This year I’m reading “Mikey Wright eliminates Gabe Medina”, “Mikey Wright eliminates John John…” Some pretty heavy headlines here.
(Laughs) I don’t really read anything into that. I just take them as heat wins. I feel like I don’t want to read anything in case I get a big head. I’m sure if I did my older brothers would be pretty quick to slap me back down to earth. I was pretty happy with it all, but it’s another heat and another learning experience, and getting better at competing and doing better at what I love.
What happened to Owen was heavy, but it must have been tough as a younger brother. How did you deal with it all?
It was tough, we came back together as a family to deal with it, and that was good. What happened to him was heavy, but in his downtime it definitely brought us all back together. We had some good times off and when he was down south. And now he’s on fire, so at some point I guess we are having an all Wright heat.
How is this going to go down? Are you guys super competitive between yourselves or is it got to be a bit weird as you are so close?
Owen and I have never had a heat before so it’s going to be interesting if it ever happens. We are pretty competitive. I’m definitely not going to give it to him easy. I’ll do everything I can to smoke him! (laughs) So there will be winner and loser …
Any banter afterwards you think?
No. It’ll be over straight away. As soon so we hit the beach. We’ll be stoked for each other no matter who wins. We won’t be off each other or anything like that.
It feels like there’s new impetus in the air game at the moment. Albee Layer, John John, and yourself are throwing some crazy tweaked rotations. Does it feel like that to you? What do you think is driving it?
Yeah definitely it’s stepped up a gear. When I was a grom there were only really air reverses. One of my main motivations was going on a boat trip and seeing Matt Meola throw a full rotation airs right out into the flats. Forehand and backhand. And I mean right out in the flats. Not on the wall or anything, right out there. That kind of changed my perspective on airs. From then I kind of knew there was no such thing as “You can’t land airs in the flats..’ And if you can land there you can go bigger, longer and higher. Now I’m watching Albee, Matt and John going next level. I think Albee gets lot of what he does from snowboarding.