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- Not a lot of people even thought we'd make it to 25.

- We've done a lot of stupid

and reckless things in our lives,

but I guess that's just a part of growing up.

This is our story.

(upbeat music)

- [Narrator] The magnificent Pacific Ocean.

It's not surprising that so many Australians

decide to live by it's shores.

One of Sydney's most popular city beaches

is Maroubra.

Like most places in Sydney,

cost of living in these kind of areas

has gone up significantly.

But things were a lot different 20 years ago.

Surfing World magazine described that

the only way to survive there was to

outrage, out surf, outplay, and out drink the other guy,

even if it ruined your life.

(upbeat music)

But none of that mattered as kids growing up in Maroubra.

It was all about the beach, the waves,

and the mates who rode them beside you.

Mark Matthews and Richie Vaculik were two such kids.

- [Mark] Rich and I have been best mates

for as long as I can remember.

He's two years younger than me,

but he was never scared of anything.

Because it was so small, he was always getting picked on.

And I guess the fact that he was the biggest smart ass

in Maroubra, didn't help him.

- [Richie] I always used to rely on my speed

and my smart ass mouth to fight my battles.

- Look who it is, the local midget.

- Look who it is, the local pumpkin head.

- What you say, little smart ass?

- Ow, get off!

Oi!

Didn't even hurt, you bunch of girls!

- [Richie] But now I guess a little bit has changed.

I always looked up to Mark as an older brother,

even though he was such a wuss in the surf.

- [Mark] I was absolutely petrified.

I don't know what it was.

I mean, the waves, they weren't even that big,

but it was just that feeling

of getting rolled around under water.

I'd always paddle out the back,

but the thing was once I was out there,

I was stuck because I was too scared to turn around

and catch a wave and get back to shore.

That would be where my mom would have to swim out

and get me, and that age is pretty much

the most embarrassing thing that can happen for you.

I guess it was that mentality of just making yourself

do what the other guy was too scared to do.

Stuck with me over the years.

Eventually I got over my childhood fears.

(intense music)

I felt pins and needles coming down my back.

I was like, oh God what have I done?

- [Richie's Mother] The thought of losing him,

to go to jail, I couldn't cope with it.

I wasn't sure he could cope with it.

- [Richie] A whole corner of my face was just hanging off.

- I thought he was going to break his arm for sure,

cause it didn't look like Rich was going to tap.

(intense music)

(light music)

- [Mark] No, I had a great upbringing.

My whole family surfed.

My dad's still calls me Nev,

after the first surfboard he bought me.

I was a young one when my parents split.

And when they did split,

I moved down the beach with my mom.

And from that point on, I just spent every day in the surf.

And that's when I met Richie.

He just happened to be going through

the exact same thing with his parents.

(upbeat music)

- [Richie] My dad is from the Czech Republic, he moved out

to Australia as a political refugee in the 70's.

And that's where he met my mom,

who was from Manchester, England.

They met in Sydney and they got married

and they started a family.

And that's where myself and my sister grew up.

At a young age, when I was 10, my parents split.

My dad, he was a bro by trade,

so he obviously loved to drink.

But you know,

often when he did he'd get an argument with my mom.

As a kid growing up, seeing your parents argue

when you know they've too much to drink,

it was a pretty upsetting.

And, it kind of sticks with you too,

even though it never got violent or anything like that,

it's just the constant arguments and stuff.

Now it was really sorta, you know,

sucked as a kid to watch that.

I continued to live with my mum,

but my dad moved into an apartment at Maroubra Beach.

I guess in some way,

this kind of eased the pain of my parents splitting

because I now had a house at the beach

where I could leave my board,

and I had every excuse now just to spend all my time

at the beach with my friends.

- [Mark] It was probably like though we didn't realise it

when we were that young, but you know,

we had that sort of similar situation going on that probably

brought us a bit closer together.

- [Richie] I think there was a surf contest down the beach,

also a skate contest, and the surf shop put on a

pie eating contest.

- [Mark] Australian pie is just like boiling hot

and to try and eat it fast, is just ridiculous.

(eccentric music)

Oh, he's always putting a show on for everyone,

regardless of what he was doing.

He could have everyone in stitches

and that's what everyone wanted to see

and everyone would egg him on,

and just like create this little monster.

- [Richie] Mark was never shy or a bit quieter than myself.

- [Mark] Other kids they're watching the heroes on TV,

but for us, we were growing up with our heroes.

It was that much more powerful,

we were trying to impress our heroes

who are right there with us.

The older boys were making a lving out of surfing big waves.

Everyone saw the boys as being fearless

in and out of the water.

We didn't know at the time, but we were growing up with,

you know, older surfers that were pretty much

the craziest surfers in the world,

and it felt normal to us because we'd been trying

to keep up with guys that were going anything.

Like if someone said to you,

you know, you won't do it,

I'll bet you, you couldn't do it.

You'd just do it to prove them wrong.

That was like our motto growing up, is like...

- You won't.

- ...you won't.

So you do it in the surf like the biggest wave

of the day would come through then.

- Just screaming in colour, you won't!

- Yeah and I just look at Rich like, he won't go this route.

Just swing around and take off on it,

regardless of the fact if it's possible

to ride the wave or not.

