They’re really coming back. Both of them. At the same time. For the full tour.

On back-to-back days in November 2025, the World Surf League quietly dropped the two biggest bombshells the sport has seen in a decade:

• John John Florence – three-time world champion, reigning 2024 champ, the man who walked away at the absolute peak – awarded a full-season wildcard for 2026.
• Gabriel Medina – three-time world champion, the most explosive competitor the sport has ever produced – handed the exact same golden ticket 24 hours later.

In one weekend, the WSL turned a solid 2026 season into the most anticipated tour since the Slater–Curren–Occy days. Nineteen world titles between two men. Two guys who have combined for 35 CT event wins, 7 Pipe Masters, 4 Teahupo’o trophies, and more Perfect 10s than the rest of the Top 34 combined.

And they’re both coming back hungry.

Why This Feels Different Than Any Other Comeback

This isn’t Kelly returning for one last dance at 45. This isn’t Carissa Moore or Steph Gilmore coming off maternity leave (as incredible as those stories are).

This is two athletes in their absolute prime – 33 and 31 years old – choosing to step away for completely different reasons, recharge in totally opposite ways, and now storming back into a tour that has been completely redesigned around barrel-riding, knockout heats, and a 1.5× weighted Pipeline finale.

John John spent 2025 sailing remote islands in French Polynesia with his wife and toddler, surfing perfect empty reefs, launching Florence Marine X, and basically living the dream every pro surfer says they want when they “retire.” He wasn’t injured. He wasn’t burnt out. He just wanted to surf for joy again.

Gabriel spent most of 2025 in physical and mental rehab after a nasty pectoral tear, watching from the sidelines as the tour moved on without him. For the first time in 14 years, he wasn’t in the draw. And it lit a fire.

Both men are now saying the same thing, almost word-for-word: “I feel like a completely new version of myself.”

The New Tour Was Literally Built for This Moment

The WSL didn’t just hand out wildcards – they rebuilt the entire format to reward exactly what JJF and Medina do better than anyone alive:

• No more one-day Finals at Trestles.
• Full points-based season again.
• Final event at Pipeline worth 15,000 points (1.5× weighting).
• Every heat is now single-elimination from the Round of 32 onward.
• Haleiwa and Sunset as postseason filter events to seed the North Shore stretch.

Translation: The guy who can thread 10-foot Pipeline on demand in December just became the single most dangerous athlete on tour. And there are exactly two of them.

The Head-to-Head 

Career head-to-head record (CT heats): John John leads 12–10 But Medina has won 3 of the last 4, including the 2019 Pipe Masters final.

Now throw in the fact that Pipeline is suddenly the title decider again, and we could legitimately get a world-title heat between these two in roaring December barrels with 100,000 people watching on the beach and millions streaming.

Name a more iconic duo in sport right now. I’ll wait.

Early 2026 Storylines We’re Already Obsessed With

1. Can John John win a fourth title in his first full season back – and do it mostly on home soil (Haleiwa, Sunset, Pipe)?
2. Is this Medina’s redemption arc after the injury robbery of 2025?
3. Who gets rattled first: the young gunslingers (Crosby Lauchlan, Ethan Ewing, Jack Robinson) 

The Bottom Line

The WSL just pulled off the rarest move in modern sports: they made a 50-year-old tour feel brand new again.

Two living legends. One redesigned tour. One wave that will crown the champion.

See you at Bells in April.