164. The Top Paddles we Are Recommending, & More Proton Drama

All right, what's up guys?

We are back with another podcast episode.

And this week I think we're gonna have a pretty fun one.

We're gonna be talking some new Dupor features, Dupor reset,

because I will be partaking in Dupor reset.

Yola announces some new court shoes.

Proton gets banned from the PPA, so that's gonna be huge news.

We'll have a lot to talk about there.

And then we're also going to be talking about the top paddles

that we would recommend to our friends.

We have friends come to us and ask us questions all the time about paddles.

And these are paddles that kind of come up in all the different categories.

Control, all court power.

So if you have a friend out there that's looking to buy a paddle right now

and they're overwhelmed by the options,

this should cover just about everything.

So they can kind of watch that and get an idea.

But yeah, this is, I'm looking forward to this one.

Let's get into it.

Okay, first thing, let's talk some new Dupor features.

So these are some things that people have actually asked for for quite some time.

And I haven't, this is maybe the one time in recent news

where Dupor announces something and people aren't angry.

That's rare.

That's rare.

That is kind of rare.

But okay, so you're basically still gonna have your main Dupor,

which is not gonna change.

And then you're basically gonna have like sub-dupers

or like splitting that Dupor into different categories.

So you'll have your career high.

You'll be able to see what your peak Dupor ever was.

I actually don't know what mine is.

I think it's probably around like four or eight something,

but I actually have no, maybe four nine, but I'm not sure.

So that'll be kind of interesting, I guess.

If you fell far from grace, then well,

you already know that that's gonna be like.

What?

Don't, I know my current Dupor's low.

But don't look at that.

My peak, that's what I am.

Yeah, I swear.

You know, everyone's gonna be like,

you're gonna just ignore that.

Look at my peak.

Yeah, exactly.

So you'll have your career high.

They are going to add a mixed rating, Dupor.

Very curious to see how different that is for different people.

Like this is the thing people have asked for for a long time.

But what's interesting is it's,

it doesn't feel like it's really separate, like singles mixed

and then your regular gender, Dupor.

It's kind of just like a subcategories,

my understanding of it.

Yeah.

So I'm curious to see, like I'd be curious to know what my mix rating is.

Would it be better than my, would it ever for anyone?

Would it ever be better and mixed than it would be in gender?

That's what I'm curious.

That would be for me.

But I'm just curious if it would ever display it that way.

Like if it's even possible or you know,

I mean, I've had much better mixed results than I have men's results.

Yeah.

So I don't know.

They will have mixed for those of you that wanted that

and then they are also going to do age ratings.

However, it's not really an exhaustive list of agents.

50 plus and 65 plus.

Which is a pretty big range.

Pretty big range.

But also I just don't know how I feel about this whole age.

Because like, again, if it's supposed to be the universal rating system,

it should be the same for everybody right?

You're preaching to the choir.

But I think, I think that's kind of been everyone's gripe,

is that they're like, well, it's not universal.

Like this age is not like a 50 for that is not the same as this.

But to me, and who knows, maybe it's some limitation of Dupor

because there's not a lot of age mixing, right?

Like I think people's Dupors,

if basically it was just a skill bracket and no age,

I think we would iron some of this out, right?

It's like saying, oh no, this is 50 miles an hour for a 60-year-old.

No, no, 50 miles an hour is 50 miles an hour.

It's the same speed, whether you're 60 or you're 20.

I completely agree with you.

Like our buddy that we play with who likes to pickle poppers,

Babla guy, he's over 50 now.

He ain't complaining when he's playing with us 20-year-olds.

He's a 5-5 plus guy, right?

It doesn't matter to him how old he is.

He's actually that good.

Yeah.

And I'm right there with you.

I think it would help Dupor's case for the whole universal thing.

If Pickleball was less of splitting ages up,

I think without having the data of consistently having like 50 or 60 or 40-year-olds

versus 20-year-olds, I think you're just missing a lot of data

to be able to have a truly universal system.

So I think that's part of the problem.

But I agree.

The whole thing of like, oh, well, you know,

it's different at this age of a month, well, it shouldn't be.

It's just trying to be...

It's just trying to be...

...four or five, but you're not a four or five.

Exactly.

It's just trying to please people.

If you're not, like people always say like,

well, younger people are more mobile and older people

are usually less mobile, so I'm like, well,

that is part of being that rating.

That rating could be part of it, you know?

For sure.

And maybe you can make up for that deficiency.

There are some people I know who don't have,

like it's...

They're every element of playing plays

into what makes you a certain rating, right?

Like I know some people who have fantastic ground strokes

and hands, but they might not be able to move that great.

I know some people who are the fastest humans I've ever played with,

but they might not have the best ground stroke mechanics

or speed ups, but they just are so fast they can get to everything.

And that's kind of what boosts them to that rating, right?

It's like everyone has their strengths and weaknesses.

100%.

And then the last thing that they added is that

the duper forecast will now tell you how much you'll go up or down on a match.

So before I just said how much you had to win by in order to go up

or avoid going down, now it'll tell you how much you'll actually get.

That's a good feature.

You already know, though, just like how I said before,

duper forecast would make people go like, bro, we got to win by this much.

Now people are going to be looking at it going like,

they're going to be tilted before they even go into a match.

They're going to be broke.

If we don't pickle this...

If we lose, I'm going down to my point zero zero,

four.

Yeah, exactly.

Just dang it.

Exactly.

That's exactly what's going to happen.

So I will not be partaking in that feature.

Get you crafting out of the partner.

Yeah, exactly.

You miss an overhead and you're like, well, great.

Now I know I'm going down point 04 because you missed that overhead.

Thanks, dude.

It would have been 0.03 if you hadn't done that.

So I thought that was kind of funny.

But yeah, those are all the new features that are coming.

Pretty much all of those are things that people have asked for for a while,

which is probably why we're not seeing a lot of backlash.

So I don't know.

I don't really have any gripes with any of them.

I curious to see how they all play out.

And we'll go from there.

That uncontroversial update.

Wow.

I didn't know that was possible.

And then, I guess the next duper thing.

So duper reset.

We've already talked about this.

Don't need to go into it because I'm sure everyone listening already knows

what duper reset is.

But I did sign up.

I said I was going to do this.

I will make a video.

I should probably start planning for that video because I have tournaments coming up very soon,

like two weeks from now.

So what I would like to do is in the comments, guess what my duper is going to be.

Go ahead and just let me know what you think it's going to be at the end of duper reset.

There's only one number.

I don't even have to say it, but you guys just know the one number to say.

I thought about doing something like whoever got it.

Like if they got it all the way down to the last decimal, like doing some type of giveaway or something.

But YouTube comments are always kind of hard to manage a giveaway.

Yeah.

If someone does manage to actually nail it, maybe I'll still try and make it work.

But be impressive.

Yeah.

So let us know down in the comments.

What do you think it'll be?

499.

That's it.

Dude, if it's 499, I'll punch a hole through the wall.

I'll punch a hole through the wall if it's 499.

I'd be so angry.

Oh my gosh.

I would laugh so hard.

But I had, so during the reset period, I have three tournaments.

I have the US open.

I only got in for mixed there, which is a bummer.

Then I have a local tournament, a week and a half after that.

And then I think two or so weeks after that, I have another local tournament.

So and most of those will accept the US open.

I'll have mixed and men's in all of those.

So I will not be partaking in the US open this year.

I really wish I got in for more.

I every single year.

It's like I love this tournament.

It's probably in my top three if not top two.

And I always get in for one event.

And then I like everyone.

I know they're like, yeah, bro, I got in for five events.

Dude, I know.

It's ridiculous.

Like how are you getting it for a bunch of events?

Yes, I signed up for four or five.

That's crazy.

I know what the heck is insane.

It's insane.

That's weird.

So that's kind of a bummer.

But yeah, let us know your best guess down in the comments what you think my duper will be.

Currently, if it helps, my duper is a 4-7.

Does like 4-7-06 or something like that.

Okay, next in the news, this is just insane.

Oh, dude.

It's zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen zeggen

Imagine if it was like 630 days without even dropping a game.

Okay, she's gone a crazy like string.

Yes, without dropping games too.

I would like to know that.

Recently, she's been losing games in like a lot of singles matches

have been going to three.

But still, again, it's absolutely insane.

No one will ever even come close to breaking this record.

I, it's untouchable in my opinion at this point.

I one of the things that's been interesting to me,

I've been just looking at more, you know,

obviously I've gone through this whole thing

of like trying to hit 5.0 at least last year

when I was training really hard for it.

