Most hated skateboarders of all time in no particular order

As the collective battlecries and the slapping of ply's filled the skatepark and it's immediate surroundings, little Billy rolled away from his 7 stair f/s salad grind as if he'd just delivered his first born child. His friends were equally stoked and Billy was excited at the thought of leaving the park with a new hammer under his belt and the right he'd earnt to claim the execution of aforementioned salad's to anyone that came within his radius the following week.

Then, from the dark recesses of the park a cynical, yet all too familiar voice announced "pffft, Salad grinds? Are you serious? Who even does those anymore?"

Billy and his bro's were a little taken back by the attitude of this slightly older quarter pipe critic and immediately asked him what his beef was with Eric Dressen's legacy grind. "Really? You're asking me what's wrong with Salad Grinds? How about......they're the worst trick ever? Don't you guys read the Slap forums? Seriously, if you're going to do Salad Grinds you might as well cut to the chase and shove your board up your arse and slide down the rail on your newly exposed sphincter, because that's pretty much what a Salad grind looks like".

Billy never did another salad grind and now works night fill to support an unplanned child and an even more unplanned smack addiction....

Ahh, good old fashioned Hate. The very mention of the word may have lost it's initial impact over the years due to hip-hop's unintentional redefinition (the 'hater' epidemic)or the tendencies of teenage girls to associate it with pretty much everything that isn't Robert Pattinson, but the act of hating is still as necessary as it is unnecessary in humanity's increasingly critical nature and more importantly, our favorite four-wheeled pastime. A few decades ago, the word HATE could have incited war on a global scale if placed in the wrong context. Today, I can sit here and safely say that I hate Kyle Sandilands, the wind and eggplant and not even flinch in doing so. I hate eggplant so much that my vision blurs whenever I think about it. Kyle Sandilands has a similar effect.

Hate's primary appeal lies in it's ease of execution. Unfortunately, It's much harder to think of and express a genuine, heartfelt compliment then it is to highlight the shortcomings of another human being or entity. Well, it is for me anyway, and I'm writing the goddamn article so you could probably just shut your goddamned, uninformed mouth and stop interrupting me..

See? So much easier than complimenting you all.

In practice, hate might be fun and all when it's dropped at the right moment (in the safety of your own home on Xbox Live or a Transworld premiere), but it can also be an incredibly ignorant, jealousy-driven form of expression reserved for those of us who are just plain jerks. As skateboarders, we've all been exposed to the big H at one point or another, be it for pushing mongo, mobbing your kickflips or signing a lucrative endorsement contract with an energy drink reserved for jock douchebags and lorry drivers, which is why it brings me great pleasure (or sadism) to bring you the most comprehensive and thoroughly researched 'Most Hated' list ever concocted. Now get out of my face and enjoy!

Jereme Rogers
How do you go from the most promising new talent on arguably the best board company in skateboarding to the laughing stock of the industry in the space of a couple of years? First things first, spend all your royalty checks on big, iced out DVS pendants and crosses and wear them to as many video premieres and annual award ceremonies as possible. Then, you'd be wise to get a couple of really meaningful tattoos on your face and arms, treble clefs and god-fearing self gospel is encouraged. Right, now you need some shrooms and a rooftop. Easy. Here's the clincher though, announce a premature retirement from skateboarding and pursue a career as the whitest rapper ever, imitating guys like Lil Wayne and Young Jeezy and talking about all the fancy shit you have, which you most certainly didn't earn through rapping and definitely wouldn't have if it wasn't for skateboarding. Congratulations, you are now amongst the most elite stable of skateboarding's most hated. You can also announce a comeback shortly after all that, start your own board company called 'Selfish' skateboards and sign an unhealthy looking Brian Wenning as your first pro. But that's only if you REALLY want to piss everyone off.

