Last year, Pipeline claimed two Men's CT scalps. Both of them were rookies, both of them suffered injuries that sidelined them till beyond the mid-year cut - meaning they got bumped off tour - and both were, to put it bluntly, shafted by the Wozzle.

We know about Liam O'Brien, who despite being injured while practicing on the first morning of the contest, missed a Season Wildcard for 2023 (they went to Yago Dora for his foot injury, and Gabriel Medina who took time off).

Despite taking the hard road, LOB has earned his place on tour, again, and will be in the starting lineup for 2023.

The other surfer is Carlos Munoz from Costa Rica who dislocated his shoulder in a heat against Federico Morais. It would appear a black and white case of worker's compensation, however despite offering wildcards to Reality TV winners and mercurial world champs who may or may not want to compete, the Woz couldn't find a spot for Carlos.

Instead, they've offered Munoz the replacement spot for the first five contests of 2023. Munoz will remain on standby if any surfers pull out through injury or illness. To have any hope of progressing he'll need to start in at least four of those five contests, as one score is dropped.

On his last wave of a victorious heat against Federico Morais, Munoz fell at the end of a Backdoor ride and hit the bottom. He struggled to paddle and called for a ski, when he went to lift himself in his shoulder dislocated. Next stop, the surgeon's table and three-month's recovery (WSL/Heff)

Munoz, aged 29, is familiar with the rough end of the pineapple. Before the Woz sideline was a last-minute call up to the Tokyo Olympics. When Federico Morais got struck down with COVID, Munoz had a day-and-a-half to get from Costa Rica's Caribbean coast - which at the time was severly flooded - to Japan. He burnt through credit cards getting to an airport, getting his PCR tests, then trying to untangle the COVID-induced chaos of the international flight networks, only to arrive a few hours after his heat was surfed.