I should probably, now that it's getting better,

I should probably pick that back up.

But and then also just like I've been reading some like sports books

and some other stuff.

And just like hearing all the things that athletes go through

to train and like be in their peak,

like I think one of the, I can't remember the name of the book,

but reading some book about Kobe Bryant right now.

And just hearing some of the things about that,

like he would analyze like be in peak form or whatever.

And then just thinking about like I know everyone's just gonna say,

like oh well, Analyse Waters is just so much better

than everyone else, like no one's good.

That's why she just wins everything.

But you don't get that good by just like luck, right?

Like you're putting in a crazy amount of work.

You just don't see that work.

Like I don't think Analyse Waters

is just showing up in the morning.

And be like, I know I'm gonna hit for 20 minutes

and that's good for the day, right?

Like it's probably a pretty significant amount of work.

It's like as I've been reading this stuff

and then I see that headline, I'm like that is insane.

The amount of work you have to put in

to be able to do that.

100% is crazy.

It's nuts.

Like I don't know.

That's what I saw that come up after this last PBA

and I was like, I can't even believe that.

Like about to get P.B Studio Mamba mentality.

Yeah, yeah, there you go.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Okay, also the other thing I was gonna say

that I think is even more impressive about her

now that I've been thinking about this recently.

So she was playing with a wide body with paddle tech

than she's kind of messed with the hybrid.

I think this whole last tournament she played with the hybrid

but there have been other tournaments

where she played with an elongated swapping paddles.

You and I have talked about, you know,

like swapping shapes can be difficult.

Like I do have a hard time going to an elongated paddle.

Yeah, I think it was the masters where she used all three.

Day one, she used the Aurelius, her signature.

Didn't like it, use the hybrid, then use the elongated.

I mean, three paddles, which is a one-term is crazy.

Yeah, like, and with how many reps and for how long

is that not like she's done this all the time.

She played a very short wide body before, you know,

like 15.7 or 15.8 inches.

And there's extremely picky about paddles

from what we've heard for people close to her.

So to me, with how hard it is for people to switch shapes,

like we've seen in the comments you and I

have like had debates back and forth.

So her ability to be able to do that

and still keep destroying everyone is insane.

It's like, the whole, I don't know.

Her being able to do that just makes me go like,

you know, when people say, oh, like I don't want to switch shapes

for singles versus doubles.

I'm like, I don't know, maybe people can just do it.

Maybe Annelise showing us it doesn't matter.

Like that you can make that switch per event

and it doesn't make a difference.

I mean, if you're just that good of a ball striker

and your chord IQs is good as hers, but work.

I mean, I can't even pinpoint one thing

that I would think is necessarily a weakness for Annelise waters.

Yeah, there's not a single area on the choral.

Yeah, it kind of struggles with that.

Yeah, it's insane.

Everything is top notch.

It's ridiculous.

So this makes it even more ridiculous, right?

You know, I am just like, oh, I can't.

I could never, I could never use a hybrid

or I could never use an elongator, whatever it is.

And it's like, Annelise like, it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter.

It's crazy insane.

Not that I think that's probably what people should do.

Obviously, she's kind of an outlier,

but still as an outlier, that's insane.

Just because the best player on the planet

can do these things does not mean it applies to everyone.

Exactly.

So, okay, next thing I want to talk about,

so some of you have probably been wondering,

hey, where's updates on other paddles for long-lasting grit?

Where's the boomstick?

Where's Diamond Tuff?

Where's all of this?

It's all being worked on, however.

I decided, John and I are actually working together now

because we realized,

we're both trying to do the same thing in different ways,

but we could actually combine both of them, right?

Like, John does not want to do what I'm doing.

Yep.

It go out and hit 100 games on all these paddles,

and I'm never gonna buy a ball cannon.

Yeah.

I don't want to do none of that.

So, I was like, John, why don't I just send you paddles

when they're new?

I'll do all my tests, like I'll do a spin test on it

with my arm, send it to you,

you do a spin test with a cannon.

Now we have both baselines, then you send it back,

I'll do 100 games on it.

I'll get my RPM test after,

and then I'll send it back to you again,

and then you do the cannon,

and now we'll have the arm data, the cannon data,

and it was worn down through real world use

rather than accelerate a break in.

So, we've been working on that.

However, I was actually really hoping in the last two weeks

to have had probably both the boomstick and the coral done,

but John's slow motion camera keeps breaking.

I think he just said his fourth one from the same brand broke.

He's not even doing anything crazy to it.

He's just in the basement.

It's a, from what I've done research in the past,

it's a pretty reputable brand, right?

Like it's a well known, it's not like some cheap Chinese knockout.

Yeah, it's not buying like a $500.

Yeah, now this is a pretty high quality known brand,

good camera.

Expensive.

I've never heard of one, not that I've known people,

like super close to the people who've owned them before,

but I've never heard of a breaking like this.

Yeah, I mean, I can't find anything.

So the fact that John's had four,

like it'll just, he'll just be using it

and they'll just turn off and it won't turn back on.

It's powered it for the camera people out there.

He's powered it through outlet.

He's powered it through V-mount and it breaks on both.

Yep.

So, I think yesterday he was actually finally getting

the results for me and then it broke again.

So, I'm like, we're never gonna get to get these results.

So, it is being worked on.

I have not forgotten.

Trust me, I would have loved to be done

with these two paddles a while ago.

Ages ago.

So yeah, it's been working on for a few more seconds.

We said at the start of all this,

we're like, you know, people are asking,

where's more durable grit textures, where's all this?

I feel like people in pickleball are incredibly spoiled

outside with technology because people have just grown

accustomed to things, excuse me, moving so fast

in pickleball, they're like, if there's something new

that one brand has, they're like, everyone needs to have it.

Now, it's like, bro, give it a second, right?

It takes time to develop these things for other companies,

especially if someone else gets a patent on it.

Yeah, you know?

So, I think that's just the problem is that's just how

pickleball has worked for probably the last three or so years.

So, it's hard to be like, have any other expectation

than, hey, it's been six months, where's your version?

Though, I have gotten some emails.

I do know that more companies, there will be more companies

doing it.

Definitely, I won't be surprised if I,

we've already said that.

Who's gonna be, who's gonna be the first company

with a budget, like, intro,

they already said it.

I didn't see that.

I think I saw, they didn't announce it, like, publicly,

but I think I saw in the discord that they said,

they're working on a hundred dollar long lasting texture,

which is insane to me because in my mind,

I'm sitting here thinking, you could, obviously,

people know that it is a budget brand, right?

But if you have these phone core paddles

and you're gonna have a long lasting texture,

bad luck, I feel like, could easily, easily go to 150.

Yeah.

And before code after code, probably doesn't even matter.

50 extra bucks to have the long lasting texture

plus the phone core, I'm like, I don't know.

So, if it actually is gonna be a hundred dollars,

that's insane because I don't think

it needed to be that cheap, but, hey, I'm not gonna

complain that it's cheaper.

That's better for everyone.

And they can make it work and get it out there for,

by then, awesome.

It just feels weird to, I mean, surely it'll probably

place their existing models, but it would be weird to have,

like, hey, we have a long lasting texture for a hundred dollars,

and we also have the non longer lasting texture for a hundred dollars.

That's a problem with these more budget brands,

rhombus, vatic, those type of brands.

Pretty much anything new they come out with,

they either make people mad by raising the price,

or they keep it the same and cannibalize

the rest of the products.

So, it's like you only ever have one line of products

always moving forward.

Yep.

That's tough to scale.

Anyways, working on Spin Test with John results will come.

It is definitely something I want to get done just as bad

as all of you do, believe me.

So, anyways, next up, this will be quick,

because there's not a ton of information about this,

but you'll have did announce their court shoe,

the Rally R4LLY.

Sounds like it'll only be in retail stores,

so it may or may not be in a retail store near you,

and I don't know if the initial launch is more limited.

We've seen Ben John's using them.

We've known Yol has been working on a shoe for a while.

I will say they look really good.

They look really good.

Color's really nice.

Yeah, the color's nice.

I mean, the red and white ones that have seen Ben wearing

look just like the red style of JEDMAC 4s,

which is, I'm not complaining, it's great.

Yeah, I think it looks really good.

But from what we've heard,

talking with the Yola representatives,

when we were at the Paddle House event for the Pro 5,

sounds like this shoe's gonna be right up my alley.