When I was around 17 to 18 and I finished school

and had the dream of becoming a professional surfer,

I thought it was possible.

And I started working towards it, you know,

just working in bars and saving money to do trips.

- [Richie] Down the beach at Maroubra, I mean,

there's a lot of the older guys that are carpetlayers.

So when you're a kid and you just want to day's work,

it wasn't hard to pick up a day's work playing carpenter.

That's just what happened after high school

and I started to learn how to do the trade

and did it for six or seven years.

And I was just trying to save my money

so we can do trips away and chase those swells

that Mark was watching on the maps.

- [Mark] I knew straight away that I wasn't going to be

the next Kelly Slater and win world titles.

But I figured out that by being able to forecast

where the biggest waves were going to be around the country,

I could be the one in the right spot at the right time

and possibly make a career out of surfing that way.

And that's when I came across this wave in Tasmania,

I'd never seen anything like it in my life.

And at that point in time,

no one in the whole surf industry

had seen a wave like that before.

(upbeat techno music)

- [Narrator] The break presented huge challenges,

most particularly the infamous double step.

The huge volume of water aggressively builds up

and suddenly collides on a reef so shallow

that in anyone's language, it's a recipe for disaster.

- [Mark] You know at the time we surfed

some of the biggest barrels ever surfed,

it gave us international exposure.

I mean it was after that happened,

that I really believed that I could

make a career out of this.

I wanted to make sure Richie had a shot at it as well,

instead of, you know, having to lay carpet five days a week.

It's so often we'll chase a swell somewhere

and it just won't be good,

and we'd come back home and then straight away

the following week, another swell would pop up.

And you know, Richie would've spent all his money

he had saved chasing that first swell,

and you get nothing out of it.

You just don't have the heart to see your best mate

not be able to go and get the waves on the following swell

just because you didn't have the money to.

- It did drive me of course, you know,

cause I wanted to be there.

We didn't want to be jumping on the plane,

but at the time I used to go down like box of nails.

- [Mark] I just wanted him there with me.

If I was going to score pumps and waves,

it was nothing for me to be able to pay for him

to go chase that next one, cause he's a hard worker.

There's no way he's not going to pay me back.

- [Richie] Pretty lucky to have Mark in my life,

it helps ya to try and chase your dreams and stuff.

(rap mix music)

- [Narrator] As a result of Mark's help

and a mutual dedication, Richie started to get some

of the respect he was looking for.

- We surfed as hard as we could

and we also partied probably harder.

And the difference between me and Rich is,

I kept my clothes on and he didn't.

- It goes back to the old, "You won't get nude!"

And cause as soon as I hear that, I was like,

"Yeah, well watch this!"

I was not the only one getting nude.

- There were plenty occasions where you were

the only one getting nude.

- Yeah, yeah, special occasions.

- I can remember the time Rich at a music festival,

decided to climb a hundred foot light tower

in the nude in front of about 30,000 people.

The whole crowd turned around and watched him.

And he just put on a show for everyone.

There was the security guards and police everywhere,

waiting at the bottom for him.

But he somehow managed to evade all the cops

and the security guards and vanish off into the crowd.

- [Narrator] At the height of his partying days,

Richie met a beautiful young girl called Lucy.

- The first time I met Rich,

I was at a friend's party at her house.

And I pretty much didn't know most people there.

- Called a mate, knew most of the people are partying,

then I saw Lucy.

I was like, "Oh, who's that?"

- This little guy with this big head of curls,

just came up and started chatting away.

- I just remember sort of making my way over

and she was wearing this little top,

it said, Ballerina Baby.

First thing I said was, "Hey Ballerina Babe."

That's what I'd like to think,

I was just great while I was sitting on top.

- And what I loved about him the first time that I met him

was just, he was so charismatic, and he was really funny.

- I took her out to the movies and stuff and asked her out.

And at a bar and just said...

- "I want to go out with you" and he couldn't get it out.

- Yeah, I want to get out then.

No, no silly business.

- I was like, yes.

And he was like, oh!

And we both kissed and it was a pretty cute time.

Looking back on it, it was really, really lovely.

- [Mark] One of Lucy's neighbours had told her mum

that Richie was actually hanging out with

a bad group of guys and she made it really clear

that she didn't want anything going on

between Rich and Lucy.

Particularly because Lucy was only 16 at the time.

- And I think they always had the idea that she was going to

meet a nice little Italian Catholic boy,

but no, obviously she didn't and she chose me.

- [Mark] We were definitely egging him on,

but Rich just couldn't help being the life of the party.

We could all tell it was really starting to embarrass Lucy.

- [Narrator] At the same time,

Richie's recognition for surfing

and his love for Lucy had another rival.

The martial art of Brazilian Jujitsu had come to Australia

and Richie quickly became addicted.

He surprised himself by winning tournament's from the start.

The next logical challenge was mixed martial arts.

Because of the UFC frenzy in America,

MMA was spreading like wildfire in Australia.

- [Richie] Mixed martial arts or MMA as we all know it,

is simply that it's a mix of all the martial arts out there.

This all takes place in an octagon.

Most bouts are three, five minute rounds.

