There was a lot of talk in the lead-up to the new Pipe Masters about how strange it would be if, in the queen of waves, aerials and tubes were paid the same, that is, 50% of the points came from the former and 50% from the latter.

In other words, a perfect tube that ends without aerials could be a maximum of 5 (15 for the tournament scale that goes from 0 to 30) and, in the same sense, if a surfer executed a high aerial without landing a tube he would receive a 5.

The combo of the two: Tube plus aerial would achieve perfection.

The truth is that everyone was scared by this and even in the promotional videos of the tournament's sponsor brand some talked about how after the tube they would get out of the wave and go look for another one.

Below: If the criteria had been respected by the judges, this wave would never have been almost perfect, 29,5 out of 30 possible: 

 

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Luckily, the judges did not pay attention to this, which was talked about a lot and was talked about when it came to scoring. The aerials hardly counted because they hardly existed and several scores reached excellent without them existing; and the few that were made, did not reach excellent.

To review just a few: Carissa's tube for Backdoor, Balaram's first tubes for Pipe, Mason's tube for Pipe, received, respectively, 29,5 (this is almost a 10, meaning they didn't care about the aerial criteria), 25,8 and 26,6.

It is not clear what happened to the much talked about criterion then, the surfers did not listen to it and neither did the judges.

It is worth saying that it would be interesting or entertaining if you want to see a super tube followed by a super aerial, it has been seen on different occasions (Miguel Tudela, for example) but Pipe is and always was Pipe for its tubes and not its aerials (read what Koa Rothman said).

It should be mentioned, however, that Christian and Nathan Fletcher did two of the highest aerials in history on that wave (with neither of them completing it.

It will be interesting to see if the criteria is corrected, bringing it more in line with what the judges ruled and what the surfers did.

Below: The best waves of day 1, all bordering on excellent, none had a completed aerial: 

 

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