They were like, if you like JEDMACs,

you're gonna love this shoe.

They said one of the shoes is gonna be lighter

than the JEDMACs, and the weight of shoes

is really important to me.

So that's pretty exciting for me.

I'm excited, I'm really excited to try these.

Yeah, I'm super curious to see how these go.

I will say, I'm sure, I need to talk to like Selkirk

or Yola about this, because I'd be kind of curious

to pick their brain.

There's been this interesting thought as companies

have released, quote unquote, pickleball shoes.

Oh, hey, the tennis shoes weren't good enough.

These, we needed a pickleball shoe,

and in my mind, I'm going, they've worked great.

No one in my mind has been playing in a tennis court shoe

and gone, this isn't good enough.

Like, if I had, if this was built for pickleball,

it would be really good.

And maybe you could make it a little bit better

in terms of wear patterns, something.

Maybe that's more where the focus is.

Obviously, the pickleball movement is a little bit different

in that it's more lateral than tennis.

Usually in tennis, you're going to like turn sideways

and then run towards the ball instead of like

shuffling left to right as much as you do in pickleball.

So I'm not saying that there isn't anything

that could be improved, but I am just always a little skeptical,

especially because some of the early pickleball shoes

were just rebranded tennis court shoes

or just slapping the name pickleball on it.

I mean, jet mocks, they're tennis shoes,

and then yeah, they made a pickleball version

that was just a color change in the word pickleball.

Like, jet mocks are just, in my opinion, the goat of shoes.

Yeah, so they come from tennis.

I've never been super convinced that like the pickleball shoes

are that much better.

That doesn't mean they're bad.

They could be great in their own right,

but I would like to know what are the major differences

that are actually making it more performative for pickleball?

You know, to me, I've just never had a complaint.

I think it's more a matter of just wanting to advertise

and show that you're wearing pickleball shoes.

Yeah, I like pickleball.

I guess we'll see.

So, wrong with that.

Next up, the bigger news,

shocker, proton, drama.

Who would have thought I would have?

I never in a million years.

Insert clip, sarcasm.

Run it now.

If you guys couldn't understand that was sarcasm.

Uh, okay, let's just go through this really fast.

So proton this week, it was announced by the PPA

that it is now officially banned from pro play.

And I'm gonna put a disclaimer here early

so that people do not get confused.

No, this does not impact your USAP tournaments.

It can still use it in a wreck.

You can still use it at your facility.

So you can still use it at your local tournaments.

The only place that this currently at the time

of recording this video impacts

is professional play on the PPA tour

and somewhere in this article,

which I'm going to read.

Potentially.

Potentially a could impact PPA tournaments for amateurs,

but that has not officially happened.

PPA only.

Yes.

So let's just make that clear.

Know your proton paddle if you own one

and like it is not banned.

So for whoever immediately rents straight to the comments.

Hold it.

Yeah, hold it.

Okay, I'm gonna read the article from the dink about this.

It's the initial quote says,

proton, this was from counterpart O.

Proton has failed to resolve its outstanding debts

and is now in bad standing with the United Pickleball

Association.

PPA tour founder and CEO,

counterpart O wrote in a league memo.

In an email communication with professional players

on Friday,

PPA tour founder and CEO,

counterpart O conveyed the news that proton paddles

are no longer permitted in professional play.

Despite repeated communications,

clear contractual obligations and ample time to cure.

Let me scroll down.

The band takes effect at the conclusion

of the ongoing greater Zion Cup on March 30th, 2026,

where no proton paddles will be permitted

in any sanctioned professional level play.

And then it said policies for amateur play,

parto, parto said are also under,

they must have meant review here.

They said under review,

with further communication to follow.

So that's why we're saying we don't really know

about amateurs yet.

I'll have an opinion on that a little bit later.

But then ongoing said,

a copy of the email titled,

Important Notice, proton paddles banned from professional play

was shared with the dink.

We also confirmed it's receipt with several active pros.

Let me scroll down here.

They talk about some of their signed players.

Oh, and then from that same email, I guess it said,

it is our understanding that multiple proton sponsored athletes

may also be owed significance sums by proton, the email read.

We encourage you to proceed however you see fit

to pursue and collect any debts owed to you directly

from proton.

And I have heard that for a while.

That is through multiple sources on the tour

I have heard that there have been untimely payments.

If any of you saw Zane's video talking about this,

he said himself that he is never seen a proton player

get paid on time.

And which I'm sure if I had to guess some,

probably being paid on time.

And then others less so is how I'm guessing that probably went.

And then I guess they reached out,

the dink reached out to PPA for comment.

And they said, we value our relationship with the PPA

and plan to resolve this matter promptly.

We'll see about that.

You know that meme, are you sure about that?

Yeah, that's definitely how that feels.

So let me see if there's anything else in this article

that we need to talk about.

And before I had seen this get posted

or seen anything about this,

I had some proton players reach out to me

and they're like, what do you think plays like a flamingo

that you think I would like?

And then I knew something was up.

Yeah, and then like 30 minutes later,

I saw posts everywhere about it.

So moving on, it says that this is from,

in that same email, if they rectify their debts,

the email said they will be considered

back in good standing and their equipment

will be eligible for play.

And then moving on another piece of news,

if you follow MLP, you'll know that proton actually,

at one point was a part owner in the Phoenix Flames team.

And then after this news came out,

the Phoenix Flames posted an Instagram story that said,

in light of recent news with proton,

not being in good standing with the UPA,

please know that proton is not associated

with the Phoenix Flames as of earlier this year.

The flames are in good standing with the UPA and MLP

and are looking to light some fire on the courts this season.

Thanks for all the continued love and support for our team.

I just thought it was so funny.

That just a news drops and feels like whoa, whoa, whoa.

Don't know this guy.

Don't know them?

Never heard of them out of here.

Not on our, I just thought that just maybe

that was like so quick, like yep.

That was pretty funny.

Not with us.

So that's the main direct news that we have right now.

And then I guess we can kind of go into some of our thoughts

just on this whole thing.

So first before I get into any of my opinions

and other stories that I've heard,

I think it's really interesting.

And if I think it would be a little unfair for the PBA

to ban this for amateur play,

because look, they didn't do anything wrong.

I think amateur is like,

it has sucked for them to get like,

I don't even know what the word I'm looking for is,

but like ripped off is not the right word,

but like you buy this paddle and then suddenly there's a problem

and then you can't use it anymore.

There have been paddles in the past

that the company skirted the rules,

that's their own fault, right?

And not only paying your debts, obviously a bad thing,

but I also feel like as a sponsor,

that is less to do with the certification of the paddle.

If the paddle passed certification

and you paid all your dues for certification testing,

then to me, the paddle should still be fine.

If you want to remove it from pro play,

then I guess whatever, that's fine.

But to then also bring it on to the amateurs

when it doesn't involve them.

And also, just I think this is kind of a funny thing.

By proxy, if you don't allow the amateurs

to use the paddles anymore,

that means they won't buy anymore proton paddles,

which means if you're oh, debt by proton,

how are you gonna get your money back

when they're not selling paddles?

That is a good point,

but what I will slightly disagree,

almost for nothing I didn't really disagree with you,

but more so the fact just to play devil's advocate.

Okay, sure.

If you are the PPA on one hand, it may be unfair,

but who gives a rip?

It's the, they can do whatever they want,

is their organization right?

They just try to rip it away from amateurs.

Sorry proton, you're gone, right?

Like they can do whatever they want.

Two, okay, they remove it from pro play.

You lose what?

Some advertising because it doesn't get your paddles,

don't get TV time, and you don't get talked about.

But I don't like it hurts,

but it's not that big of a sting, right?

Whatever, the pros are like, okay,

we'll go use other paddles,

they probably wanted to anyways.

You take it away from the amateurs,

now you're in tire customer bases mad at you as a company.

Now you're really scrambling,

like we gotta figure this out to save our company, right?

Like I can understand both sides.

One where it's like, hey, you shouldn't do this,

like that's unfair.

The other's like, you messed up, not our fault.

Which I completely agree with that, right?

Like if they owe money,

and it sounds like it's a pretty large sum of money,

that is, that's messed up, you need to fix that.

But I think it, I think more I guess what my point is,

is that it sucks that amateurs potentially get

caught in the crossfire for doing nothing,

and it's like imagine you just bought a $280 paddle,

and the next thing you find out,

like you're going to a PPI,

imagine you were going to that PPA,

and obviously it wasn't banned for amateur play there,

but then found out like, what, I'm screwed,

cause Proton couldn't pay their debts, like that's sucks.

