Cover photo: WSL/Tony 

Ahead of the launch of this year's Pipe Masters, the WSL and Billabong put together A package of 50 moments from the history of the best and most prestigious surfing event in the world that will celebrate its new champion today.

The tour goes from 71 to last year, from Hakman to Ferreira. It covers surfing and its culture. It is one of the best content creations that the WSL has ever made, surely in its entire history. It honours surfing and not the product. It doesn't do reality, it reviews stories from when surfing was perhaps purer.

But the truth must be told: When the bombs come in there and you have to turn around to get inside a giant pipe, what speaks loudest there is courage and talent. That, I dare say, has not changed in these 50 years.

Below is a review of five of those 50 moments:

Home team rules: The only seven-man final in history
In the semi-final of the 1981 Pipe Masters, local Hawaiian Buttons Kaluhiokalani took on Australian Simon Anderon in a wave. He came out of the water and learned that he had been eliminated.

Immediately a legion of locals met with event director Randy Rarrick who, feeling a lot of the local support, diplomatically decided to hold a final seven for the first time in history.

Anderson won his only Pipe Masters and Buttons placed third.

The Andy and Kelly final that defined the title and wrote history
In 2003, the Pipe Masters final decided the world title. Kelly versus Andy in the hottest heat of his competitive life.

Being the only one who beat Kelly at the best moment of his career is no small accolade, but to do so, he had to earn it with talent but also with a lot of balls.

Slater used all his tactics outside the water, he patted him on the back like 70 times, went into the Billabong house, and approached him to tell him that he loved him very much.

And when the chips were down, in a Pipe that was bad, Andy was the best, he shone and took home that year's title. Slater first cried in the shower and then almost broke down when he handed the cup to the new champion.

The first warning of the Brazilian storm
At some point in history, it was thought that it was not possible for a Brazilian to win a Pipe Masters and, consequently, take home a world title. It was said loudly everywhere and only a Brazilian would respond, following his passion, that this was not the case.

There were moments of brilliance for Brazilian surfing at Pipe, Pepe Lopes was a standard-bearer used by the Brazilian press for years. In modern surfing, the first significant performances were given by Renan Rocha and Guilherme Herdy. Both finished third. Rocha with a heavier achievement because Pipe was huge in the year of his result.

Those were just sketches.

Adriano de Souza, the example of a hard worker in the world of surfing, learned to surf using the edges and not just doing aerials. In 2015, he went to Pipe and immediately went to Jamie O'Brien to teach him how to surf the wave.

An act of enormous humility. He was a surfer who had already won stages and had a track record, but unlike Mick Campbell, Danny Wills and Filipe Toledo, why not, the São Paulo native knew that Pipe is a different wave that requires a different dedication.

That's why he arrived a month early, O'Brien helped him, De Souza won the Pipe Masters and of course his title as well. It was the first Latin American victory in the history of the event (not at Pipe where Carlos Cabrero won the HIC Pipe Pro in 2000).

A life-changing moment: Joey Buran
The expression on the face of: “Did I really win?” is clearly seen in the video of the 1984 Pipe Masters awards ceremony, which was won by Californian Joey Buran. Back then, the results were given after tabulation, with the finalists on the podium.

That Pipe Masters is remembered as one of the best in history with waves of 10 to 15 feet and Buran, who became the first Californian to win it, said that he felt a “great emotional void” after achieving his dream and that is why he immediately began his career as a pastor.

He was only 23 years old.

Miguel Tudela: First Peruvian man to compete in a CT
The Peruvian is not in the aforementioned collection of “heavy” facts in the history of the Pipe Masters but in the furor of modern surfing, in the competitiveness of the Pipe Masters of the year 2020, number 50, the Peruvian Miguel Tudela managed to get into the main event after placing second in the invitational.

The previous event only had locals, with the exception of two Americans and the Peruvian himself.

With the sea very big and dangerous, competing well, advancing and advancing, Tudela became the first Peruvian man to participate in a CT event.

Once he started, the sea went down and he couldn't find the rhythm of the previous day. Then the Peruvian, when he returned to the event in the middle of a break due to Covid, was injured, broke four ribs and could no longer compete in the event.