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Nat Young
Young won the 1966 World Championship in San Diego by turning hard off the bottom on a shorter, thinner board while his rivals cross-stepped and noseroded on longboards. That contest is usually credited with tilting judging towards power and manoeuvres, and the shortboard revolution followed within two years.
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Gerry Lopez
Lopez won the Pipeline Masters in 1972 and 1973 by standing calmly inside the barrel at a wave most surfers were trying to survive. His relaxed, upright tube riding on short pintail boards made deep barrels the thing judges looked for at Pipeline, and it still is.
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Shaun Tomson
The South African won the 1977 professional world title after showing in the mid-1970s that a regular-foot surfer could ride the Pipeline barrel on his backhand, setting an edge and staying deep rather than racing out. His backside tube riding became the benchmark judges still apply at left-hand reefs.
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Wayne Bartholomew
"Rabbit" won the 1978 world title with an aggressive backhand attack and helped build the professional tour itself, later running it as ASP president. His career connects the early free-surfing showcases in Hawaii with a structured, judged professional sport.
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Margo Oberg
Born
Oberg won the 1968 World Championship as a teenager and then professional world titles in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when women's events were few and often held in poor conditions. Her powerful, committed surfing in big Hawaiian waves challenged the idea that women's heats were a sideshow.
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Mark Richards (surfer)
Richards won four consecutive world titles from 1979 to 1982 on twin-fin boards he shaped himself, which were faster and looser in small waves than single fins. His run shows how much equipment shapes judging: the twin fin made rapid, linked turns possible, and judges began rewarding them.
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Tom Carroll (surfer)
Carroll won world titles in 1983 and 1984 with a compact, powerful style built for the new three-fin thruster, and his snap under the lip at Pipeline in 1991 is one of surfing's most replayed turns. He made heavy-water power surfing a competitive requirement rather than a free-surf extra.
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Tom Curren
Born
Curren won world titles in 1985 and 1986 and, in 1990, a third after starting the season in the trials. His smooth, flowing lines, linking turns without wasted motion, are still the reference judges and surfers use for "flow", and his 1990 run is the template for winning through consistency.
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Lisa Andersen
Andersen won four consecutive world titles from 1994 to 1997 with a powerful, rail-driven style that measured up against the men's tour rather than a separate women's standard. Her success also changed how surf companies marketed and sponsored women, widening the field that followed.
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Layne Beachley
Beachley won seven world titles, six of them in a row from 1998 to 2003, and pushed for women to compete in heavy waves and big-wave events. Her aggressive approach in powerful surf raised the conditions women's heats were expected to run in.
More about Layne Beachley11
Kelly Slater
Slater won 11 world titles between 1992 and 2011, the first at 20 and the last at 39, and kept winning events into his late forties. He combined tube riding, power turns and the first wave of aerials, so the judging criteria widened to keep up with him, and his heat tactics set the template for the modern tour.
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Andy Irons
Irons won three consecutive world titles from 2002 to 2004, interrupting Slater's era with a raw, explosive backhand and fearless barrel riding at Pipeline and Teahupo'o. Their rivalry made heavy-wave events the centre of the tour. He died in 2010 at 32.
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Mick Fanning
Born
Fanning won world titles in 2007, 2009 and 2013 with speed and clean, powerful rail turns on point breaks like Snapper Rocks and Jeffreys Bay. He shows the value of completed, high-percentage surfing over riskier moves, and many judges used his rail work as a benchmark for "power and flow".
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Stephanie Gilmore
Gilmore won the world title as a rookie in 2007 and eight in total, the last in 2022, a record. Her style is all flow and timing, with long, drawn-out turns that rarely look forced, and she won across 15 years as the women's tour moved to better waves and equal prize money.
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Carissa Moore
Moore won five world titles between 2011 and 2021 and the first Olympic surfing gold in Tokyo. She brought big, progressive turns and airs into women's competition, pushing judges to score women's surfing on the same scale of difficulty as men's.
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Gabriel Medina
Medina won world titles in 2014, 2018 and 2021, Brazil's first, with high-risk aerials and an aggressive, priority-driven heat strategy. He made airs a regular scoring move in elite heats and opened the way for the Brazilian era on tour.
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John John Florence
Florence won world titles in 2016, 2017 and 2024, raised on the North Shore and equally at home in heavy Pipeline barrels and above the lip. His blend of big-wave composure and modern progression is the closest any current surfer comes to Slater's range.
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Ítalo Ferreira
Ferreira won the 2019 world title and the first men's Olympic surfing gold in Tokyo, famously after his board snapped in the final's opening moments. His hyper-fast, aerial-heavy surfing in small waves made speed and rotation central to scoring on the modern tour.
More about Ítalo Ferreira19
Filipe Toledo
Toledo won back-to-back world titles in 2022 and 2023 under the WSL Finals format, with arguably the most explosive small-wave aerial surfing on tour. His wins also exposed the format's trade-offs: a winner who excels in performance waves, often criticised for his record in heavy surf.
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Caitlin Simmers
Simmers won the 2024 world title at 18 with fearless surfing at Pipeline and Teahupo'o, in events where women were now judged in the same heavy waves as men. She represents the generation for whom tube riding at dangerous reefs is simply expected, alongside a loose, playful style in smaller surf.
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Molly Picklum
Picklum won her first world title at the 2025 WSL Finals at Cloudbreak in Fiji, a heavy reef break chosen to test the finalists. Her aggressive, committed surfing in powerful waves fits the tour's shift towards deciding titles in serious conditions.
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