Let's just say you just bought it,

more than likely you could probably return.

Well, okay, that's fair,

let's say you were 31 days in.

You were just after the return policy.

It was probably court crushed anyways.

That's a whole other thing.

So yeah, I think that just kind of sucks for the amateurs.

Obviously we don't know yet if that's gonna happen.

I think just impacting the pros,

yes, that'll suck for probably some qualifier people,

but overall probably not that huge of a pool of people

is really not.

I hope that they just don't spread it to the amateurs,

leave them out of it, figure out the debts

with Proton another way.

But yeah, that's what I wanted to say about.

You sound like somebody talking about a divorce couple.

Leave the kids out of it.

They don't deserve it.

Exactly, the amateurs are the kids in this.

They're not responsible for this.

Exactly, exactly.

We still love all of you.

That's what the PPA and Proton are both saying.

Please give us your money.

Okay, so if you are newer to the podcast,

then my initial joke coming into this was like,

oh, drama with Proton, who would have thought?

That doesn't make sense.

Pride doesn't make sense, so we'll go back

through some history for those of you

who have been around for a long time.

Well, then you probably got the job.

You know G, you know.

So I feel like Proton,

through just basically their inception of a company

has had issue after issue.

And controversy.

A controversy of some sort,

whether bigger or smaller, some get worked out quicker,

some get worked out slower,

sometimes there's just never an answer or a resolution.

So we can just kind of go through the stories here

because I feel like this just continues

to paint the picture.

Let's take a journey down memory lane.

Yeah, so the original Proton, the one with NanoTack,

which if you guys will recall,

that was type A, right?

Yeah, type A and type B.

That was kind of like Proton's claim to fame

because the claim coming in,

like they were a newer company,

the paddles were expensive and,

which is weird.

Actually, I think they were kind of,

I think they might have been expensive,

then they got cheaper,

and then they went way up in price

when they caught a little bit of popularity,

which is an interesting way to do it,

but it's a supply and demand, whatever.

So there was a tournament a couple years ago.

I think it was 2024.

I believe it was 2024.

I went to an APP.

I was talking to some people who do testing there.

And basically Proton paddles got brought up

and they were like,

here's the ones that are in the wild now,

and then here's this one right here,

and the services were completely different.

Like the original one was like glass slidg.

Yeah, the one that they had was like one sent in for testing.

Not the amateur like out in the wild paddles.

So that's what is supposed to be true to spec paddle.

And then the ones in the wild,

I mean, if any of you ever touch the type A,

you know, it's like very rubbery.

It's like your hang in stick tacky.

The more you use it, the stickier it would get.

Like there's people in my discord.

I should have dug it up.

Leave it in the sun.

People would literally like put their hand on it.

Paddle is completely sideways,

and like maybe even do it at an angle,

and the paddle would still stick to their hand.

Like tablet times rubber,

which maybe not that extreme,

but I mean, it's sticking to your hand,

almost upside down.

And it might be tablet times rubber.

Can't it crazy?

So then there was a drama about like,

hey, are these about to get banned?

And like I just know through a lot of different sources

and pick up all that there were conversations being had.

So there, it's just one of those things

where there was that piece of drama.

And I had actually, if you guys even recall again,

we had done a podcast episode.

I had reached out to Proton, asked for some clarification,

and then the email I got back from them

literally dodged every single question that I asked.

It literally didn't answer a single question

that I asked, and they were all pretty direct questions.

Yep.

So then I was like, okay, well that raises more red flags.

Like if you have nothing to hide,

you'll probably just answer my questions straight forward.

And I never got answers on those.

So whatever, but their whole thing,

like Proton when they came out was like,

you know, they kind of poke fun at people like,

oh, hey, you know, why buy a paddle that breaks

when you could buy ours that don't break

in the Great Last Forever?

And then what is every paddle that comes out after that?

So you release a rock carbon fiber Gen 3,

core crushes, and your grit doesn't last as long.

Before you even say that,

said we use this surface because everyone else's

rock carbon fiber sucks, peelplies trash,

but then they come out with one.

All the pros start using that immediately.

Oh, well, our peelplies just way better

than everyone else's, but yeah, there's this garbage.

But guys, ours, and then ore saying like,

what was the quote?

Oh yeah, after you use a rock carbon fiber paddle,

it just loses spin immediately, but ours doesn't.

It's like, it's stuff like that.

That's just like total BS.

Yeah.

And so it's like, okay, then they notice how no paddle

they released in the future had nanotech,

which was the thing that brought them

their claim to fame.

If it was that good and there was no issues with it,

why is it not on a single one of your future panels?

Yeah.

That seems a little odd to me, right?

So, okay, that was one of the OG issues, right?

Then last year,

Proton, there was an involuntary bankruptcy,

which I did try and follow this up.

I looked around on the internet yesterday

to find more information about this.

And all I really saw is that the whole thing

was wrapped up relatively quickly, right?

So basically what it sounds like is there was

some contractors that hadn't been paid,

and they filed an involuntary bankruptcy against Proton.

And then within about a month,

the core documents were sealed.

So we can't really see exactly what the result

of everything was.

So either that means it could have been completely dismissed,

it could have been handled outside of court.

Do you remember Charles' story about this?

No.

He was like, oh, it was a disgruntled employee

that filed it for us.

Yes.

That's not what was happening, guys.

It was a disgruntled employee that filed bank,

this is not supposed to be happening.

Yeah.

So, but it was dismissed quick.

So maybe they were right about that,

but here's the thing.

You have drama with your paddle.

Then you have involuntary bankruptcy.

Then the PPA says you owe them a very sizeable amount of money.

I'm hearing that pros are at it,

owed a sizeable amount of money.

I'm sitting here going, you know what?

This hasn't happened to any other company.

I don't hear a Franklin Gearbox Cellker carbon 11624.

I don't hear these companies having these issues.

You just follow the trail and use common sense.

So it's like, okay, you don't really see

that many proton paddles out in the wild.

Okay, I don't see them very often.

Maybe a flamingo here and there,

but it's really not that common.

And then you go to these events

and you just see proton just flaunting money everywhere.

You know, two years ago, I think it was,

they sponsored worlds.

They had, they were the,

what's it called, the signature prime sponsor, whatever.

The biggest sponsor for that event.

They had their logo painted on center court.

Their logos are plastered everywhere.

I got told how much it cost to do that.

And it is a significant amount of money,

like jaw dropping amount of money to be that sponsor.

Yep.

And I'm like, dude, where are they getting this money?

It's not from paddle sales, okay?

I can tell you the paddles in the pickleball central tent

that travel around the PPA are the same ones

at every single event because no one's buying them.

I've walked in that tent multiple time

in different states and seen the same paddles, okay?

Yeah, it's just one of those things

where stuff just never added up.

And then I'm not going to say other people's stories,

but I know on first hand accounts of people

who have been around proton

and I've heard a lot of very interesting stories

involving money that I think would be interesting to say,

but probably very quickly singles out who those people are.

So I will leave them out of it.

But actually I even have like my own quick story about this.

So when I was buying my house,

this was 2024 and I had gotten some texts

on someone communicating on behalf of the owner of proton.

And here's how these conversations went, okay?

I got invited to this launch event and I said,

dang, unfortunately I'll have to be out right when I get back

from Texas, we saw a house and are starting to close on it.

I have a bunch of travel early July,

so I'm taking June off to make sure we get as much

of the house stuff wrapped up before I had out.

Really appreciate the invite though.

Then came back a couple days later and said,

hey, sorry to bother you so late.

They really proton would very much like to have you

this weekend in Scottsdale.

They have Fox News coming, all the proton pros.

They told me they will pay for your flight,

your hotel and even a little extra stipend

if you can make it.

Any chance we can get you out there and I said,

hey, that's really generous.

Unfortunately, I definitely cannot attend

with getting ready for the house closing.

I told my wife I won't be traveling in June,

especially since I'll be gone for most of July

right after we finished closing.

I'd love to get my hands on the stuff

whenever it's available though.

And then there was one other offer right after that.

We'll definitely get you everything you need,

but here's one more offer.

I told you he really wants you there.

Bring your wife, proton will treat.

We will arrange a spa day for her at a nice place

or whatever activity she would prefer to be pampered by

on Monday while you're at the event.

Plus all the other stuff mentioned and $2,000 cash.

And I said, they were trying.

