Tony Hawk is the biggest name is skateboarding history and has won 74 professional skateboard contests of the past 20 years. Tony Hawk has invented 90 skateboard tricks and continues to bust through new boundaries with his million dollar vert ramp.

When Tony Hawk first started skateboarding back in the late 70’s and early 80’s, there was either vert skateboarding which was pools or freestyle skateboarding. There was no street skateboarding which dominates the industry today. Pools eventually evolved into half pipes and the very first half pipes where very hard to skate. The were made out of Plexiglas and had little or no flat bottom and no decks to stand on. You just kind of got in there and tried to hit the coping. Tony Hawk spent many a day skating the Del Mar Skate Ranch and once that closed down he ended up getting some land in Fallbrook and built a massive ramp.

His father Frank Hawk supported Tony very heavily and it must have been cool to have a dad like that. When you are a vert skateboarder pads are a necessary. You cannot bust out a 540 or even a 360 on a vert ramp for the first time with out relying on your pads to knee slide out on so you can get up and try again until you land it. Today vertical skateboarding is not very popular probably because it is so difficult. There are very few newcomers to the Vert Skateboarding scene but with the big boom of skate parks that where built over the last 10 years kids are learning to be more well rounded skateboarders and are able to hit vertical walls now in addition to hitting the rails and ledges that grace the pages of every skateboard magazine on the market. Long live vert skateboarding this is my favorite genre of skateboarding.

The Asian Xgames take place in these countries Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, Philippines, Chinese Taipei, China, Hong Kong, Japan,Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Lebanon, United Arab Emirates. The Asian Xgames keeps growing every year and has over 200 of the best action sports athletes from throughout the Asia Pacific region. The skateboarders will be competing for prize money, sponsorships from skateshops and a qualifying spot at the X Games in the United States.

Here is a video clip from the Asian Xgames Vert Skateboarding Contest

This is one of my favorite Vert Skateboarding parts in the H Street Shackle Me Not Video. I was even able to grab a John Sonner deck for my collection a few years back.

Here is a video clip of John Sonner’s part in Shackle Me Not

Mark Gator Rogowski was one of the best vert skateboarders in the 80’s. Brad Dorfman of Vision Skateboards saw this and marketed the hell out of him. He was wearing all sorts of Vision Streetwear stuff and and was living the lifestyle of a rockstar. He was a madman on the vertramp as scene in the video clip below. He got rich quick and had everything and then vert skateboarding became unpopular and the money started to disappear. What happened next well Gator found religion but that didn’t help him out to much. When his girlfriend left him he snapped and ended up raping and killing one of her friends and dumped it in the desert.
He later confessed to the murder and is now serving 31 years to life in prison. Well here is a look back when Gator was on the top of the world and kicking ass on the vert ramp