Dos Equis: The Game Gets Ready for its 2nd Mexican Appearance in the X-Games

A week in Puerto Escondido is like the movie “Groundhog Day.” Every day is the same. The morning cool offshores blow down from the Sierra Madre mountains, opening the blue-green tubes. Then, around 11am, the land heats up, forcing the wind to switch direction. That’s when it starts to bake, then the bugs come, then the beers, then the margaritas and then…well…you feel a lot better when you force yourself to go to bed early so you can actually enjoy those 4 hours of magic in the morning.

Jamie O'Brien in 2005.

Pancho Sullivan’s been here for a week with his family since the epic Rip Curl Search event a couple hours south, ended. He’s been getting small barrels and ripping the guts out of unsuspecting Zicatela faces, getting ready for the start of the X-Games here. “At first I wanted to go straight to South Africa and get ready for J-Bay,” he says. “But the format sounds really interesting and I’ve always wanted to surf for a team so I’m pumped for this thing to get started.”

Unlike last year, where a 4-6 foot swell made the inaugural Mexican Game a tube riding duel, this year’s event will likely be held on Monday or Tuesday in performance oriented 3-4 foot peaks, and that suits aerialist Dane Reynolds just fine. “I wasn’t that into it last year because it wasn’t giant shacks, but it wasn’t right for maneuvers either – it was something in between and I think it should be one or the other,” says Dane. “I don’t think guys getting small to medium size barrels is all that exciting on TV, but guys doing giant punts would be cool.”

He’s surfing here again to try and erase the sting from a malicious editing job ESPN did to him last year. “I’m watching the show on TV,” says Dane. “And I see the seconds ticking away, and the announcer goes ‘The West Coast team needs one more wave and here comes one for Dane Reynolds.’ Then they cut to me falling on a floater, but that wave was actually from the middle of the quarter and not the end. Then they cut to everyone on my team looking super bummed. The way they edited it made it look like I totally choked. Anyway, I saw Gerr in the water yesterday and he agreed that they blew it on the edit.”

Overall, this 3rd year of the event feels more low key than most because big names Slater, AI and the Hobgoods aren’t here. The novelty factor of surfing being a part of the X-Games also feels like it’s worn off. Still with Machado, Knox, Reyes, Jamie O and the aforementioned Panch and Dane in attendance, and a more stacked and hungry West Coast team looking to win its first Game, it should be interesting. The best part - it’s summer and we’re in Puerto, not HB, so at least we know it’s not going to go flat.

 

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