And I said, again, that's extremely generous

and I really appreciate it

though I wouldn't be able to accept the $2,000 cash

since that would probably be a conflict of interest

as a paddle reviewer receiving money

for coming to a paddle media event.

And then I just reiterated everything I had said

before which is like, look, it's not about,

I don't want to go, I just can't.

I'm buying a house.

I'm really occupied right now.

So I just have heard story after story of like money

just being flaunted around like, hey, just take this money.

Just take this money.

And I have my own first hand experience with it.

And after hearing all these stories, I'm like,

okay, let's just hypothetically say, I went and did all that,

which I wouldn't, right?

I've said this multiple times,

don't take money for stuff like that.

Let's just say, I did, would I have ever got that money?

Based on some of the stories I'm hearing right now.

You know, I don't know.

I don't know.

So I guess just to summarize this,

they had the troubles with APP and some certification stuff.

Nothing really ever happened publicly with that,

but USAP does handle a lot of that stuff silently.

All I know is that we don't see nano-tack on any future paddles.

Suspicious.

They had legal trouble last year with involuntary debt.

We don't really know how that one ended up either

since the case documents were sealed.

But what we do know now is that they owe the PPA a lot of money.

They have no involvement in the Phoenix Flames

and PPA pros are owed money.

I'm just saying follow, follow things around,

even if the truth is somewhere in the middle.

Let's just say it's not as bad as some of these articles

are making it sound whatever.

The truth is always somewhere in the middle.

I'm just saying this is probably not all the way over here,

like we never did anything wrong.

And the fact that proton is like the only company

that this type of stuff seems to happen with,

I don't know, just a little sus.

A little sus, I would say.

But who knows, maybe somehow they wrangle up all the money they need

to pay the PPA and all this magically goes away

and everyone's back in good standing.

All the proton burner accounts are about to be in the comments.

Oh, dad, they're gonna be going hard.

Oh, also actually, one last thing.

I did do just since they are a softball back company.

I did just do some really quick Google searches online,

like search around, write it like,

does this softball industry have these issues with proton too?

And I found mixed things.

Some people would be like, oh, these bats are incredible.

And then other people would be like,

you would literally have better customer service

buying the second hand from marketplace

and hoping you get a hold of the guy you bought it from

than getting a hold of proton.

And then I saw multiple comments that were like,

they've screwed over players and vendors

and some like, okay, again,

different industry that they're involved in,

same type of stories.

I'm sitting here going,

I don't think you would hear this over and over and over

unless something was happening.

Old habits don't die.

Like, I don't know.

It's just like,

look, you and I have said that proton's been sketchy

from the beginning.

Yeah.

And people called us crazy.

Okay, look how that panned out.

Exactly.

We all knew.

We knew.

We'll see where it goes.

I hope for anyone who has bought a proton paddle

that everything's fine, right?

The amateurs should not have to deal with this garbage.

Oh, yeah, really sucks for the amateurs.

For sure.

Should have no involvement with that.

So I feel bad for all of those people.

And if you like the paddles,

continue to use them.

But just saying, we've seen time after time

where things are real dodgy.

And yeah, we'll see where it goes.

We'll keep you updated on the saga.

Maybe next week this all disappears

and we look like idiots.

But I'm just saying I've seen enough.

I've seen enough to try my thing.

I'm trying to think through all the history.

What we've had,

this is I think the biggest quote unquote paddle band

we've seen.

What was the first band that wasn't for performance?

Yeah, exactly.

Just like company band.

Yeah.

But we've seen the OG was carbon, grit gate, right?

Then it was the next one really the 3S or mod

or whatever, like not the mod.

Oh man.

But was there nothing in between the car?

I can't think of.

I can't think of one,

but there might be that we're forgetting.

There might be one that we're forgetting.

But then the biggest notable one was the the Gen 3.

Yep.

And mod, the course.

Oh, got not Phoenix.

Was it?

Why am I fire?

The chorus fire.

Then there was the,

I literally just had to have my tongue.

There's two.

I mean, that's the pro connects.

Yeah, it just, there's just been so many.

But this is the first one that actually

doesn't involve USIP.

Really?

This is like UPA is first.

Like, but again, not for performance.

Just like, oh, bigger go home.

It's money.

Yeah, it's money.

You're out.

Yeah, that's crazy.

I mean, look, you and I have had a sneaking suspicion

that this is going to happen for a while.

And sure enough, finally did.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Maybe, maybe one day we're going to get a bull foam nano-tack

paddle and it'll be the most godly thing we've ever seen.

Maybe look, now I will say now that at least USIP

hasn't fixed this yet, but with actually going

to spin testing and caring less about friction,

that seems much more attainable now.

So I guess now that I'm saying that,

I could see in a world where when they all go to this test,

a nano-tack version can exist because it's just about RPM

and not about like the friction limit anymore, right?

So that seems more attainable.

Sure.

We'll see what happens.

The problem with nano-tack, it's biggest down,

well, it had a bunch of downsides.

But like, you would get pretty good spin

if you were swinging fast where it would come,

the ball and the holes would compress into that like

mushy rubber surface, but on slow shots, it was like glass.

But I bet you when it was used, like a lot of people

in my desk would, I bet you that's problem went away.

Yeah, I mean, I never used one that was like

heavily, heavily used.

And I knew somebody who like, it would get dut,

like dust would stick to it and it would get nasty.

I mean, I'm not a fan of those types of surfaces.

I don't know, I'm fine with the idea of the surface.

Seems incredible on paper, just needs to be

within the legal guidelines.

Yeah, that's my only thing.

Yeah, just ridiculous.

All right, let's get into some paddle talk now.

We've got just a little bit of news

and then we'll get into our top recommendations here.

So I just want to say, after playing the Yola Pro 5

for a month, which is the longest time in recent history

that I've played a Gen 3,

because it's mostly been foam paddles coming out,

I think I do actually understand the Gen 3

versus Gen 4 debate better now because play the Yola.

Obviously, I compared it to some foam paddles throughout that,

but a lot of the time was spent like making sure

the Pro 5 was properly broken in and all of that.

And then the first session I had when I was done

with that review, I grabbed the turbos,

grabbed the MPP turbo and the EPP turbo.

And when I went on court, I had multiple thoughts.

One, I started with the MPP turbo

and I went, holy crap, I cannot control this thing.

This is so hard to control.

Like I was playing with a group of friends

and I was like embarrassed how hard it was for me

to hit a drop or keep the ball down.

Like I haven't been in my head in a while

and this is the first time where I was like,

oh my gosh, I hope everyone here doesn't think I sucked.

Like even though I play with these people all the time

and literally none of them care,

but that was going through my head

and then I was just noticing on certain shots

and maybe this is more specific to the MPP

and the EPP turbo I haven't hit a lot of the other foam paddles

since this, but I was like, oh man,

like it is just a little harder to feel the ball

than I remembered.

But now having the contrast of using that Gen 3

for so long versus this, I could kind of see it.

And so then it made me start reflecting a little bit.

I was like, okay, why were we or myself able

to make the transition to foam so easily

and why is it so hard for other people?

And I realized, okay, we had this really slow

burn, right?

Like Genesis comes out.

We start hitting that for a while,

but we're also still hitting some polymer paddles,

but I used the Genesis for a really long time.

Then my next main after that was a J2 NF, then after that,

it was a boom stick, then after that, it was a little,

so like it was a slowly creeping into foam paddles

as they kept coming out.

So like my taste probably just kept slowly shifting,

there was probably an adjustment period,

but whatever.

And then Gen 3's, you know, we're going down

because they were coming out less.

And so I think that's why it was maybe easier

to not notice the transition,

but now having spent exhaustive time,

and then going back, I'm like, oh wow.

Okay, I get this a little bit more now.

Whether it's, you know, really matters to some people

or not, I get why there is the debate that we're seeing.

So I don't know, maybe if I brought out,

yeah, one was last time you hit a Gen 3, but...

I just dropped the deep end,

went straight into foam from Honeycomb.

I can't even remember what your transition was.

Shogun, to what though?

What was the first foam pile that I really started meaning?

But you also had like a, I mean, I had hit and tested stuff,

but not like...

I didn't like main the Genesis or anything for a while.

I'd have to really think back through it,

but I don't know.

I personally, I really don't think it's that hard

of a transition.

I think it depends on the,

this is why I think it could just be more the turbos, right?

Like maybe if I picked up, I'm just looking at the wall.

