Walk quietly, carry a big stick? Oh you could say Brock Little wrote the book on that proverb.
Doubt it? Ask Dorian and Slater who set the bar for them during their formative years in the juice. That’s right, the softly spoken man with big figs and a head of hair as thick as a brillo pad.
So who you gonna ask if Bruce truly deserves a spot in the event named in memory of his brother?
“It’s ridiculous to think he would not have been given a spot,” Little tells Tracks from the North Shore.
“For christ’s sake, the competition is named in his brother’s honour. It’d be like Clyde not being invited to The Eddie.”
Like many, Little admits Bruce has been through the ups and downs since Andy’s 2010 death but says it’s been impossible to ignore his return to form out at the line up he once ruled with the swagger of a young Evel Knievel.
“Right now, he’s top five out at Pipe, easy,” Little says in his distinctly clipped Hawaiian accent.
“He’s always been a heavy presence out there, and sure there were a few lean years, but you can just see how much he wants it again by the amount of time he’s putting in.”
Indeed, it’s been hard to miss the pure lines and the distinctly decorated board cutting a swathe through the crowd at Pipe in that golden afternoon light.
But the question on everyone’s mind is, what if conditions don’t turn on? What chance Bruce against the heat savvy foot soldiers of the mighty World Surf League? Gabriel, Mick…Kelly?
“Again, Bruce has put hours, years, into Pipe,” says Little.
“At the end of the day, it’s a comp and anyone can win, so it’d be foolish of me to say he’s going to. But the thing is, anywhere from four foot Backdoor to 12 foot Pipe, he can win it.”
Here’s Bruce Irons’ Wave of the Winter entry captured just days ago:
