Do you recognize this guy? Daniel Lovett was a Florida wakeskater who burst on to the scene years ago with his varial flip and his wake to wake kickflip behind a pontoon boat. Even though some people wouldn’t give the kickflip credit since the wake was pretty tiny there was still no denying the guy had some skills. He even managed to land himself a part in the legendary wakeskate film by Justin Stephens, Asterisk. After that Daniel’s wakeskating career seemed to fade away.

I happened to run into Daniel a few weeks ago when I was shooting a professional MMA fighter who is a friend of mine. I asked my friend to bring someone to grapple with for the photos and that person just happened to be Mr. Lovett.

Daniel said he doesn’t wakeskate much anymore but he did a few months ago and he still had some of his old tricks. Daniel now works at the country bar, Jesse Black’s (George Daniel’s favorite hangout), and spends his free time training to be a professional MMA fighter. I wasn’t too big into wakeskating when Daniel came onto the scene but I do remember him being kind of the first guy to come out of nowhere and really prove that wakeskating was a sport that was open to anyone and not just the rich kids whose parents could afford 70,000 boats.

Of course since Daniel is now training in MMA I had to pose the question, “Would you be willing to take on Rusty? He’s all about this stuff.” Daniel seemed pretty excited about the possibility saying, “He’s a pretty big guy, but man I’d really like that.” Be on the lookout for the match up, Rusty said he is down and we are going to make this happen.