Maybe if I picked up the vatic,

maybe if I picked up the Q2, a boomstick, the vapor,

maybe if that had been the first one I went back to,

I think there are some that would probably be less hard

to transition to, but I could see where some of them

would be more difficult, just because like feel profile

is like very different, right?

And you're going from a facelose Elite X to an inferno.

I mean, those are drastically different paddles, right?

I could totally understand that being a bit of a struggle.

Yeah, but if you're going from something that's like,

I don't know, stiff and hollow, power paddle,

like thinking, thrive fury to something else, like a loco.

I don't think it's that crazy of a transition.

I don't know, we'll see.

Maybe I need to pick up my loco again.

I did just get that blue one in the mail,

so maybe I should mess with that.

Blue one's nice.

It does look nice.

I really like that color.

But yeah, I just thought that was interesting.

I feel like I had a better understanding of that

after doing that review.

So we'll see what happens when I try the other one.

No shade to Gen 3 paddles.

I still like Gen 3 paddles.

Like the facelose paddles are great.

I still like the Gen 3 paddles I like,

but I just prefer foam.

I feel like there's so many benefits of reasons

to like foam paddles.

Yeah, no, I agree with you.

I like paddles, not core crushing.

Yeah.

Next up, this was, it's already been out for a minute,

but the Spartas P1 elongated is out.

I've still heard some loose edge guard issues.

It sounds like they are maybe going to change house.

Some of that manufacturing is at least reading

my discord.

That was kind of the impression I got to address that.

But it is crazy to me.

Like, okay, it's like, so what was the issue before?

It was cores.

Chores were our biggest issue.

Where edge guards an issue?

No, there was actually a period of time.

There was the Holy Days in Pickleball

where edge guards were no longer the issue.

They used to be then they weren't.

But the cores broke.

Now we're like, here's a better core

and a longer lasting texture.

And now we're versus edge guards again.

The boomstick, the P1 is like, got day one.

Like how did we screw this up?

Going from molded handles back to like oval plastic.

Exposed polymer handles,

just like reverting back to the old days.

Yeah, bad.

So I don't know.

Hopefully you would think all of that would be like

a pretty easy thing to figure out,

but the boomstick still hasn't managed to figure it out.

And so I'm like, I don't know.

I hope it all gets figured out eventually

because it's just like dude, edge guards really,

this is our problem now.

Let us at least,

that's something easily fixable yourself

if you really want to.

No one should have to.

I get it.

Let me get there.

I know you shouldn't have to,

but your core crusher paddle, it's core crushed.

Now but you like it more because it hits harder.

Yeah, you're lame if you do that.

But you can at least fix,

I've fixed unglued edge guards myself.

I'm like, okay, I don't care.

Deal with this.

Yeah, totally.

So anyways, that's the P1 elongated.

The wide body is still not approved.

I still really want to hit the wide body.

I feel like that would probably almost instantly be my main.

But we'll see when that happens.

Next up, just wanted to talk about this paddle.

We just got this.

Oh snap.

The Franklin Arelius.

So how do you say it?

Yeah, Arelius.

Arelius?

Yeah, I Google it just to make sure.

Yeah, because I was reading it.

I was like, hmm, I'm not 100% sure on that one.

It makes sense.

So you'll notice this has an only signature on it.

This was originally going to be here signature.

I asked, I was like, hey, look, did she plan to use this?

It sounds like there's a lot of things being figured out.

There wasn't really a clear answer about whether she will or will not.

Don't know.

Personally, I don't really care.

I don't really care if Analyus is elongated.

I don't care if she uses a hybrid.

I don't care if she uses this one.

I don't think it matters.

This paddle has some very interesting things that I think a group of people are really

going to care about.

Who cares whether it's her main or not?

Doesn't really matter to me.

This happens in every sport.

What's that?

Someone gets signature whatever, maybe uses for a little bit, then use something.

I mean, it's the most common thing I've ever seen in Pickleball.

It's super common in Pickleball, but I literally all the time.

It definitely happens in other sports.

So this is essentially their tempo shape.

I do think the way I don't have the tempo right in front of me,

but I think the neck is tapered a tiny bit different.

But essentially, you might as well just consider this a tempo.

So the shape is not that different from that,

but they do have three thicknesses, whereas before on the tempo, they only had two.

There was the 16 and 14.

Now there is a 12.7 millimeter, and the Aurelius has all three of those.

So the specs on this thing were crazy.

So I went to run the specs on this, yes.

So just added to the database.

And this 12.7 millimeter, first of all, the heaviest static weight of any of the paddles

was 7.68 ounces.

That alone is already really light, whatever.

Keep going.

Who cares about that?

Then the swing weight, the highest swing weight on the 16 millimeter was 98.

The 14 millimeter, I believe, was 96.

And then this 12.7 millimeter was 92.

92 is insane.

So then I was like, you know what?

Let me filter by some of the other specs of this paddle.

So first of all, all the grips are 4.1 inches or thinner.

So if you're a lady, you have small hands.

It doesn't even matter.

You don't have to be a lady.

If you're a guy, you like small grips.

You can get it.

And then the 12.7 millimeter is 4 inches.

So even smaller, if you really want a small grip.

And then I was like, okay, this paddle also has a very short handle, which very few companies

do anymore.

I'm not personally a huge fan of that, but whatever.

I know there are people that like it, right?

It's not about me.

So 5.1 inch handle length.

So then I was like, let me filter this in my database.

5.1 inch handle length, 4.1 inch grips or conference or thinner.

And then a swing weight, not over 100.

There were only four paddles.

Three of those paddles were these.

And then the only other one was the one we talked about recently, which was the pickle

poppers.

So if you want something like that, you want a thin handle, you want a really fast paddle

in the hand.

I've only hit this, like I've only hit a couple drives with this.

So I can't give you guys a big play update.

I'll probably do that next week.

But the drives I hit with it.

I was like, I mean, the paddle still hits pretty hard for being that light.

I felt like it shouldn't hit that hard.

Like nothing.

Just got to hit it with the tree made it with the old bantam.

Wrap the whole thing and let.

I mean, you could and it would still be light.

If you did half-gamer on this whole head, I bet you the swing weight on this

12.

Oh, 100% under one tent.

Yeah, I'd be shocked if it was over one tent.

So like, I don't know, let's just say 106.

That's still crazy fast.

It is absurd.

So I grabbed a tempo.

I think the the the taper is a little bit more narrow on the Aurelius.

It's really close though.

I actually think there's more handle real estate on the Aurelius in the tempo.

That is.

God, so hard to say there.

They might as well be the same thing.

Holding it.

Yeah.

I feel less space on the tempo than I do the Aurelius.

No, I agree.

Yeah, you're right.

Like, oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Wow.

Wow.

I don't know if I'd say way more, but it's a little more.

It's a noticeable difference.

They're both a very short handle.

If you have big hands and you're expecting to drop a two-way on this thing, if I had

to choose, if I was forced, which the only way you get me playing with one of these

in a serious event is you must have a gun to my head.

Then yeah, I'm choosing the Aurelius.

Yeah.

I will say the color scheme is nice.

The white and gold is clean.

It does look really good.

It looks really good.

It looks really good.

So you basically have two options now, which is kind of nice for an ultra light

paddle that still seems to play pretty good.

You have the pickle poppers, which I've already talked about, the pink and pop, which

is just as light as this.

Then you have either the 12.7 all the way up to the 16 millimeter in the Aurelius are

all ridiculously light.

If you want that, they exist.

You have it in a Gen 3 and a Gen 4.

You don't like foam or you don't like Gen 3.

You still like honeycomb.

Pick whichever one you want.

It doesn't matter.

I'm excited to mess with these.

I have three thickness options too.

Yeah.

It's pretty uncommon.

It's really not a thing you usually only have to.

Yep.

I think like Selkirk has come out with paddles with like three thickness options.

Yeah.

Paddle is like only as two.

Yeah, it's rare.

It's pretty uncommon.

It's pretty cool.

Yeah.

So I'm definitely excited to dig into this.

But I think the main reason I was just like so excited to talk about it is I just feel

like, well, I would not recommend most people buy a paddle this light because I really

don't think it's necessary for most people.

I've just ran into enough people like we ran into a lady at lifetime.

She came up and was like, Hey, love the podcast.

She was like, Your friend, let me borrow the pickle poppers and she's like, I'm obsessed

with this paddle.

I've literally been telling all my lady friends to try this thing like she loved it.

So it's just like, it was one of those things.

I was like, Huh?

Okay.