Mike Vallely
Not sure what happened here. When I first started skateboarding in the early 2000's Mike Vallely was always known as skateboarding's personal bodyguard thanks to his arrogant, staunch demeanor and that clip of him beating up about 5000 jocks in some carpark somewhere. As the years fell off the calendar though, so did Mike's reputation. Somewhere along the lines we decided as a collective that it wasn't cool to quit skateboarding to become a professional wrestler, front a band called 'Revolution Mother' and get your arm broken after starting a fight during your minor league ice hockey debut. We skateboarders are a reasonably peaceful people and there's only so many faces you can crush before the kids find a new role model, someone clean cut like Torey Pudwill or the likes. God I hope Mike Vallely doesn't read this.

Rob Dyrdek
May or may not have recently gone and got the Monster Energy Drink logo tattooed over his entire back. If it actually went down like that, Rob Dyrdek may have just secured himself the title as skateboarding's biggest ever sell-out, a position previously fought over by the likes of Ryan Sheckler, Bam Margera and Rob Dyrdek. If such is not the case and the video is actually a contrived attempt at viral marketing by Monster, consider my previous statement equally applicable. Rob Dyrdek is sponsored by Axe deodarant, this does not help matters.

Andy Mac
Where skateboarding is an individualistic passion and against-the-grain means of self-expression, A-Mac is the clean-cut devil in a yellow t-shirt reminding us all the skateboarding is a competitive sport and nothing more. His x-games track record is immaculate, he has his own video game and a list of sponsors that resembles a K-Mart catalog. No-one cares though because he's a big dumb jock and therefore, the anti-christ.


Steve Berra
Steve Berra is pretty great for the most part. I liked his part in THE END and he's entertained me a fair bit with his little Berrics thing he's got going over there. But if I have to sit through one more fu**ing minute long advertisement to watch a 20 second clip I'm going to smash my keyboard over my own face and send him the hospital bill and also request that he replace my keyboard. Seriously, one ad per visit. I came to see some futuristic skateboarding, not to be spam-fed boring advertisements about ABD's or how much change PJ Ladd keeps in the boot of his car.

Josh Kasper
Another stair-counting casualty of the Osiris regiment. Josh Kasper achieved hater notoriety through his refusal to adapt to skateboarding's quickly shifting fashion climate and his uninviting interpretation of the frontside flip, the phantom flip. These attributes, coupled with mid-line benihanas and a cover shot on Big Brother's Worst Issue Ever (executing said benihana over three scantily clad Jenny Craig dropouts wrestling in fake blood) and Josh Kasper's career quickly turned sour. Chad Muska is another well-known phantom-flipper, but he hangs out with Paris Hilton and wears futuristic shoes so it's cool.

Dave Mayhew
You'd think the release of your first pro shoe would be not only the highlight of your skateboarding career, but also a fitting object of legacy for the generations that follow you. Unfortunately this was not the case for Dave Mayhew, the man responsible for the most hated shoe in skateboarding, the Osiris D3 and it's obnoxious big brother, the D3 2001. When it first came out, the D3 was an object of desire as school kids and urban fashionistas alike salivated over it's obese silhouette, comical lace holes and innumerable layers of nu-buck, suede, leather, Teflon, Honda Civic passenger side upholstery and nylon. The triple stuffed tongue was big enough to sleep a family of five and if you needed to, you could fit a week's worth of shopping in the right shoe alone if you didn't have your license yet. The D3 2001 was inevitably released in light of the D3's success and, if it's even possible, was bigger and even more reinforced than the original and could actually briefly block out the sun when thrown at the right angle. Dave Mayhew has since retired from skateboarding and is now living comfortably off of the proceeds from his frowned-upon design.

Chad Fernandez
Aside from possessing a head of hair you could clearly identify from outer space, Chad Fernandez made a legitimate career out of nose-grinding tall handrails and then nose-sliding them. After a disagreement with a fledgling BAKER team in the early 2000's over who brought cut-off sleeves back, Chad was hastily escorted from the professional ranks and re-situated himself as a zany presenter for locally broadcast Under 14 jam sessions. Moral of the story: Don’t beef with the boss.

Ryan Sheckler
The only professional skateboarder with a personalized number plate engraved into his back. Ryan Sheckler is without a doubt the most commercially hated skateboarder of all time and the unquestionable grandmaster of corporate sponsorship. We hated him as a child prodigy (those fu**ing kickflip indy’s over EVERYTHING), we hated him as a developing teenage butt-kisser (long hair, skinny jeans, big shoes, bringing his mom on tour, kickflip indy's) and by god do we hate him as the rich, successful, model-pulling, luxury car driving, home-owning, conglomerate-building jealousy sponge that he is today. Perhaps what upsets us all the most though (aside from the pimple cream, MTV, deodorant, subwoofer, energy drink, wheel-barrow, Tupperware and baby wipe endorsements) is that Ryan Sheckler not only feeds off of Hate, but actually uses it as currency and motivation to prove to us all that he is actually a great guy and that we are all irrelevant to him; a thought process that will no doubt lead to a mutually beneficial relationship in which we can continue to criticize his every move for many years to come, and he can continue jumping down 30 stairs dressed like a week’s worth of junk mail.

Rodney Mullen
Thanks to Youtube and Monster Energy Drinks, every thirteen year-old across the world can freely critique the godfathers of our craft with no repercussions whatsoever. This critique is then amplified by other thirteen year-old’s who share a similar outlook and in turn puts them under the impression that they are correct. If you’re thirteen and another thirteen year old agrees with you, that doesn’t make you correct, it makes you thirteen. If there was ever one golden rule pertaining to hate, it’s that you do it properly, or you keep your prepubescent pie hole firmly closed. In short, if you’re not of legal drinking age and have ever mentioned Rodney Mullen’s name in association with style or a lack thereof, consider this paragraph your indisputable banishment from skateboarding and it’s related pursuits of which you are no longer a part of as of now.

Greg Lutzka
Greg Lutzka is a skateboarder. Greg Lutzka is sponsored by K-Swiss and wears fedoras ALL the time. K-Swiss is a tennis shoe brand. There is a tennis tournament called the French Open. The term Fedora was coined by a French Dramatist by the name of Victorien Sardou. Greg Lutzka is not French. Greg Lutzka has his own pro model car and shares a similar sponsorship resume to Ryan Sheckler, which never helps. If someone asked Greg Lutzka to do a totally epic burnout in his pro model car, he'd only be able to spin it 270 degrees.

Shaun White
Due the forever-burning inferno that is Shaun White's hair, it was guaranteed from birth that he'd encounter his fair share of torment from anyone that didn't possess a similar genetic makeup (pretty much everyone). It's common knowledge that teasing people with Gingervitis produces vast amounts of satisfaction, so when the "Flying Tomato" started climbing the ranks as both a professional skateboarder AND snowboarder, he had us seeing even more red than what was situated on his dome. Under the watchful eye of Tony Hawk, Shaun White now has more investors than a discount abortion clinic and has won every competition ever. But that's not even why we don't like him, well, it kind of is, but those Rolling Stone covers and Olympic medals have to count for something right?

Bam Margera
Went from a respected Philly local with one of the best switch back tails in the game to a make-up wearing prankster for Earth's very own interpretation of hell, also known as MTV, quicker than you can say Viva La Bam! Some of the early CKY videos were good for some mindless hangover entertainment, but it seems as though anything he's touched since has rubbed skateboarding as a whole the wrongest way possible. After pledging his soul to Finnish rock outfit HIM and adopting their Heartogram symbol as his own personal trademark, his innumerable mindless followers (top hats, gloves, wallet chains, Heartogram tattoos) have become much easier to identify and thankfully, easier to avoid all together. If the gloves and Adio's don't immediately give it away, keep an eye out for an unscathed Element complete in the captivity of a textbook mall grab.

Now get out there and sk(h)ate!!