Santa Barbara’s Bobby Martinez was suspended indefinitely from the ASP Pro Tour after his profanity-laced tirade against the professional surfing tour in a live webcast interview Wednesday at the Quiksilver Pro event in New York.
Martinez, who has continually railed against the ASP’s ranking system, went into a barrage of complaints about the organization.
An official statement from the ASP said Martinez has been kicked off of the world tour, and immediately disqualified from the Quiksilver Pro in NYC.
Never one to hold back his opinion, Martinez has always spoken his mind, but this time it will cost him.
The ASP sent Martinez a letter informing him that he breached ASP rules by damaging the image of the sport of surfing.
In the letter, the ASP said “Article 151 has been breached as a result of the numerous comments you made publicly in an interview on the webcast of the current ASP World Tour Event in New York City, which included the following language:
“First of all, I’d like to say (and the ASP are going to fine me) ‘cuz I don’t want to be a part of this dumb … wannabe tennis tour. All these pro surfers want to be tennis players. They want to do a halfway cutoff. How the … is somebody who’s not even competing against our caliber of surfers ahead of 100 of us on the one world ratings. They’ve never been here. They’ve never … made the right to surf against us, but now we’re ranked upon them. Come on now. That’s … That’s why I ain’t going to these stupid contests no more. This is my last one because FTW, my sponsors is here and I just tell it like it is. This is my last one and I don’t like tennis. I don’t like the tour… Who gives a …? You know what I mean?”
“I’ve been here before. I love this city. I’ll tell you right now, if my sponsor wasn’t here, I wouldn’t be here for this dumb contest. ASP? They … surfing’s going down the drain thanks to these people.”
Martinez had just won his second round of competition ans was set to face world champion Kelly Slater.
The ASP Rules and Discipline Committee approved the suspension of Martinez from the World Tour immediately. A report will be forwarded to the Board of Directors to determine if he should be expelled for the remainder of the season.