There's definitely a demographic of people who want this, even if it's not a big demographic

and it's a demographic that doesn't have paddles built for them very often.

Right.

So yeah.

I'm excited.

Very interesting.

Gonna be fun to test it, mess around with it.

So all right.

Let's move on to our main topic here, which is our paddle recommendations.

This is probably going to take a minute to go through.

Eyes are going to be both independently made lists.

Didn't look at each other's lists.

No, sure.

There's going to be some we disagree with and some we agree on 100%.

I'm just going to let you know right now that the power category is very crowded.

Power category is going to be holding the bulk of all this.

I tried to cap it at like four or five each in each category until I got to some categories

that couldn't even get four or five.

That's crazy to me that you couldn't.

Okay.

We'll see which ones those are.

Okay.

I think it's, how do I want to do this?

I'll just say all four of mine.

Okay.

Or however many are in that category except for power because of that list will go forever.

And then maybe we can talk about some of the interesting things about like watching

what we're going to consider on some of our lists.

100%.

First one.

Control.

Here's my list.

And these are, these first two are basically the same.

I think you can pick and choose either one.

It doesn't really matter which one you want.

Volaire Mach 2 4 is a 16 millimeter or the Pickle Hurricane Pro 16 millimeter.

If you want a control paddle, wide body, go for that.

You could, if you want in elongated, the Vantage Pro also does fall into that control category.

I just remember that one being a little bit heavier.

But if you want an elongated version from Pickle, they have that.

I'm not 100% sure if Volaire still sells the Mach 1 4's.

I should have double checked that.

They probably do if they sell the Mach 2.

But those are good control options.

And then my last three were the Vatic Pro Prism.

Awesome paddle at $100 for a control paddle.

And then you have the, I said C45 10.

Oh 16 millimeter.

I imagine that's going to apply to the Aurelius 16 millimeter as well because it's basically

the same thing.

And then my last one was the 11 624 jelly bean.

Okay.

Nice.

Yeah, my list looks a little different.

Okay, I've started off first one.

So I already know you disagree, which I think is crazy.

Is the Dynasty 16 millimeter.

Franklin, that thing is such a pillow.

I've hit it next to so many other really soft paddles.

You cannot change my mind.

That is a control paddle.

I don't think it's good to have that.

You cannot change my mind.

It is a control paddle.

Next is kind of for a while, I see less of them now, but still see them pretty frequent

and often kind of the goat of control paddles, even though I don't really necessarily

agree with that.

I just see them everywhere and people love it.

The luxe.

It is a great, it's still a great control paddle.

People love that thing.

Just so expensive.

It is, it is expensive, but dude, people who like it refuse to switch anything else.

I think that's, that's a good, good one to add.

The prism was another one on my list.

That's a good one.

And yeah, I couldn't really think of that many other control paddles.

Yeah, I just not that many.

I think in general, for the really top tier control paddles, these are what I would consider

right.

Like two of those are a hundred bucks, the jelly bean and the vatic pro prism, hundred

dollars, and then C45 tempo, 229, a little more expensive.

Mach 2.4 I think is around 120 ish now.

What was the other one on your list?

Pickle Hurricane Pro.

That's it.

Yeah.

That's a really good, you know, cheaper options, great control.

It's funny actually, ever since the shift came out, I've gotten quite a few emails from

people that are like, dude, I've been rocking a Mach 2.4 for a long time.

They're like, should I buy a shift?

I'm like, just a crazy transition.

It's a pretty, pretty big upgrade in terms of like pop or power, but just feel different

if I'm like trying to, yeah, just like, I can understand going from like an old soft

gen 2 to like a thin, kind of dense phone paddle.

That'd be a tough transition for sure.

Yeah, but a lot of people still use that thing.

So yeah, that's what I would say for control.

I think they're all great options.

Probably, you know, not going to be the most popular option for most people.

I think people are more than the all-court and power category, but I don't think there's

anything wrong with the control paddles.

Like every time I bump one out, I'm like, yeah, this is still fun to use.

Yeah.

Like I brought a Mach 2.4s out before end of last year and I was like, yeah, I'm having

fun with this.

I'm just enjoying what I can do with it.

So all right, moving on to all court.

Here are my options.

So I said the 6.0 Coral, the flick F3, the Vatic Pro Saga, which is also $100 now.

I put in asterisks on the oral hybrid because I haven't hit it extensively enough to feel

really good about making the recommendation, but from the play session we did do with it,

I think for the price of very compelling all-court option, that should probably be considered,

but I just want to put that asterisks on there because I haven't put a ton of time on

there.

And then the one I was going to disagree with, the C45 dynasty.

I'm excited to see you.

But it was exciting to see you here.

And then the J2 FC Plus is what I did for all court.

Okay.

I'm pretty similar to this.

Coral, that's just kind of the standard at this, like the benchmark.

Gen 4, all court.

Yeah, just gen, sorry, geez, all court standard in my opinion.

Orra is right there next to it in my opinion.

I've hit it enough to be pretty confident about that.

Yep.

I agree with the saga.

Another, if you like Gen 3, the fever is a good all-court.

I forgot about that one.

I think that one fits in there pretty well.

Yep.

And that's kind of the all-court list for me.

I was trying to think of other ones.

Those are the only ones that I would probably recommend.

Yeah.

So I feel like you've got a really good variety right there, right?

Like if you're thinking the Gen 4s or a hybrid at like 1.29 or so,

then stepping up from there for the foam, you would have a flick F3.

I know that one hasn't really gotten talked a lot about.

I feel like he really got overshadowed by a lot of the longer

lasting texture stuff and being a little bit more expensive

compared to some of the other options you could consider.

But I do think that's a pretty compelling option.

I think the paddles nice.

And then obviously 6.0 Coral, I think, just as a Gen 4 foam paddle,

I think is really nice.

It just feels good.

That's no fuss.

Like to me, if I'm recommending a 6.0 paddle by far,

the Coral is going to be the highest recommendation.

What even be it?

I don't know.

Coral is definitely like I said, it's kind of the standard,

but the aura might be taken over.

It's placed for me.

OK.

OK.

And then for as far as, I guess J2FC plus 2, obviously,

still a really good paddle.

I think in terms of sweet spot on these,

that's probably the best sweet spot in this list.

Sneaky dark horse.

Kind of like upper, upper, all court.

You might also disagree with this.

NF.

No, I think that's fine.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like in the upper side of all court.

Yeah, I would put NF would be a good all court pick.

If you like the foam, then like stiff and hollow.

Yeah, it was a dense stiff intense.

Yeah.

That's category no one wants.

Gross.

And then I like said, well, I actually

had brought out the Vatican Procade the other day

when we were hitting some paddles.

And I was like, dang, this thing is still good for $100.

Like I think one of the things is like,

need to really revisit some of these older paddles

and be like, look, it's because older doesn't mean

it's not good anymore.

Like I know it's not the exciting thing,

but I just, I'm like, dude, if I handed a badic Procade

to like someone newer that need an all court paddle, like boom.

Every shape you can imagine, short handle, long handle,

like they have a lot of options.

Yeah.

So they kind of crushed that.

So that's the all court list.

Those are the ones I think you should consider.

And then power.

I kept mine pretty, I didn't go crazy.

I feel like, and his thing, I'm pretty sure I had to stop

in the middle of when I was working on mine.

So I feel like I'm probably missing one in this list.

There's definitely ones that I could have added,

but these are the ones that are like my top.

Like if someone's asking me,

these are gonna be my first recommendations.

Okay.

I had, I guess I'll just go through all of them

and then we can maybe talk about some of them

a little closer.

Or you just say one and then I'll tell you

if it's also on my list.

Let's just go like, come back and forth.

RPM Q2.

I wasn't on my list, but that's a solid one.

Okay.

Boomstick.

It's dropped off my list.

It would have been what it's not on my list anymore.

Okay, that's very surprising.

Okay.

Inferno.

Yep.

Enhanced turbos.

MPP or EPP.

Yep.

The logo.

Yep.

The 11624 power two series.

Not on my list.

Okay.

Spartus P1.

Yep.

Vsoul blue, or I said blue,

but I just meant the Vsoul Pro.

Yeah.

Mine.

Not on my list.

Okay.

Interesting.

And then Luzpro Cannon.

Not on my list.

What the heck are you using?

What the heck is your list?

I would be a good one.

I kept it to five.

Okay.

Dang.

You weren't crazy.

I kept my list.

There's too many good ones.

Yeah, there's a ton.

