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If you ask a random person on the street who the greatest skateboarder of all-time is the answer you’re most likely going to get is ‘Tony Hawk.’ But if you ask Tony Hawk, or many of the OGs of skating, who the greatest skater of all time is the answer you’re almost certainly going to get is ‘Rodney Mullen.’
While Tony Hawk was the first person to ever land a ‘900’ in competition and launched his iconic video game franchise while building his Birdhouse brand, Rodney Mullen was inventing most of the tricks everyone knows today. Mullen is credited with inveting the ollie, heelflip, kickflip, impossible, and many other tricks that are the bread and butter of skateboarding.
Getting these two together to talk about the early days of skating is incredible. Nobody has seen more in the world of skating than Rodney Mullen and Tony Hawk. But this story from Rodney Mullen had Tony dying with laughter. Tony calls this his “favorite Rodney Mullen story” of all-time.
So, prior to the 54:27 mark where that video begins, Tony Hawk and Rodney are discussing 360s. And how guys would load up gloves with weights to make them spin faster and longer while doing 360s.
It was an early skateboarding hack to add more weight to their limbs so when they brought their hands into their chests they’d spin longer, faster, and harder. Rodney also goes into detail about how it would do weird things to their blood. He says he’d look ‘polka doted’ from the blood trying to leave his hands/body after doing 360s.
Now, in this story, he’s at a mall doing a skating demo and had cut himself but he was unaware of that. Rodney says “when you get a good cut you don’t even feel it” which was the case in this story. He’d cut himself and was unaware, but was spinning so fast his body had turned into a blood sprinkler and was completely drenching the mall and crowd while he was doing 360s nonstop for the crowd.
With stating where Rodney Mullen had cut himself, the nature of the cut had Tony Hawk and his co-host Jason Ellis dying from laughter.
I could spend the next month listing off Rodney Mullen’s skating accomplishments and contributions here but instead I’ll encourage everyone to go read Rodney’s books… The Mutt: How to Skateboard and Not Kill Yourself.