Can win by submission, whether your opponent taps,

knock out, or win on points.

- [Narrator] Every aspect of the sport appealed to Richie.

It should be said that it also fed

the adrenaline junkie in him.

- [Richie] I started getting really excited

to have my first fight.

I was fighting a local guy, he'd been unbeaten.

I didn't really know much about it,

all I knew was my limited experience in boxing,

in the backyard and the jitsu I'd been doing.

I was nervous and excited,

and like, you know, really eager at the same time.

And the feeling of the whole day that I'm walking into

the cage and that whole buzz is pretty amazing.

And I wasn't sure how I was going to react my first fight.

I didn't know if when the bell went,

if I'd freeze or get really nervous and not doing anything,

(crowd cheering)

- [Announcer] And we have a knock out!

- [Richie] Like I never pictured like winning that fight

the way I did and sort of surprised myself

by winning by knockout.

Yeah, that feeling was definitely addictive

and I just wanted to stick at it and do more of it.

I was pretty keen to get back in there and have another one,

and that one had been down in Sydney.

And I won that one as well when I went into submission

and I'm pretty chuffed for myself.

- [Narrator] Although Richie had found a new sporting high,

the Maroubra surf culture that had created

Mark and Richie's dreams, now started to destroy them.

- [Mark] That aggressive never backed down mentality

that we'd grown up around,

was actually giving us the careers

we had dreamed of as kids.

But we thought that to get the respect from the older guys,

we had to be like that out of the water as well.

So instead of trying to our surf our mate's,

we wanted to out drink, out party, and out fight them.

And when you mix that aggressive mentality with

alcohol, partying, and fighting,

it's not hard to guess what comes next.

(rock music)

- [Richie] I remember coming out of the nightclub blind,

drunk, I walked over and ended up getting in a huge punch up

with a bunch of guys, the police came in to break it up.

We sort of all fell to the ground.

Police officer had jumped on top of me.

So I just continued to fight him

thinking it was the other guy,

and in the midst of a big fight

I put my thumb as far as would go into the guy's eye socket.

I'd been charged with assault,

actually causing bodily harm on a uniform police officer.

I woke up that next morning.

And the first thing that I did

was head straight to the police station,

and I found the officer that I had

assaulted the night before, and I apologise to him.

You know, I was worried about, you know,

going to jail for doing what I did, but I seriously,

I honestly felt bad about what I'd done

because you know, I'd almost blinded a guy that,

you know, I didn't even know.

And I had nothing against and you know,

he had nothing against me, he was just there doing his job.

And, you know, to think that I came that close to blinding

someone like whether it was the guy I was in the fight with

over a stupid argument or the police officer,

like, you know, either of them didn't deserve to be blinded.

And you know, it's a scary thought that I came that close

to actually doing that to someone.

Six months down the track when I was in court

and I was facing, you know, a long jail sentence

if I was found guilty.

That moment was the scariest thing I've ever been through.

The police prosecutor had handed in their witness statements

late and they got thrown out of court.

And for that reason now I was found not guilty.

And you know, it was just so lucky.

You know, I promised myself I'd never put myself

in that situation again.

But I was young and stupid, and you know,

a month down the track, I got blind drunk all over again.

And I ended up in more trouble.

(indistinct party chatter)

(glass shatters)

The whole corner of my face is just like hanging off,

like I have my head down and it was just hanging out.

And when I went like this, I put my hand

like on the inside of it, it just made me feel sick.

They put me in an ambulance

and they took me out to the hospital.

- Just been in hospital, we've got 70 stitches.

Doctor said I was pretty lucky I didn't lose

my eye or anything.

Yeah, they had to get like a plastic surgery in

and fix off a few arteries that have been cut

and spraying blood.

It's not too bad, you know.

Yeah, we're fucking surfing again in a couple of weeks,

just have a fucking rough head for the rest of me life.

What can you do, you know, if someone's fucking

doing that to your girl and yeah,

trying to fight your cousin, you know,

and fucking just standing there letting them do it, are ya?

You gotta do something.

I don't know, I was real angry after that happened

for a long time, like all I wanted to do was

get the guy back.

If he had been in front of me and that his first week

or two, I don't know what I would have done.

Like I could have ended up killing him, I was that angry.

- Pretty keen on doing whatever had to be done, you know,

I'd like to, to try and get the guy back.

And at that age, that's all you want to do.

Now if someone, yeah, like glasses your friend,

you want to get them back.

- [Richie] I spoke to my mom about it

and I started to learn I didn't need any of this stuff

before this incident, and then this happened

and she goes like,

"This is where you can make a change in your life.

You know, you can let your mates go after the guy,

but you've got no control over that situation.

What happens if they go and beat him up,

and one of your mates ends up killing him

or ends up in jail for doing it.

You want that on your head?"

I thought about it,

in the end I would rather just let it go, you know.

Looking back on it now, I can see how stupid

and dangerous what I was doing was.

But when you're young, all you want to do is impress,

you know, the older guys and your friends around you.

I didn't realise that, you know,

I didn't have to do it that way.

I mean, if you have to test yourself

and your skills as a fighter,

and you want to prove to everyone that

that's what you're good at it,

then the only place to do that is in a ring against someone

who wants to fight you as well.

- I was a little bit shocked too like,

to see Mark react that way and actually think,

think the whole matter through so well and yeah,

and come up with it.

- You know, I'd learned from my mistakes.

And I could see Rich going through the exact same stuff

and it was only going to lead, you know,

one place and it was going to get him in a lot of trouble.

- There was hopes that my mates were going out partying

and you know, drugs were going around

and I wasn't a fan of the drug side.

But the odds I'd find myself getting super drunk instead,

you know, and I'm just trying to sort of keep up

with everyone and then just make a mess of myself, so.

- I'd always used to say to him, look,

babe I don't like you doing this.

- You know, she put out enough of me going out

and carrying on the way I was.

And you know, also embarrassing myself,

which obviously embarrassed her

and just things like that, you know.

- By the end of it, it started to get really tiresome

and it put a strain on the relationship.

- It's nice to have a good time but all in moderation

where I obviously try to do it,

you know, not in moderation.

- I don't think I could keep up with him, he was just,

just was one of those just really nutty people.

- I've got no one to blame himself, really, carrying on.

(sad music)

- The way things ended, it was quite amicable.

We both knew it wasn't working and it was almost that

we were growing apart.

- Commitment was a definite thing, you know what I mean?

Like at that age, I mean, I think it is for everyone.

I was too young to be in a serious relationship

and I just didn't know how to handle it, you know?

I didn't know I was worried about committing

or anything like that, I didn't know what it was.

I just, you know, I learned you learn on that later,

I guess.

- [Mark] I was definitely worried that without Lucy,

Rich would go way more off the rails than what he was.

To get even wilder can end up dangerous.

- [Richie] On the weekends, I'd always be out partying,

but I never missed a training sessions through the week.

And I knew it wasn't a good mix.

I knew if I was to take it serious, things have to change.

But at that time I just had two wins

and I was really confident.

And I was just really looking forward to my third fight.

- [Sports Announcer] And Richie Vas in the black shorts.

Both young men and plenty of feeling in this one, prefight.

(crowd cheers)

- [Narrator] He wins in a record, 12 seconds,

and people start to take notice.

His personality makes him a crowd favourite

and he starts winning fans.

(crowd cheering)

A few weeks later,

he goes back to Queensland for a rematch

with his first opponent,

who had gone on to win several fights, undefeated.

Another win keeps his record at an impressive

four straight wins with no losses,

promoters start to see him as a draw card.

- [Richie] I won four in a row and people were saying,

"Oh, he's just a surfer, he's not a real MMA fighter,

he was just giving this MMA thing a go."

You know what I mean?

And at the start, part of that was true.

Obviously the more I got involved in it,

the more serious about it I got.

There's a little bit of buzz around it though,

that easy surfer kid out there doing pretty good at MMA.

And more opportunities presented themselves.

All of a sudden the opportunity to fight for

World Title came about,

and I was stoked and I was still kind of new to the sport.

You know, only after four fights to have that

kind of opportunity put in front of me,

it was, it was amazing.

So that definitely got the motivation to really step back

and think about the sport and how far I wanted to take it

and I wanted to really pursue it.

- [Narrator] But just when the world title fight

was within his grasp, his partying ways finally catch up

and his whole world comes crashing to a halt.

(intense music)

8th of January, 2008.

Richie's mother was greeted with four detectives

at her front door.

Richie was wanted for an incident that had occurred

a few months earlier in Queensland.

It was the day of professional surfer, Mick Fanning's

first world title celebration on the gold coast.

It had been a terrific win and Rich was proud for his friend

as were thousands of his other fans and fellow surfers.

- [Richie] That night, we all fall into a pub

and the night led on and everyone was pretty much

in good spirits and, you know, we were getting pretty drunk.

And ended up just being your typical bar arguments.

The arguments started inside the pub and moved outside.

I went outside the pub by myself,

and there's a bunch of other guys who was arguing with them.

That's where the fight started.

And I got pretty dusted up at the start of the fight.

And before long, my friends who were there with me,

came out to help me out the tender we were brawling.

And I ended up just getting back to my feet

and ended up punching a guy who was there

and amongst the brawl.

(dramatic music)

I know a huge part of why I was sitting there in that cell

was because of how drunk I'd got myself that night.

And the last thing I want to do is go out and get that drunk

and get into fights where people get hurt.

And not only that,

I drag my whole family through it as well,

which you know, I'm pretty shamed of.

It took that situation for me to realise

which way I was heading.

If I get the opportunity, I just want to show my family,

my friends, and just everyone,

just how sorry I am about all this.

And it's going to be a long,

nervous wait until it's all over.

- [Newscaster] Arriving from Sidney,

handcuffed and escorted by police,

bra boy, Richard Vas, on his way to a Gold Coast Court.

- Is there anything you'd like to say to the victim?

- [Mark] I remember seeing Rich on the news in handcuffs

and it just freaked me out, your heart just sinks.

Like I wanted to know exactly what had happened, you know,

what kind of trouble was he in?

If he was gonna be all right, you know,

I was trying to ring him,

but obviously he didn't have his phone on.

And I knew it was going to happen,

it was only a matter of time,

the way he was carrying on.

