Cannot believe this is in UFC discussion...
but then again, so are numerous Tyson Fury & Francis topics.
(hey mods, there is a boxing forum & a worldwide MMA forum)
Not sure you care... (apologies for a long winded response)
but due to unique qualifications in martial arts and skating,
here is some first hand experience ... "Food for thought"
It is culture against big business.
Similar to MMA vs the UFC.
There is a duality to the culture.
Real skaters don't give a shit about the big business (ufc).
"Pro" status means different things to different people.
Personally never wanted to go pro. Ever. Seemed stupid & false.
Even as a kid.
"Teams" switch out "pros" and the CONCEPT of team was completely gone.
Did we like ... the company, or the skater?
Let's begin.
Goskate... is not skateboarding. It is a media site.
Never knew it existed till now. Nobody (in skating) google searches.
"go skate day" is goofy ... as every day skaters, we ignore it.
TONS of kids might adhere, they also might quit with age.
Longboard kooks and scooter kids, essentially.
There are skateparks in almost every city in Canada.
There are websites which organize skatepark locations.
There is a word of mouth culture in skating, not google.
More skateparks than ever. Half of us, ignore it.
Participation... changed for a few (corporate) reasons.
One... Magazines, VHS & Photography WERE the 1990's industry.
It was replaced by any kid with a phone. Music/Video industry was crushed by the internet, and eventually youtube was shifted to instagram.
These days it is podcasts, influencers, and "how to" fit in.
Many highly talented people go the youtube route,
but will be ignored by the culture. The same way corporate stuff is.
Instagram crushed the "skateboard video".
Two... corporations like Zumiez and West 49 crushed skateshops,
which already had the smallest of margins.
Shops dealt with off-season drops in the winter (again, Canadian).
The berrics also played a major role in boosting popularity "online" while destroying the culture. Nobody liked "indoor skateparks" due to the black shit in nostril/lungs, slippage, (paying) fees, and (formerly) wearing helmets.
The only thing that should be indoors is wooden ramps (vert pipe, half pipe) to survive the weather. Indoor parks dropped with the rising cost of real estate / commercial leases. Toronto & Monreal have huge amounts of skaters,
but the real estate pushed us to build concrete outdoors around the city.
All of which, is illegal. Why do it ? ....
Three... the current parks are littered with bikes and scooters. Zero culture.
These kooks will quit one day. Scared of getting hurt.
It drove skateboarders back underground, word of mouth, but this time...
you can search those specifics on instagram or youtube. Kids are not googling the underground niche events, companies, or spots.
Nobody wants to hang around posers. Imagine that in the gym.
Too scared to roll/spar, but every day talking shit about how they belong there, while playing with a jump rope. As if... they need the facility to do it.
Companies make money for "designing" skateparks which are trash.
They look good at a distance, and have good concrete finishes,
but they are designed by posers & corporate skaters who needed jobs.
Corps vs Skater-owned...
Four... Phelps died, the owner of Thrasher, the biggest skate magazine.
Thrasher is bullshit now. In Canadian equivalent, CJ Manderino (poser scam artist) bought SBC mag. Kept Dan as editor, so nobody talked shit.
Manderino never skated. Photoshopped himself into skateboard events.
Made his own magazine, called himself "printer of the year" (in his own mag),
was on the cover with a skateboard, and pretending to ollie in centerfold...
in fuckin' dress shoes. He is a poser who laundered money for the R.O.M. (his daddy sat on the board Royal Ontario Museum).
His 1st client EVER in screen printing business. How? A multi-million dollar monthly printing contract for a guy with... zero experience, zero clients.
He sold himself real estate, rented to himself, bought his own inks, his own paper, and claimed a "not for profit" indoor skatepark called CJ's.
Except ... it had sponsorships from pizza pizza & a gum company advertising inside. It was scooters as well. Never paid builders of the park.
(Demanded employees do crazy jobs for him. Delayed payments. Fucked over a builder of the vert ramp. When threatened, Jay gave him a pickup truck to squash it. Seemed generous, but shady. The builder (not naming friends) returned disassembled the ramp, move it to a new location, and was never paid for it. A second time. A week later... the truck was repossessed. Jay never signed over the vehicle and quietly took it back. Months of work that went unpaid. He pulled this behavior many times with respected people)
Skaters have no money, but scooter kids are "rich kid/parent's money". Manderino crushed shops, parks, magazines, anything his team of lawyers could buy out, then claim bankruptcies. The guy co-owned 15 -20 companies to skirt legal concerns, was featured in Forbes top 200 business in North America (about 20 years ago)... for laundering money in plain sight.
