In 2026, Pipeline will return to its previously held, drama-inducing spot as the last event on the WSL Championship Tour. But the famed North Shore reef isn’t just regaining the prestige it once held in competitive surfing, it’s going a step further and wielding more influence than ever before.
Not only does the WSL’s new format move Pipeline to the end of the calendar, but it also more heavily weights the event’s points. When combined with Pipeline now playing a role in crowning the women’s world champs – something that didn’t happen until 2021 – and the Challenger Series also now featuring the wave, Pipeline has entered a new echelon of value.
The new direction couldn’t be more stark than what has been experienced since the 2021 Final 5 format shake-up. Pipeline, which had long been a strong indicator of the world champion, ceased to be a clear performance benchmark.
Essentially, since the Kelly Slater era starting in the early ’90s, Pipeline has been a fairly reliable predictor of who would win the title (even though it was at the end of the year). All-time greats, like Slater (x5), Derek Ho, Andy Irons (x2), Joel Parkinson, Adriano De Souza, Gabriel Medina, and Italo Ferreira, all won at Pipeline the years they topped the rankings.
If you look at the decade before the introduction of the Final 5, the men’s title winner always finished at least 3rd at Pipeline. (The one exception, ironically, is the Pipeline local John John Florence’s 5th place finish during his 2016 world title year.) However, that correlation became much weaker when Pipeline was moved to the first event of the year and the one-day surf-off at Trestles capped off the season.
On the men’s side, Medina (2021) and Florence (2024) both made the Pipe final to earn their titles. But Filipe Toledo bucked the trend and won his 2022 and 2023 titles with 9th and 5th place finishes at Pipe, respectively.
The women’s Pipe results have also been hit or miss in their relation to world titles. Carissa Moore made the Pipe finals in her 2021 title bid, and Caity Simmers won Pipe en route to her 2024 title. But in 2022, Steph Gilmore won the title without even competing in Pipe due to injury. In 2023, Caroline Marks only placed 9th at Pipe on her way to winning the title.
While there is still a lot of surfing left in the 2025 season, it has the potential to be the most extreme example of this tendency. Both current men’s and women’s ranking leaders, Jordy Smith and Gabriela Bryan, are counting their Pipeline results as throwaways – Smith placed 17th and Bryan placed 9th.
So, when WSL CEO Ryan Crosby said the 2026 changes “represent a new era,” he wasn’t kidding. Pipeline is not only back, it’s now more important than ever for a competitive surfer. There will be no more avoiding Pipeline; even the surfers looking to qualify for the tour will have to prove their worth at the North Shore’s crown jewel. A good showing at Pipe will be paramount for anyone with world title ambitions starting next season.
