Pros/Ams You’ve Seen In Person That Blew Your Mind

[CrappyChan]

Chris Cole, zero demo, 03. I was 10. He frontside flipped the pyramid to flat and the park was an ex WinnDixie, he almost hit his head on the overhead hanging ceiling light. Lindsey Robertson was killing it too.

Grew up skating around GT, he has been fucked since he was like 9. We built a shifty ramp out of plywood and a table, I rolled down it, he did a boosted kick flip off of it.

McCrank was at a demo and did like a darkslide stall forward flip out on a sawhorse. Mike Mo and a few other guys were all battling for.it as a joke but Rick just busted it out and looked around with surprise and a sly smile. Also did some fucked switch shit on the mini ramp

[thebacker]

wandered into the session in (I think?) Harlem where Josh Wilson fakie big flipped that 3 block where you have to pop up and over the first one. A bunch of the Bronze dudes were there, including Jacopo who was doing laps around the park with looooong noseslides, probably warming up for his line, and John Shanahan.

We were posted at the other side of the spot where trapasso does kickflip back tail in and now, skating the ledges over there and trying not to kook it. We had our backpacks on the roughly mid thigh to lower waist-ish high (on me, I’m 6’2”) ledge and Shanahan cruises over and while asking politely if we could move the bags so he could skate the ledge off the drop, proceeds to ollie up it effortlessly. It’s something a lot of people could do, but he did it in a manner that made it seem less than second nature. Kinda like how tons of people can shoot a jump shot but when you see a pro shoot a jump shot it’s obvious there’s a level of talent difference.

He’s such an insane skater to watch in person. My man popped the most perfect shuv off a bump to bar over one of those huge guard rails. He definitely has a snowboard style in the best way

[tadej Pog]

TX and Heitor are incredible good. P-rod is true consistent.

I saw Jake Donelly in  demo and he kinda boring in person.

[CrappyChan]

Also Plunkett is a magician, no wonder he is such good homies with koston, similar goof around land anything type guy

[Mangust]

Living in Finland you never really see any big time pros but seeing local guys like Eniz Fazliov and Jaakko Ojanen is pretty cool. Eniz can skate everything and lands his tricks very quickly. Jaakko is a guy who seems to be usually just messing around. He can jump onto any grind like a fs croocked grind on a flatbar and just sit on it as long as he wants to and then pop out.

[manysnakes]

I've never seen McCrank skate in person, but I think his name might be the most frequently mentioned in this thread and that's heartwarming.

[Bony cawk]

saw andy macdonald do a flyout kickflip indy when i was 11. changed my life forever

[bigbevev]

Nick trapasso was dope to see in like 09

[Natas Fauxas]

Chris Senn and Eric Ricks in Rochester NY way back around the Samurai Skates era. First pro skaters i ever seen in person let alone met and talked to. I was hyped.

[Sketch Hitchcock]

Saw Yuto, Shane and Ish at Stoner Park a few years ago.  Some of the most impressive skating I’ve seen first hand.

As a kid I attended XGames Philly and saw Bob Burnquist’s legendary vert finals run- that was truly mindblowing.

[bigbevev]

Saw Yuto, Shane and Ish at Stoner Park a few years ago.  Some of the most impressive skating I’ve seen first hand.

As a kid I attended XGames Philly and saw Bob Burnquist’s legendary vert finals run- that was truly mindblowing.

The fakie 5-0 fakie flip one?

[Sketch Hitchcock]

Expand Quote

Saw Yuto, Shane and Ish at Stoner Park a few years ago.  Some of the most impressive skating I’ve seen first hand.

As a kid I attended XGames Philly and saw Bob Burnquist’s legendary vert finals run- that was truly mindblowing.

[close]

The fakie 5-0 fakie flip one?

[pugmaster]

Watching Chris Cole in 2004 at a demo was crazy, he has board control that is out of this world.

Luis Tolentino in 2009-2011 was crazy. He is mad short and had ups like an NBA player.  Plus he was really nice.

Morgan Smith has board control like Chris Cole.  Super nice guy. No ego.

Same thing is true about Silas Baxter-Neal. Super nice dude.

I went to a demo at Hollenbeck for the Alienworkshop team and took my roommate in 2010. He doesn't/didn't skate, so I didn't tell him anything just to see who he was into. AVE was his favorite.

[nonickname]

Willy Santos - randomly seeing him effortlessly destroy a skate shop bowl in the early 90s in upstate NY after driving across the border to shop was an eye opener about the true levels of pro skating.

[skate_or_dingus]

 Watching Wade/Morgan Smith fuck around at Dunbat makes me wonder what went wrong with my physicality. Morgan deserves Creager-level respect.

[Krooked antihero]

Living in Finland you never really see any big time pros but seeing local guys like Eniz Fazliov and Jaakko Ojanen is pretty cool. Eniz can skate everything and lands his tricks very quickly. Jaakko is a guy who seems to be usually just messing around. He can jump onto any grind like a fs croocked grind on a flatbar and just sit on it as long as he wants to and then pop out.

Back in the day when companies did euro demos still we had so many good tours in Finland, got to see plenty of my favorite pros. Like Black Label just after Label Kills, Enjoi when Marc was still on etc etc but still most amazing skater I’ve ever seen live is William Phan, dude did the hardest tricks first try with pure style.

[Mean salto]

Watching Wade/Morgan Smith fuck around at Dunbat makes me wonder what went wrong with my physicality. Morgan deserves Creager-level respect.