You know, you feel bad that maybe we could have

done something more to stop it from happening.

And then, you know, it was too late now.

He was, you know, he was in that trouble.

- I was actually in bed watching TV one afternoon

and I couldn't believe that what I saw.

My first reaction was like,

oh my gosh, what have you done?

- She knew my mom would be pretty upset,

so Lucy gave my mom a call and just to see how things were

and just to see how I was.

- [Narrator] Richie turned up for his hearing

and was granted bail.

But he had to remain living with his mother,

hand in his passport, and report to the local police station

once a week until the court case was over.

He even had to get special permission from the police

if he wanted to go on any surf trips outside of Sydney.

- In the middle of Richie's court case, he was just so down.

I mean, I can tell how much he regretted what he had done

and the position he was in.

At that time I just wanted to help him.

I just wanted to get him away from it all

and, you know, get him back in the water

and take him surfing.

It just so happened a huge swell popped up at Sheep Stones.

And we were lucky because the only place he could travel

to was locally, he couldn't travel internationally.

- No, I didn't really want to go to be honest.

When Mark came and grabbed me that day, I was like,

you know, we're going to Tasy this afternoon

and just dealing with court,

and knowing I had to sort of ring my lawyer and say,

"Look, I'm going to go to Tasmania."

And I wasn't too excited on going

but Mark was pretty persistent on saying

it's gonna be big, it's gonna be popping,

let's go, let's go.

- You know, that was just the perfect thing

to get his mind off what was going on

and keep him fit and focused.

(upbeat music)

That swell that we went on to surf, shift plans,

but just so happened that it was on the anniversary

of Steve-O, one of Australia's biggest icons, death.

And we wanted to do something special to mark that day.

And one of our good mates brought along

a huge blowup croc, and he had the idea to get a huge barrel

with the crocodile, just to pay tribute to everything

he'd done for Australia,

everything he'd done for wildlife around the world.

- [Richie] We just loved his character too,

the way he was such a great ambassador for Australia.

You know, as he said, he loves surfing, he loved MMA.

(intense upbeat music)

So unexpected and sad to see him go.

So I'm sure he would have been looking down

and having a laugh, as you know,

going, "Look at these idiots."

- I decided to put a helmet with a camera on it,

to get us some point of view footage,

to show what we get to see when we're pulling into

a big barrel of ship stones.

Just got absolutely smashed.

I don't remember anything about the wave,

but going back and looking at the footage,

the wave is like a second wave of the set

and it was all just white wash and bumpy.

Even though it wasn't a big wave on the day,

I think it would have been pretty shallow at the time.

I've rolled up in the lip and the lips pushed me

into the reef at a hundred miles an hour,

and that's what's knocked me unconscious

and busted my helmet.

The first thing I remember,

and I can still see this picture pretty vividly

was regaining consciousness under water.

And I had no idea where I was, but everything was so silent.

(water rushing)

Looking up and all I could see was the surface of the water

and the sun coming through all the turbulence

and the whitewash.

I was sitting there for like 10 or 20 seconds.

It was like I was floating in the middle of nowhere.

The buoyancy belt I had on was just slightly bringing me

to the surface, I didn't even know what was happening.

I was just like flying towards the surface of the water.

As soon as I broke the surface of the water,

it was like the pain from the injury just hit.

Right at that point, I just had the sharpest

pain in my neck, the back of my head.

And I felt pins and needles coming down my arms

and down my back.

I was like, oh God, what have I done?

But luckily enough, I had that helmet on because without it,

I'm pretty sure I would've died.

- [Richie] Oh, I was really scared.

Terrifying seeing your mate down there, unable to move.

And there we were in the middle of the no where,

and I was just thinking I could get home and go to court

and if things weren't to go my way, I could be behind bars.

And with Mark looking the way he was,

and that was every chance that Mark

wasn't going to be able surf again as well.

So things couldn't have got any worse for us at that point,

both myself and Mark.

Such a great day to just pretty much

the lowest point I've ever been in.

It was just nonstop, playing over in my head

that I'd broken my neck,

I was never going to be able to surf again,

my career is over.

What am I going to do if I can't surf?

Saying to myself, that's it,

I'm never surfing big waves again.

- [Narrator] After seeing the footage of the wipe out

and the damage caused to his helmet,

the doctor told mark, it was a miracle he didn't sustain

permanent spinal injuries.

What happened was the disc had collapsed on the nerves,

which made Mark believe he had broken his neck.

- [Mark] The physical rehab was going to be long,

but that was bearable.

What I wasn't prepared for was what the accident

had done to me psychologically.

As soon as it became real, that I was about to

surf the waves again, that's when I started just having

the craziest nightmares.

Nightmares about drowning,

about breaking my neck, about it happening all over again,

ending up in a wheelchair, leading up to that first swell.

In my head I'd already wiped out a hundred times a day,

even before I'd even put a foot in the water.

It was just exhausting.

(intense water rushing)

I'd gotten over all those fears of surfing big waves

when I was a young kid.

And then it was like that injury just brought it all back

and it was like, it brought it into a new light,

like just how dangerous what I was doing, was.

I'm not invincible and it completely wrecked my confidence.

I tried everything, no matter what I did,

the confidence wasn't coming back.

- [Narrator] Mark's in-ability to overcome his fears

affected his profile and all of his sponsorships.

His contract came to an end

and he started to fall off the radar.

- [Richie] It's almost like looking at a pause button

and it just hit on our lives.

To see him now question himself a little bit

and confidence or motivation drop, it definitely just

rubbed off on me as well.

- [Mark] Before he went up for that final day of court,

I just wished him all the best and just said

it's going to be over soon,

you can put all this behind ya after this day.

And then when he went up there,

I was just worried about which way it's going to swing.

And you just want to know,

you just want to know that it's all going to be good

and we can go back to chasing what we were chasing.

- I'm just glad to see the end

of eight months, it's just gone on a long time.

I've just got a knot in my stomach

and I'm not looking forward to going into that court.

- Better walk down to court now,

get there and then I guess within a couple of hours,

hopefully we'll have a result.

We're nervous but hopefully it goes our way.

- The thought of losing him to go to jail, you know,

to go into jail for however long,

even for a week was really upsetting.

I didn't didn't want it to happen.

And I didn't know if he could cope with it.

I couldn't cope with it.

I wasn't sure he could cope with it.

- Basically, we went in the courts

and the judge saw the night and the case,

and everything that was put forward for what it was.

And the victim had admitted to drinking all night,

being with his friends, and he said he wasn't a part of the

brawl, but his friends were, and he was witnessing it.

He also admitted to watching myself get kicked

in the face when I was on the ground.

And then he basically said I got up

and then came at him and assaulted him.

- That moment when he came back and he was about to give

that verdict, I was holding my breath because I was scared.

I was really scared.

And I can't, I can't describe it, I'm sorry,

I was just so scared.

- We're all out there on the drink

and brawl erupted, and we all carried on like a bunch

of idiots and they agreed that, you know,

I was in the wrong for hitting the guy,

but under the circumstances,

he thought it was fair to record no conviction.

Which, you know, end of the day,

that means there was nothing recorded against my name.

It wouldn't stop me from travelling overseas

and for sharing my surfing or fighting career.

- It was like, it was,

I just wanted to jump up in there and shout.

- My mom, more so than anybody,

has been torn up over all of this, to see a smile

and realise this is all finished and is over,

is just the best feeling.

Just really looking forward to putting it all behind us

and just getting on with life.

- Rich came back from that last day in court,

and there was just like a spark in his eyes.

Like he was real excited to go out and surf.

And at the time I was still terrified

of surfing anything real big,

but his excitement of what a chase this was,

just rubbed off on me.

My mom's really spiritual

and she's into a lot of meditation.

And I remember reading a book that she had,

that she'd given me years ago

that I'd never bothered to pick up.

For some reason, I just picked it up at that time,

and it was pretty much life changing.

The book was all about a technique by questioning

your thoughts when they come into your head,

you're able to detach from that thought emotionally.

Like for me, the emotional component was fear.

The thought came in my head that I was going to wipe out

in this next swell.

I was going to break my neck.

I was going to drown or something bad was going to happen.

The technique was to question my thoughts

and ask yourself three questions.

The first question you ask yourself is,

is that thought true?

I can't know definitely that that's going to happen

in the future, so no that thought in my head, it's not true.

The second question is,

how does that thought make you feel?

It made me feel terrible,

made me anxious, made me lose my confidence.

Made me not want to go and surf.

And then the final question,

this is where the magic happens.

Who would you be without that thought?

Let the thought go, don't think about it.

And straight away, when you stop thinking about it,

that's when you realise that without that thought,

my body just felt relaxed

and I straight away felt confident.

And I started to become excited to surf big waves again.

- [Narrator] The two boys set themselves a mission

to be at the top of their game.

With Marks eye on the biggest wave of the year prize,

at the Oakley Big Wave Awards.

(upbeat music)

- Mark Matthews is crazy.

- Oh, I consider them, yeah,

definitely top five hell men.

Big, gnarly, whatever shit that people look at.

I've looked at a lot of his photos and just went,

"I don't want nothing to do with it. It's crazy."

- Mark Matthews has ridden the wave of his life

at the Monster Energy Pro in Hawaii.

The 24 year old Sydney Sada threading the thrilling

five metre tubes of the Banzai pipeline,

to score himself a perfect 10 points.

His incredible tube already being described

as one of the all time great north shore rides.

- You know, everything I see from him is just

charging into something big and mutant.

And it's a pretty specialised field that does that.

You know, there's a lot of guys who will just go

and charge big waves, but then there's guys who can

surf good too and surf big waves in small ways.

And I think Mark's pretty high on that totem pole.

- Richie, this crazy little brute.

- I don't think he has 'no', he needs vocabulary you know,

he just, he just goes for it.

Some of the things that I've seen him go,

and I'll be pulling up marlins for sure

on some of those waves, he goes for it, man.

- Fuck, he's crazy.

He has balls, big balls.

And you know, he might not be the best surfer

in the world, but he sure will fucking,

he'll go, he'll go on anything.

- [Mark] We were like two little kids at Christmas time.

We were chasing every swell that popped up, you know.

We were having more fun than we'd ever had.