But like I said, these are gonna be my,

I mean the cannon, I can put that on there.

That is one that I do recommend people

if they wanted Gen 3.

Yeah.

That's a good one to throw on there.

Yeah.

So there's that.

Hang on, let me look at this wall.

I can explain.

I can explain mine.

The Q2 is a good one.

I mean, that would replace the boom sick.

The only reason the boom sick has kind of dropped off

is because of the durability issues.

It's price.

So it's like, it's hard to recommend.

It's a very specific recommendation.

If somebody's asking for those exact traits

and it's like, okay, you don't have many options.

You're just kind of forced into it at that point.

Yeah.

But it's not something like,

oh, I'm gonna just immediately recommend this to somebody.

I think that, I agree with everything you said.

That has been the thing that's made it tougher.

I think the only thing at this point,

if literally this one thing was removed,

I think the boom stick would drop out of like literally,

almost everyone's list.

Is if that customer service wasn't what it was?

Oh, yeah.

Because I know people who are on like their fourth, their fifth.

I think I saw two people in my discord

that said they're on their sixth boom stick replacement.

That's crazy.

This is gotta be Selkirk's least durable paddle

they've ever made.

And the only, what can you think of that was worse?

Yeah, you're probably right.

Yeah, I'm like, I can't think of anything

that was worse than this.

Yeah.

And so least durable, but people keep doing it

because you just get a paddle sent to you

and then you just shipping labeled a plus and a plus.

It's like, okay, you don't have that many other options

if this is what you really like.

I mean, now you have the Q2, but what if you're a PPA player?

Well, true.

Yeah, then you can't.

So it's, I think that's the only reason.

Literally, if customer service was any more difficult

or you had to wait to send yours in

and then send it back, boom stick would be

out of the list immediately.

So that's why it's kind of dropped off my list,

but I can explain my list.

Okay, so I don't have, I mean, the Vsoles

could probably be on there,

but the reason why I don't have say the Q2 or the Vsole

is because you've got the Q2.

In my opinion, turbo's just take over that sector.

Maybe the only reason I would add the Vsoles

is more shape options and more like standard shape options

than the turbos, but the MPP and EPP turbos

just fill that $100 foam power category so well

that I wouldn't even think about recommending other ones.

I like the turbos so much that that would be my first go

to budget power paddle.

So I'd be curious to know how you were thinking about this.

And obviously, look, the paddle list realistically,

if you're thinking anything you could possibly recommend

to a friend, it would obviously expand

because like there's lots of different nuances

you could filter by.

Right.

Plus yeah, it just goes on like, okay,

I don't just, if someone says like what paddles

would you recommend, I'm not just gonna start giving them

paddles, right?

Yeah, I'm gonna ask them like six questions first

and then that's going to filter what my answers are gonna be.

Right.

I guess I'll talk about this just really quick,

kind of an early preview of this,

but I have been completely overhauling my website,

which has been long overdue for years

because my website talks really bad.

But I have, I think I have come up with a set of questions

that if you can answer these set of questions,

can narrow your paddle options so heavily

Yeah.

That you will have a very solid recommendation list

from that.

So when the websites live, I'll have more to talk about that.

But yeah, so like, okay, so that's the turbo,

my thinking is turbos, that's the entry level,

and you don't throw the cannon in there too,

if you want honeycomb for a power paddle,

but that's my budget, you know, power paddles.

Then you go into what in my opinion are just like

the two goat power paddles for me right now.

The loco and the aura pro.

You do really like that aura pro,

I need to hit that one.

Telling you man, that thing is freaking good.

That is quickly risen to one of my favorite paddles.

I always think it's like funny,

the ones that I don't expect you to latch onto,

and then all of a sudden you're just like,

I love this thing.

I seriously have been playing so good with that paddle.

I like it works, it works.

It works.

And it's not super expensive, so that's a plus.

So those are like my two, in my opinion personally for me,

obviously preference changes a lot of things for people.

Those are my two top favorite power paddles.

Then you go into, okay, if you really want something

to longer last and grit, P1's my favorite.

I'm gonna push the P1 for that.

Then you go into other just like,

I want power power power in for no.

So that's my top five list.

That's like, that was my thought process and thinking.

Okay, gotcha.

No, I think I gotcha.

I feel like that covers a lot of the categories.

So I think if I wish my list was organized

a little bit different here.

So I think if you, I'll go probably what I would say

are the more hyper power paddles,

like top tier power paddles and then kind of go down from there

just to split these up even more

if someone's watching this and they're a little confused

by all these options.

Like, oh, why should I choose one over the other?

Boomstick and Q2, I'm gonna be honest.

I think the main from the hitting I've done so far,

the main thing I would say about those is like,

the warranty system is gonna be a lot more elite

from CellCirk if you have an issue with the paddle.

Like I said, I know people have had five replaced

and they're like, I don't even care

because the paddles at my door,

without having to ship one back.

So that's why they keep liking it.

Like, I mean, six replacements with one purchase

is kind of nuts.

I guess you just keep, who cares?

You know, it's infinite grit

because you keep infinity warranty.

Low friction.

That's why it's infinite grit.

Low friction.

Easy to don't ask the question.

Don't worry about the claim of infinite grit

if the edge guard doesn't hold up longer than the grid.

But Boomstick and the Q2 in my mind are in very similar places

except that the Q2 does offer a 14 millimeter,

which would be a little bit different.

And if you didn't like the idea of the MOI clamps,

well, Q2 doesn't have that.

It's also cheaper, but then you just don't have

as good of a warranty.

So two hyper power paddles,

then the inferno and the MPP turbo.

So far in my hitting,

I'm kind of waiting to see if the MPP turbo breaks in

and turns into more of an inferno.

But I do think they feel different.

I think they're, you know, like cousins, right?

Like you can tell, like, oh, similar family here,

but like, you hear in inferno

when it's on the core.

The MPP turbo doesn't quite have that same sound

in a little bit of a different feel.

So that's kind of what I'm feeling now right now.

But once $100 versus once like $2.29 or something.

So turbo, great cheap option.

I don't even want to say cheap.

Turbo is just a good option, affordable.

Yeah.

And then after that,

loco still think that's really good.

Yep.

I think at this point, a lot of people,

it's actually very funny.

I should do some more rock carbon fiber testing.

You know, I see a lot of like,

oh man, the grit wore off my loco.

And I'm like, I've done enough rock carbon fiber

paddles in my testing now to know that they like all seem

so far, at least the ones I've done decline

the same exact amount.

Yeah.

So I think it's funny that that one is always like,

everyone's like, oh, the grit on this one's really bad.

But then I actually got to throw another gem

through on my list just because I know people

really like honeycomb, which one?

Which one?

Which one?

The fury on there.

It's another good power paddle.

Sure.

Solid.

Then after that, going down from like the hyper power

paddles, you've got P1 and the Power 2 series.

I think really if you're choosing between those two,

it comes down to a feel thing.

Like P1, a little softer, a little denser.

The Power 2 is not a stiff or hollow as a loco,

but it's like somewhere between the P1 and the loco.

So if you wanted like kind of that in between feel,

and also that one, the grit on that,

I haven't talked about some extra numbers

that I've gotten from that,

because I'm waiting for one more final test.

But again, another person who's doing testing for me,

the grit has held a elite on that.

I'm pretty close to feeling like we can say

that is the best long-lasting grit that exists right now.

Yeah.

So that's really good and really exciting.

The only thing that I, and this is in my opinion,

a pretty big thing.

The reason why I like the P1 more is because of how it handles

grabbing the ball and spin on mid-core slower shots.

I agree.

I do think it's better.

The P1 is definitely better on that.

So much better at that specific category

than the Power 2 is not even close.

And that's such a big trait for me.

Yeah.

If a paddle can be really good at that,

it just shoots it above everything else.

Yeah, dinking with a P1 and like anything in that mid-core

is really good.

The core roll is so good.

To me, I'd still put Power 2 above most others.

Like if I was comparing it to like turbo and Ferno,

loco, I think spin is better on that.

But if you start going into that soft stuff,

like the friction type stuff, I think,

I mean, imagine if all like the pros had that type of texture,

like I'd be like, you'd start seeing some dinks

that you'd just see a lot more dink winners.

It's crazy.

I mean, with the P1, I've had probably more mid-core

and drop winners than with any other paddle.

I mean, this shape is nuts.

You can do that as long as the edge guard's still on.

Yeah.

Hey, they got guerrilla glue out there, man.