He got it. Unfortunately prematurely kicked off blind then given nothing is the respect creager got

[TheLurper]

Expand Quote

Expand Quote

Saw Yuto, Shane and Ish at Stoner Park a few years ago.  Some of the most impressive skating I’ve seen first hand.

As a kid I attended XGames Philly and saw Bob Burnquist’s legendary vert finals run- that was truly mindblowing.

[close]

The fakie 5-0 fakie flip one?

[close]

Being an adult and being able to recognize switch makes this pretty impressive. As a kid, I just saw people flying around a half-pipe and didn't understand anything I was looking at.

[rocklobster]

Expand Quote

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Expand Quote

Saw Yuto, Shane and Ish at Stoner Park a few years ago.  Some of the most impressive skating I’ve seen first hand.

As a kid I attended XGames Philly and saw Bob Burnquist’s legendary vert finals run- that was truly mindblowing.

[close]

The fakie 5-0 fakie flip one?

[close]

[close]

Being an adult and being able to recognize switch makes this pretty impressive. As a kid, I just saw people flying around a half-pipe and didn't understand anything I was looking at.

I've never appreciated vert skating but switch BS Lipslide on a poper half pipe is insane. I got no shame in admitting that watching vert on X-Games on ESPN is what got me into skateboarding.



This is also insane.

Edit:

"Andy MacDonald produced several tricks with names longer than a long thing....."

[mtvic]

Chris haslam. Unbelievably consistent and obviously creative.

[Mean salto]

Chris haslam. Unbelievably consistent and obviously creative.

Years ago there was a contest where thrasher made two huge sets of stairs Infront of the Sydney Opera house. Haslam was just standing at the back of the stairs and some kid asked him to sign something and he took his time to talk to the kid. Then another kid came up and same thing and then another kid and so on until he had a decent size crowd. He talked and was nice and signed stuff for every kid that came up for seriously over two hours (basically the entire contest). Best guy.

[roba]

tj rogers shocked me the most when i saw him at the marble benches in berlin. he was just fucking around with a line, no filmer, i don’t remember the whole line but his first trick was a switch pop shuv nosegrind 180 and he did that trick every single try, literally he didn’t miss it once and i saw him do it at least 10 times. these benches are kinda tall too.

other than that ishod, zion wright, mason silva

[AdditionalSlip]

A few years ago th DC team came to my town to skate some local spots, Wes, Evan and Tiago were all mind-blowing.

Ben Koppl was a sleeper for me, I'd seen his ig thought he was just about cool goofing around in bowls but I kid you not I've never seen anyone skate street like this guy, he's tall, skates really fast, and just goes. He skates things other people wouldn't and seems to make up tricks on the fly but still just cruises confidently landing 1st t.


Nick Dias has the best pop I think I'll ever see.

Edit: I often run into Tom penny, it feels like being in church or sthg

[rolling is good]

Molinar flip fs tailslide at 4:43, popwar demo 2004

Despite living in a big city in the south of France, pros almost never visited, and still don't, or sometimes did but it was poorly advertised so we'd knew after the fact.
Seeing that contest at 28:25 would have been huge but I missed it.
Arto, O'connor, Koston, McCrank, BA !

[rocklobster]

Molinar flip fs tailslide at 4:43, popwar demo 2004

Despite living in a big city in the south of France, pros almost never visited, and still don't, or sometimes did but it was poorly advertised so we'd knew after the fact.
Seeing that contest at 28:25 would have been huge but I missed it.
Arto, O'connor, Koston, McCrank, BA !

Damn didn't know this Popwar tour video existed, there is never enough Popwar footage in the world!

[backfliptofiftyfifty]

definitely rowan zorilla. seeing him skate in person shows off his loose fluid style so much more. he was doing that no one else was doing at demos

[whale]

Only pro I've seen live is Enid, but I'm suprised nobody has mentioned Cookie Colburn.
Lookin at his insta, he seems like he'd blow everybody's mind who sees him skate

[jaysouthbay]

at tompkins i saw BA frontside flip off a kicker over a barrier that was cool cus i didnt realize how tall dude was, with a huge board and huge wheels.

nik stain and troy gibson i saw in/around tompkins just flowing around, troy was smooth and nik just skates fast it looks good in person

[ggrimmedd]

Lots of Brazilians rippers, to name a few:

Luan de Oliveira
Nilton Neves
Rodil Ferrugem
Carlos Ribeiro
Alex Carolino
Andre Hiena
TX
Tiago
Formiga
Luiz Apelao
Akira Shiroma
Klaus Bohms
Wilton Souza

My favorite in particular was Akira Shiroma, very creative and has a lot of fun on his board. Formiga is incredible, amazing pop and very consistent, can skate anything. Alex Carolino is incredible to watch as well.

A few Americans...

Gravette
Kimbel
Emile Laurent
Lockwood
Raybourn
Cairo Foster
Mark Scott
Frank Shaw
Monk
Alex Foy
Grant Taylor
Sebo
Josh Falk
Brent Atchley
Tony Ellis
Boserio

Tony and Ben were my favorites by far, Tony skates like a war tank. Emile too, very powerful and fast. Josh Falk impressed me as well.

Edit: Adding Henry Gartland to the list, RIP...saw him skating at that CSS event where they built a miniature of hubba hideout, he was killing it..

Klaus Bohms is insanely underrated even in brazil, insane bag of tricks.

[BallDontLie]

Enrique Lorenzo… unbelievably smooth