And in-between swells we were just doing all kinds of crazy,

training to help prepare ourselves for every swell

that was going to pop up that year.

Just trying to push each other, you know.

I just wanted to get stronger and fitter and more confident.

(upbeat music)

- [Richie] Enthusiasm was definitely back.

And we were both pretty keen to make up for lost time,

I guess, and push a bit harder to try

and reach what we were trying to do.

- [Mark] I couldn't get another sponsor straight away.

And I just knew I had to maintain that level of exposure.

I got all my savings together

and I spent that year chasing waves as hard as I could.

I had to keep believing that by the end of the year,

I was going to find another sponsor.

- [Narrator] After 12 months,

both Mark and Richie gain substantial exposure

in the surf media.

And Mark surfed some of the biggest waves he'd surfed

to date, including this 20 foot plus wall of water,

which was recorded as the biggest wave

ridden in Australia for the year.

(indistinct announcer)

(crowd cheering)

- [Mark] You know, I got to the final amount of dollars

in my savings, that won me that award.

With Richie's help and with some hard training,

I managed to turn around and by the end of the year,

I'd turned a year that was the worst year of my life,

into one of the best that led straight into

a three year deal with O' Neill.

And I was just like gone from rock bottom

to being back on top.

I was on the road all year that year,

which pretty much ruined my relationship.

It made it really hard to travel.

It made it hard to leave home because, you know,

you didn't want to leave them behind.

It was really hard for her too if I was always on the road.

I was so focused at the time,

almost to the point of being selfish,

but I knew I had to be like that, to have that career.

She was always second to surfing.

I was pretty heartbroken when I broke up with my girlfriend

and it was pretty hard to take at the time.

- [Richie] When we were kids,

he didn't really sort of talk too much

about his parents splitting,

he keeps all that kind of personal stuff,

pretty close to a chest.

And it was the same when he broke up with his girlfriend,

he's not the kind of guy to chew your ear off about

his personal problems.

He just gets on with them

and deals with them in his own way,

as quite a long relationship that came to an end.

And so I'm sure he was affected by it.

You know, I know that I wasn't when Lucy broke up

after a few years.

- [Mark] As sad as I was when we broke up,

I just tried to use that and turn it into a positive

in the fact that now had absolutely nothing

to be at home for.

None of my family live here in Sydney, where I live,

I didn't have family to come back here to see.

So it's kind of like, I'd rather be on the road.

- The breakup and the end of the relationship

did reflect in his surfing,

to sort of push him to a another level.

It's a very fine line between doing something

recklessly dangerous and doing something dangerous,

but calculated.

And Mark was pretty good at doing the most dangerous things,

but calculated and often came off with

surfing the biggest wave of the day.

Well, I don't think it will come as a mega surprise

to know the biggest slab winner for this year

is Mark Matthews.

- [Richie] I was just so happy to see Mark win that award.

And it just proved to everyone his confidence was back.

And on top of that,

I was given the opportunity to fight

for the COC world banner weight title in a few months.

And now with the title on the line,

I just totally focused on putting all my energy in the gym

and getting ready for that title fight.

(hiphop music)

- [Narrator] Mark was well and truly starting to cement

his name in the world of big wave surfing.

But he felt he needed to push the envelope even further.

So he decides to spend the whole winter swell season

in Hawaii.

Richie accompanies Mark to use the trip to further

his preparations for his upcoming fight,

with the opportunity to train

with some world-class fighters.

- How is it out there?

It looks pretty gnarly.

Mark Matthews called me the other morning,

"Hey, hey Kala! I'm fucking at the airport! I'm coming in!"

I like Martin, I like surfing with him.

He wants it, if it's big, you gotta want it

because if you don't want it, you don't belong out there.

(hiphop music)

- Change of environment, change of training partners,

and trainers, just that short period of time

it can really just reenergize you,

and get you really excited about getting back to your home

and training with all your trainers.

(hiphop music)

- Richie's good, he's strong, little guy,

and you surf those big waves, you're not afraid of any man.

Right?

(hiphop music)

- A lot of strength conditioning work and showed me

a whole bunch of stuff I hadn't seen before.

And it was really good to have a fresh approach on training.

(hiphop music)

- [Mark] When Rich heard that he was going to be training

with BJ Penn, you could just see how excited it made him.

And I guess it would be the exact same thing for me

to be able to go surfing with Kelly Slater.

That's what it was like for him to train with BJ.

- BJ is one of my all time favourite fighters

as he's not bothered about getting in the ring

with anyone, he's gone up in weight categories

and fought guys much bigger than him, which I now admire.

And he's just such a great fighter watch.

So it's nice to meet him and have the chance

to train with him, it was great.

- I definitely think MMA is a good outlet for kids

because it teaches them discipline,

but it's not like trying to hammer discipline on them,

you know, but as, as time goes on, they start to realise,

you know, with great power comes great responsibility

and raise their self-confidence, give them comradery

with their training partners.

And it's really just a positive thing

for the youth everywhere.

- It's great to see their training

and what level they're at.

But to meet him and realise, yeah, that he's just,

he's a cool guy and just normal bloke.

And he's just like anyone else.

He just chose to dig deep and makes you realise it's all

possible, and if you want it, you can have it.

