Shaun White Haters Hater Thread

[tekniq33]

I usually voice my opinions on Shaun in the many threads that bring him up. I wanted to put a place for all the people that give him the props and respect he deserves to voice their opinions. This was spurred on by how ridiculously easy he made his Xgames qualifying runs look.

- Shaun White has advantages other riders do not. He earned them.
- No one combines amplitude, technicality, smooth style like he does.
- He is corny as hell in interviews but his riding more than makes up for it.
- Watch him in person and it is so evident how much better he really is than the rest of the field. I have seen this in person at 4 US Opens and the Red Bull Skyscrapers.
- I will admit he gets scored higher than he should. I will point you in the direction of Jordan, Kobe and Lebron and foul calls. Its a fact of life, deal with it.
- Yes he cannot ride the backcountry like some of his peers but that is not what he is doing, he is absolutely slaying pipes.
- No one is as smooth as he is. If you saw the super slow-mo of his double cork in the x qualifier even at that high fps he does not even move. I love Louie Vito but Shaun would never throw a straight air like that no matter what.
- Anyone who says he is a sell out with major sponsors, an admittedly crappy video game, and a private pipe is fooling themselves. Its called making a living and benefitting from hard work. I respect Terje immensely for his beliefs and sticking to them but I would never fault someone for getting paid to do something they are great at.


Shaun is not my favorite rider, or even top three but bottom line is he is unquestionable the greatest pipe and contest rider of the modern area and probably all time. He certainly has his flaws and you can criticize him for certain things but he does what he does as well as you could possibly imagine.

The floor is open. Hate on haters.

[tomtom88]

He did look ridiculously fluid tonight. All of his landings were effing stable too. Where as several riders fell and several others had very squirrely landings, his were damn solid.

[Willy36]

Originally Posted by tekniq33

I usually voice my opinions on Shaun in the many threads that bring him up. I wanted to put a place for all the people that give him the props and respect he deserves to voice their opinions. This was spurred on by how ridiculously easy he made his Xgames qualifying runs look.

- Shaun White has advantages other riders do not. He earned them.
- No one combines amplitude, technicality, smooth style like he does.
- He is corny as hell in interviews but his riding more than makes up for it.
- Watch him in person and it is so evident how much better he really is than the rest of the field. I have seen this in person at 4 US Opens and the Red Bull Skyscrapers.
- I will admit he gets scored higher than he should. I will point you in the direction of Jordan, Kobe and Lebron and foul calls. Its a fact of life, deal with it.
- Yes he cannot ride the backcountry like some of his peers but that is not what he is doing, he is absolutely slaying pipes.
- No one is as smooth as he is. If you saw the super slow-mo of his double cork in the x qualifier even at that high fps he does not even move. I love Louie Vito but Shaun would never throw a straight air like that no matter what.
- Anyone who says he is a sell out with major sponsors, an admittedly crappy video game, and a private pipe is fooling themselves. Its called making a living and benefitting from hard work. I respect Terje immensely for his beliefs and sticking to them but I would never fault someone for getting paid to do something they are great at.


Shaun is not my favorite rider, or even top three but bottom line is he is unquestionable the greatest pipe and contest rider of the modern area and probably all time. He certainly has his flaws and you can criticize him for certain things but he does what he does as well as you could possibly imagine.

The floor is open. Hate on haters.

I was at X-Games last year, with a damn good view, came in with no bias on any of the riders there. And I refuse to believe he deserved that win over Kevin Pearce. As such, I do not like him. Even if it isn't his fault. He knows it's happening, he should grow a pair and say something about it.

[SMDSkata]

He looked super smooth tonight...

A lot of the others look pretty sketch though.

[PeterG]

Watching him is what got me on a snowboard.

[ComeBack_Kid]

Originally Posted by Willy36

I was at X-Games last year, with a damn good view, came in with no bias on any of the riders there. And I refuse to believe he deserved that win over Kevin Pearce. As such, I do not like him. Even if it isn't his fault. He knows it's happening, he should grow a pair and say something about it.

You are entitled to your opinion, even if its ridiculous and childish. Shaun literally did nothing but perform his best(which is amazing) and the PROFESSIONAL SNOWBOARDING JUDGES made the decision to award him higher points than Kev; your judgement doesn't count for shit against pro judges and Shaun literally had no influence on that whatsoever, so your opinion should embarrass yourself, particularly when they even commented that Kevin opting out of his last trick(check the vid) knocked him down a few points.

