Tag Archives: Deathwish

Pedro Delfino

Pedro Delfino has a literal death wish

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TR6ndj4ugk?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

Floridian and future CTE sufferer Pedro Delfino made his official debut for Deathwish skateboards recently and that skull thudding slam to start it off has given concerned citizens plenty of justification when they tell a skater to get off their roof. Rarely are we, the online skate video viewers, subjected to the realistic consequences of stunt level skateboarding. Seeing Pedro’s limp unconscious carcass on the ground (twice!) for a ‘welcome to the team’ video that was already below the fold within 24 hours makes one wonder if it is all worth it.

All horrifying realities of our hobby aside, Deathwish has done well to add Delfino to the team. He adds some needed pool skills, is clearly willing to sacrifice everything for the footage, has a great eye for one-hitter street spots, and his dumptruck style is a welcome change from the bland precision of many of latest crop of overachieving ams.

Maybe it’s just the concussion footage, but it really seems like Pedro Delfino is skating out of his depth and barely escaping the tricks he is initiating. It is thrilling. Plus, his first ever published photo in a magazine happened to be one of the best Thrasher covers ever.

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Jon Dickson and the embarrassment of riches – Deathwish Part 2

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Damn, what a run of high-quality online skate videos it has been in the past two weeks, although mostly released through Thrasher’s website. We had Zion Wright going rail-crazy for Real, Christian Maalouf fakie flipping tables over here for WKND, Erick Winkowski taking the Christ Air to the streets with a board that can only be describes as impractically 80s, Taylor Nawrocki soars up the rankings of my favorite skaters with an ambidextrous single-spot Beastmon part filmed entirely at the Williamsburg Monument (plus, anything Colin Read is involved with is usually gold), and speaking of Nawrocki, Theories of Atlantis gives of four minutes over at Transworld with the Patsy cut.

Did I mention Primitive skateboards released Never the day after Shane O’Neil announced he had quit the team? They did, and its more or less full video with questionable slow-motion and gratuitous drone interstitials to compliment a fantastic non-arena part from Mr. Paul Rodriguez Jr and some very, very heavy footage from Nick Tucker. Then Trent McClung leapfrogs way ahead of both siblings and teammates with a tornado bluntslide.

Plus, even as I write this, new groundbreaking edits of Pedro Barros (oh my god, that’s sick) and Breana Geering are just begging for multiple viewings. Plus probably another dozen or so more decent things were released in that I just didn’t absorb.

So it is easy to feel bad for the Baker Boys. A video like Deathwish Part 2 has every right to stand head and shoulders above the rest and could be the best video of 2018 to date. That such a good video might get buried in the heaps of gold that were released this week is a shame. Even if you remove Lizard King‘s psychedelic interpretation of what’s an acceptable place to land your large drops (apparently right in the middle of a stair set), take away Ellington‘s inward heelflip, ignore Jamie Foy‘s convincing argument for back-to-back SOTYs, disregard Jake Hayes executing another perfect kicklfip, and pretend Neen‘s varial heelflip never happened (also Kirby and Slash’s tricks) and we would still have a part to blog about. Jon Dickson.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olDxibvWjRo?rel=0&start=565]
Jon Dickson skates like a speeding bulldozer with machines guns mounted on its sides, destroying gaps and tearing pants with the unstoppable force of an Incredible Hulk with sideburns and a man bun. Sure he kickflips into handrail tricks of both the slide and grind variety, and hell yes there’s cabellarials over the bar and into the bank, and of course he casually pops out of that smith grind before the knobbed end (although I’m convinced he would just plow right through that thing), and obviously he can turn a flatground frontside flip over a picnic table into a set-up trick… but the real joy of Jon Dickson in Deathwish Part 2 is the roll aways.

A man of Dickson’s power and density has no business gliding away with such poise. Check the right arm crossing gracefully in front of him. Scope the left arm swinging behind his back like a lazy boat rudder cutting the calm waters of a still lake. His knees are bent like the bank carving surf style skaters of the 1970s. His eyes glancing over his shoulder from the ground to the road ahead with no sign of surprise or shock. Take away the death defiance of the tricks and brawniness of approach and, dare I say it, Jon Dickson is an elegant skateboarder.

Also, look at his legs on that 11-stair switch frontside flip at around 11:30 in the video! Good lord that is insane. Of all the tricks to not get a second slow-motion angle of, why that one?

peak Greco – the Deathwish Video – 2013

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsMNyFo58W4?rel=0&start=1789]

First of all, are we all just going to collectively ignore that fact that Jim Greco no longer has most of his tattoos?!?

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s take a look at Jim Greco at the peak of his gnarliness in 2013’s The Deathwish Video. Skating to Slayer, nose blunting cars, getting all darkslidey, and dropping namesake hammers left and right. It was such a pleasure to see Jim (and Ellington) both bring it (as opposed to singing it) for Deathwish’s first solo video instead of fading comfortably into guest-trick-from-the-company-owner-who-is-keeping-himself-pro territory (i.e. Rick Howard, Ed Templeton, and so on).

As Greco has recently produced annual video parts of a -uh- more artistic variety, the sobering reality is that Jim won’t be rapidly editing hammers to speed metal again in the near future. I’m thinking we will be lucky to get 2 or 3 tricks, if any, from him in Baker 4. Is Greco even on Deathwish anymore?

But maybe I’m wrong. The Deathwish Video part was a surprise for me so who knows what Greco has hidden up his fashionable sleeve. Apparently he has been skating regularly.

If you want to see all these tricks edited in a different order and laid over a Velvet Underground song, Thrasher reedited this footage in 2014.

This Jim Greco Identity Crisis flow chart is pretty nifty.

Also, let it be said I thought Year 13 was a pretty good video.