Here The Sheck catches some love, but why is there so much hate? Photo: MORINformed

Alright, so I'm going to ask one of the biggest skate questions of the past few years. What's with all the Sheckler hate? Are you just jealous because he skates way better than you, or are you jealous that all the girls want him and not you, or are you jealous he gets to talk to his hot mom on a daily basis, and you don't. Whatever it is, get over it, because every time you guys argue over it, I get emails about it, and I already get enough emails. I just realized I overlooked an email from a really beautiful, and super cool lady I met a few weeks ago in LA, inviting somewhere special, and now it's too late. The reason, the dozen or so comments on a few Sheckler stories (every comment goes to my email).

Now, I have to explain to her that I wasn't blowing her off, and that I missed it because of stuff like this: "Ryan Sheckler sucks!!!" and "What do you have against him???" and "What a fag" and "Why's he a fag" and "Because he's gay" and "He's not gay." I let your comments junk up my email account for long enough, and now it cost me some tail, so the grumpy old guy has awoken from his nap.

First of all, Ryan Sheckler f*#king kills it, enough said. You will never even be close to as good of a skateboarder as he is, and he was probably better than you are now, when he was in 2nd grade. You guys know he turned pro at 14-years-old, right? Check out Volcom's Chicagof for some of that footage.

Secondly, he goes huge! Oh, you didn't know? Well, I see everyone skate in person, all the time. You name them, I've seen them skate, and that's in person (just to remind you). Sheckler goes as big, or bigger than anyone, hands down. Take it from one of the guys who my generation looked to as a god as far as going big is concerned, The Chief himself, Jamie Thomas. When Thrasher's Mike Burnett asked him who he thought could do the Leap of Faith, a legendary rail ollie to two-story drop. Jamie answered, "Sheckler" with no hesitation, and added "He can probably kickflip it". You wanna know why? Well, first of all, because it's true. And second of all, Jamie's as core as they come, and he doesn't give a shit about losing his core credentials, because he's not going to. Oh didn't see it? Here you go:


Thrasher Skateboard Magazine


Oh yeah, and how about the Bust or Bail contest. You saw Thrasher editor, Jake Phelps, telling Mike Mo about it in the video above. Reynolds had already done his thing, you know how the Boss rolls, and sat down. Then, Sheck asked Phelps what he had to do to win. Phelps said, "Back lip the rail," Sheckler responded, "To fakie?" Which he did, as well as his signature backside flip, a tre flip and a back lip "not to fakie." How's that for rifling through some tricks down 17 stairs. Like I said the kid goes huge. In case you didn't see that either, here you go:


Thrasher Skateboard Magazine

His ability to rifle through tricks brings me to my next point. He's got just about everything and is as consistent as they come. That's why he skates contests. Why not make 30 grand in a weekend if you can, we are in a recession, and that's more than some people make in a year. Back in day, before a lot of these Sheckler haters even knew what a skateboard was, I remember guys like Ed Templeton, Eric Koston, Jamie Thomas, Rick Howard, etc., were all doing contests all over the world, and that included the X Games. I recently re-watched the Jerry Hsu Epicly Later'd series. In one of the episodes Jerry gets invited to the X Games and doesn't know if he should do it or not. I think Reynolds and Braydon Szafranski put it perfect.

"Why not take the free money and get your name out there." - Andrew Reynolds

"You get $2,000 just for f*#@ing showing up." - Braydon Szafranski

And Braydon got corrected, at the time it was $4,000 just for showing up, and it's probably more now. There you go, so if your reason for hating on him is he does all those contests, you have some heavy names disagreeing with you. Come on, he knows some of those contests are corny, but everyone has done them, it's just they didn't win as much as he does. That's why you don't' know.

If your argument is he has corporate sponsors. That's true, but he's been with Etnies forever, and when it comes to the shoe industry there are some big fish in the sea. I can guarantee you there have been some checks, stripes and stars that have talked to him at some point. And his board sponsor Plan B is skateboarder owned, and by skateboarder, I mean the one and only, Danny Way. As far as those big mainstream sponsors he has go, you can't really criticize him until you're in his shoes, so next time you're offered six figures by a corporation and turn it down email me at tom@grindtv.com.

Now, we're at the part where I'm going to side a little bit with the haters, and that's when it comes to his reality show on MTV. Sorry Ry, but that was pretty bad, I'm not even going to attempt to justify that one. They for sure offered some good money, but at this point, it's just bringing sand to the beach. I guess the only thing I can think of, is it probably got him laid a whole bunch. I hope that whole heart broken sad thing was just an act for TV, and it probably was, and it probably got him even more laid. I've never been offered a TV show, so I can't say wouldn't do it, and actually hell yeah I'd do it. I'd make craziest damn show that station has ever seen, then burn out and disappear like everyone else, so MTV, if you're listening my bank account is pretty slutty, it lets everyone in.

If you don't like Ryan Sheckler, and you plan on being in skateboarding for a while, you better get used to him. He's that good, and he's young, so he's not going anywhere anytime soon. He had an ankle injury that set him back this year, but he's pro. He'll be back. I mean shit, I watched him throw himself down the imitation Hollywood 17-stair-set at the first Maloof Money Cup with a dislocated elbow.