You say he "should grow a pair and say something[about the dispute]". Shaun and Kev were asked about the X-Games controversy in a joint interview they did a couple of hours after the halfpipe final and heres what Shaun said "I think we both were just trying to do our best which is what we always do, and we try to leave the judging to the judges. I know my run was extremely technical and not easy, and I was also watching [Kevin's run] and he was just on fire. So, in the end we do what we came to do, and leave it to the judges to do what they do best. I mean, what do you think Kev?" Kevin looked right at him and said "I think you killed it, bro."

'Nuff said right there; Two amazing athletes treating each other with humility and mutual respect. Whether or not Shaun "really" won, you have no sound logic at all to like or dislike him because of a decision he could not control.

PS-Shaun is the most accomplished and winning competitive snowboarder EVER. Simple, undeniable fact. He is miles above the rest of the pack as far as the halfpipe is concerned, can ride the backcountry better than any of you dork haters(Youtube it) and is a stylish technician no matter how he rides. Suck it haters

I heard he's a sushi eating douche that pees on little kids and kicks puppies. Or something like that....

[Leo]

Originally Posted by Willy36

I was at X-Games last year, with a damn good view, came in with no bias on any of the riders there. And I refuse to believe he deserved that win over Kevin Pearce. As such, I do not like him. Even if it isn't his fault. He knows it's happening, he should grow a pair and say something about it.

You were there listening to everyone else because one of the announcers was whining about his win. I don't care how many people say Kevin threw down bigger airs. Yea he went higher and his spins were harder, but fact is Kevin did one less fucking trick at the end of the pipe. Why aren't any of you complaining that Kevin got cocky and already assumed he had the gold in the bag? If that was Shaun, all of you haters would have said that he didn't hit that last section because he was being too cocky.

Get real guys. Kevin could have won it if he so much as busted an indy grab on that last hit. But nope... he bypassed it altogether. Shaun did that last mctwist and that was that. Kevin might have went a little higher in the air, but Shaun did one more whole trick.

Do you guys think the judges only judge purely on the height of the jumps and the tricks? No, they put a lot of other stuff into consideration. Doing one less trick when you had plenty of room to makes you look bad. Go watch the replays since a lot of you were obviously too "lolumad?" to notice that.

I told you guys in the other thread that Shaun is busting big this year. All of those new tricks he learned are mind blowing. Shit that probably none of us will ever be able to do. How can you hate one someone that your skills doesn't even come close to touching? And what's with all of these people ragging on Shaun White's personality like they know him personally? You can only pass judgment based off of what you see in the media. And we all know the media is 100% credible

All of us also know that Shaun White makes 100% of his career decisions because he doesn't have a managing staff or anything. What, with him having so much time to sit down and play every single game his name is on for hours since he doesn't practice and all. Oh yea, he doesn't skateboard professionally either so that must mean he has all this time in the world.

I really do hope one you haters become wildly good at this sport and become famous. Let's see the types of decisions you make. Let's see if you become another Terje or just another "douche" in people's eyes. It's easy to say you'd turn down millions upon millions of dollars on principal alone while you are flipping burgers knowing full well your chances to actually make millions are slim to none.

By the way, that burger example was just an exaggeration to prove a point so don't come back at me with something like "I make a good living working for the I.T. department of my momma's basement."

[coffeenirvana]

Agreed tekniq, say what you will about White but last night he was obviously far better than anyone else out there and does make riding pipe look way too easy.

For those who say he should have admitted defeat to Pearce, tell me what athlete has ever done this in any sport?

[Tarzanman]

I don't make a habit of following who's who or who-won-what in the X-Games, but I will say this:

The X-Games are a purely commercial venture. They aren't intended to sow good will among the competing members or anything like that.... it attracts a young demographic audience to an event where the companies who put on the event (and other interested advertisers) can reach them.

As such, I would not expect completely impartial judging. Everyone involved from ESPN to Mt.Dew to GNU has a vested interest in promoting a cadre of familiar faces for the public at large to associate with a given industry.

I have nothing against Shaun White... I did see his 2nd run last night and it was pretty clean, and he is a talented rider...even so, being a 6 ft tall ginger-giant does have its advantages. Even if you don't know jack-squat about snowboarding, most people will be able to pick Shaun out of a line-up (as opposed to trying to differentiate between Scotty Lago & Danny Kass).

I would pay more attention to the actual competition (what the riders throw and how well they throw it) than the judging or results. I am NOT saying that the results are fixed, but I think its clear (especially from watching the snowmobiling) that fan favorites get a bump from their star power or having been around a couple of years.

A clean run by Shaun White will outscore a clean run by almost any other rider at the X-Games (in my opinion). Personally, White's attitude & personality aren't important to me. There are plenty of people out there who are jerks (famous or not) and I don't buy stuff based on the amount of money the company pays someone to be their spokesperson.

I'll tune in the X-games if I am by the TV... but i'm not going to attach more significance to the outcome than it merits.