The Meola Flip, In Matt’s Own Words
Our Session of the Season // Northern Hemisphere Summer 2025
The best surf session of any season depends, usually, on how that season fared for swell. This summer was a pretty good one for swell in the Northern Hemisphere, but when it came to selecting a Session of the Season it was a wave pool that stole the show thanks to Matt Meola’s innovative aerial antics at the Swatch Nines event at Waco, Texas. Having already landed a flawless backflip on his first attempt using the motowinch, in the closing hours of the event Matt paddled into a wave and landed a never-before seen air (he called it a Rodeo/wodeo 540 revert to a 7, whilst Tony Hawk titled it an alley-oop stale 5) that was voted “Best Air” by his fellow competitors.
This manoeuvre goes way beyond our Session of the Season accolade, and deserved an in-depth dive with the man of the moment to find out more about innovative airs, how pools are at the pointy end of the progression of surfing, and where Matt sees aerial surfing going next.
Date: June 25th, 2025
Swell height and period: “The Peak” Advanced Setting
Wind direction and strength: N/A
Location: Waco Surf, Texas, USA
Board: AJW Hungry Man model - but it’s been modified for the pool. We’ve worked a lot on dialling these boards in for the pool and they have tons of pop, they’re super light, and they’re the ultimate pool board.
Wetsuit: C-Skins Nuwave UV Skins Basics Mens’ Long Sleeve Vest
Tell us about this event and the sessions you’d surfed and watched leading up to this air…
I was there for the Swatch Nines event and that event isn’t really like a contest. They give awards for best tricks and it’s more of an expression session event. I like that event because it’s not so competitive and every surfer can try new stuff and not be afraid to fall, and I think that leads to more progression than trying to make it through heats and rounds and stuff. It’s a really cool event. They do all kinds of out of the box weird shit, and I love it!
Hughie [Vaughan] did this stalefish backflip. In the past I’ve done a stalefish backflip but it was a slightly different rotation, where I rotated over my front shoulder. Hughie did this one and he initiated the flip like you do a Kerrupt flip, over the back shoulder. So it’s a stalefish backflip but with a slightly different rotation. Anyways, I saw him do it, and I knew that if you spun it just a hair flatter you could keep rotating. So I told him to try it but he never did, so I went out on my next go-out in the pool, and I almost pulled it off. Then they ended up giving me some extra time right at the end of the event, and I was so nervous because everybody was watching and they all wanted me to pull this move. It was a super weird pressure cooker situation, but I ended up doing it on my third try at the end. It was pretty cool!
Was this a move that you’ve been thinking about for a while and waiting for the opportunity to try it, or was it an idea that developed over the course of the Swatch Nines event?
So that move I did wasn’t something I’d been thinking about for a long time. It came from seeing the way Hughie did his flip, and I knew from watching it that you could add an extra rotation. Certain ways you rotate in the air I just know, like, if you had more hang time you would keep spinning this way or that way. There’re actually a lot of moves that I know you could add extra rotations to - it’s just about getting a section big enough, and spinning fast enough. But yeah I knew you could add an extra 180 into that if you just spun a hair flatter, it would whip you into it. I watched him do his air and was like, “alright, I think I could do that!”
As a progressive free surfer you’re often invited to these wave pool events, however you’re a card-carrying nature guy with a love for the ocean and wilderness areas. What do you do to keep yourself balanced after spending a chunk of time at a wave pool surfing in front of lots of cameras?
Yeah it’s funny, I’m so into being in nature and the whole reason I love surfing is because I’m out in nature and it’s just this wild thing. And then because I’m kind of an air guy I keep getting invited to these pool events and I’ve found myself going to wave pools way more often than I’m going on actual surf trips. It’s kind of annoying! I was telling my buddies the other day, “shit, I dreamed of being a pro surfer growing up, and travelling to all these remote areas and surfing all these incredible waves, and now all I do is go to wave pools!” It seems like every other month I’m going to another wave pool event. So I’m hoping I can do more surf trips in the ocean in the next couple of years, but if a big new wave pool with a bigger section comes out then I’d be pretty excited about that, but otherwise I’m not that excited about the pool thing!
I think the pools are really important, and they definitely have their place and they’re really important for the progression of surfing, and I enjoy it, but for my soul I need to go and surf some good natural waves!
How do you think wave pools have impacted the progression and acceleration of aerial surfing?
Yeah pools are huge for the progression of surfing. I think that they’re the biggest thing. You know, you watch little kids learn stuff in a few hours in a pool that took me ten years to learn in the ocean. It’s pretty crazy. And watching the progression of the pools themselves is going to be huge too. I feel like right now the pools have been pretty maxed out. There’re all these crazy tricks that have been done but it’s kind of hard to take it to that next level because the sections just aren’t quite big enough to start adding more rotations. But I think with the progression of the pool technology getting bigger and better, it’s going to unlock a bunch of new tricks. It’ll probably get to the point, I mean it kind of already has, where you’re going to start seeing stuff done in pools that may never be done in the ocean, because just to get a section that big and perfect is so rare in the ocean. But when these pools are big enough you’ll just be able to get it over and over. That’s going to be a pretty interesting time.