Jump to now, he OWNS a chunk of skateboarding in Canada.
Indoor parks are for rich kids. Scooters are for rich kids.
Skaters, are often hard working adults, only spending tiny amounts.
Five ... the companies are shifting to smaller independent startups and many skaters are living the DIY culture. Many spend their money on buying concrete, trowels, rub bricks, shovels, wheel barrels, trucks, and so on to make their (what the outside would call) "illegal skateparks" or "spots".
A spot could be a small object, or an entire skatepark. Each city cracks down differently on random builds. It doesn't stop people, they just get better at hiding it. Keeping it offline. Definitely not on google, or a map.
Again, just Food for Thought.
As for being a "professional" ... it applies the same.
Two routes:
Current Underground/Former pros are everywhere, making nothing.
Popular pros are... in "street league", Berrics, Olympics, tik tok, youtube, corporate bullshit and cross-over crap like Redbull, Monster, DC (mega ramps, snowboarding, that type of bullshit that is not skateboarding or the culture)
It is similar to MMA. Both battle real injuries & limited opportunity.
There is UFC ESPN or... nothing.
There is YOUTUBE TIKTOK ... or nothing.
Jake Paul is a current example.
We could talk about Bareknuckle, PFL, Bellator, but ultimately it is like naming small skateboard companies. Without health insurance, you are constantly battling life-long injuries.
Alv doing Polar & Last ResortAB for example, is a skater quitting being a pro to better represent his culture. Companies like Polar, Magenta, and similar small business are alive. Heroin blew up but began charging small shops insane fees to stock their boards. There is a line between bareknuckle, and Pride being acquired by UFC. Many brands come and go, many are re-appearing (just like music gear manufactures). New owners, so who knows.
The rich buying into culture. Occasionally, an OG skater does something.
These days, the old guys are discovering the power of social media via podcasts. A few starting their own brands.
Whether this represents the equivalent of Jake Paul is debatable.
Morgan Smith (a canadian) winning BATB was a bigger deal in our industry because it opened the door wider to Canadians.
The problem is always money. Who is invested drives how much skaters re-invest in the industry. We generally don't care for COMPANIES making skateparks, or YOUTUBE skater popularity, as we are invested in the survival of the task. Nike, like SBC mag, bought up a few voices to shut everyone up.
Yet to real adults... Nike runs sweatshops and has nothing to do with skating.
Supreme, is wacky clothes for posers, just like Nike.
The problem with arguing this topic... is that Nike has the money to make a good shoe or pay a skater TONS of money... while another company has KNOWLEDGE & HISTORY of culture against big business.
There are multiple guys with Sherdog records and we skate regularly.
There are even more without "professional" status that deserve it,
but where is the money?
Even Mark Hominick (not a skater) made it to the UFC "as a professional",
but is not remember like GSP or Kalib Starns.
Hell, he is probably more forgotten than Strange Brew from TUF season 1.
Yet the guy nearly dethroned Aldo,
while surviving the biggest hematoma in ufc history.
Skating & MMA have many parallels.
Many former pros people never knew about.
You mentioned Tony Hawk & Jackass (not 90's, or skating).
Tony Hawk used Xgames as a platform to SPECIFICALLY do a 900 on a live event. Back when CABLE TV mattered. Really, Danny Way did a 900 on an old school board at the age of like 12-18 in the 1980's. Apologies about recalling his age, but it already happened. It was the corporate push of XGAMES (whatever cross over bullshit to call it "sport") and then the media creation of TonyHawk's Pro Skater, and his business Birdhouse Skateboards.
The guy became a different corporate entity. Rodney Mullen & Tony learned from experiences in the late 80's/early 90's of business sponsorship. They shifted to starting his own business sponsorship. He NEEDED xgames and that 900 because the culture was ignoring him.
Nobody watched competition skating, and nobody watches it now.
Not even sure anyone even has cable TV anymore.
Skating isn't a competition. It is an art.
An expression derived from an ongoing battle between balance & pain.
MMA, and Skateboarding over-lap mentalities. A lot of skaters golf as well.
Mostly a battle against yourself & different terrain. No teams. No coaches.
Yet people try to pigeon hole "learning" into team sports.
Skateboarding isn't a sport. There are no points.
A fat guy (balancing) is far more impressive than a gym jock.
With how UFC operates lately ... is UFC a sport anymore?
Social Meme Thread V125 - Will Siver try to meme... And still fail?