(upbeat rock music)

- So one minute, one minute, and then we'll just do

probably about six minutes.

The guy might be real tired after three minutes,

but I'll keep switching them.

Life is about second chances, that's the mark of a man.

Everybody can be happy and smiling and happy go lucky

when everything's going well.

But when things go bad, you can either give up

and stay down or get back up to your feet.

It's a tough world out there, it's a dangerous world,

but you know, you got to keep fighting

and you got to keep going, man.

We all have had our trials and tribulations throughout

our lives, and you just can't stop.

You gotta move forward.

- I'd gone from rock bottom

to being back on top of the world.

And Rich was doing well with his fighting.

And we just wanted to keep the ball rolling,

but there was always just one thing eating away at me.

Since the injury, I'd never been back to

surf the ships stones.

And it was like, no matter what I did,

what awards I was winning, or what big waves I was riding.

It was like ship stones had got the better on me.

I had to get over that fear completely.

You know, I had to go back down to ship stones and surf.

- [Narrator] At the heart of his training,

Richie received a personal phone call from Australia.

It led to an unexpected reunion.

- Me and Lucy been broken up for four or five years

and we were still friends, like when we bumped into

each other we would still and the odd few occasions

that we'd give each other a call and talk.

So, you know,

we knew we could always call on each other

for whatever reasons.

- Leading up to Richie's title fights,

we started to spend a lot of time together.

My mom got diagnosed with cancer

and that killed me to hear that.

But it was my fear that,

and it's still my fear to this day,

that I might lose her.

And that's the hardest thing for me to even comprehend.

And I didn't have the coping mechanism

or strategies to deal with that situation.

But having Rich as a friend,

he helped me through that.

He comforted me, he supported me.

No one else had the time or had the want, like he did.

And I have the utmost respect and thank for him.

Cause he really saved me in such an awful time in my life.

It surprised me, he was there in my time of need

and he just stepped up to the mark,

and he's just the most amazing person.

- I'll just try to be as supportive as I could.

And yeah, as I said, I always thought of Lucy

through that time we weren't together

and I consider her a really good friend,

and I know she's a really good person,

and she'll do the same for me,

and the same for any of her friends.

So it's was just really easy to be there for her

and help her deal with it.

Cause it's not an easy thing to do with obviously

when a family member gets sick with cancer.

I always had feelings for her while we were apart.

Even though it was unfortunate circumstances,

it was nice to start hanging out.

And being there for her, I guess,

sort of proved that I still had strong feelings for her.

- [Lucy] It sort of led into us spending more time together

and really enjoying our time together.

- [Richie] When we first started going out,

I was too young to commit to a proper relationship.

And I always thought this kind of relationship

would be suited if we were both five or ten years older,

you know?

So now that five years have been

and we were hanging back out,

so it's seemed a lot more possible.

(techno music)

- Now, I got there that night, it was pretty packed

and I was lucky enough to have the title fight

in my backyard at home, and I had a lot of friends

or family there supporting me and

yeah, I was just so excited to get in there that night.

- I've been wanting to see Rich fight in person.

I haven't seen him fight before.

I've seen some footage of him fighting.

- [Richie] Everything's on the line,

you've got all your friends and family in the crowd,

the fights in your backyard,

and now your heroes are in the crowd,

coming to watch your fights.

It's a massive whirlwind of emotions

when you're in your backstage.

(indistinct sports announcer)

- You spin a wheel in your brain that is hoping

that you walk out of the cage

and then it lands on the right frame of mind

and just thinking, dang, why am I even doing this?

I thought I'd enjoy this,

now I can't think of anything worse to be doing right now,

and fight in front of these people.

And then the next breath,

I'll be super kid, jumping out of my skin,

and can't wait to get out to the cage.

I mean, bouncing around, it's a crazy experience.

- [Mark] Rich had only had a handful of fights

before that world title match.

You know, it was a huge stepping stone,

he'd never faced an opponent that good.

But at the time there was no one in the country that wanted

to fight Rich because he'd been beating everyone so easily,

that he really had to step up.

Most fighters in his position, there's no way that early

in their career they'd take a fight like that,

but Rich just wanted that title and he wanted it now.

- [Narrator] As this is a title fight,

instead of the usual three, five minute rounds,

this one is scheduled for five, five minute rounds.

It's a tall order to go the distance

and requires superhuman endurance.

(intense music and crowd cheering)

- [Richie] The first round started off well,

we started the game plan and I felt now

my striking was working well

and I was able to keep him on his feet.

We got sort of into a quench and he landed a good knee.

Which sort of buckled my knees

and we end up going to the ground.

My opponent, he was very experienced.

And he was a Brazilian jujitsu black belt.

So now on the ground is where his strength lay.

(air horn blows)

- It was a tough round, but they were four more to go.

(indistinct sports announcer)

Richie's opponent had him in the dreaded arm bar lock,

a circumstance where the fighter will often tap out

in order for his arm not to break,

but to tap out is to lose the bout.

- I just thought, you know, the fighter has to tap out.

You can't possibly get out of that.

- I thought he's going to break his arm for sure.

Cause it didn't look like Rich was going to tap

and we're just going, dude, what's he got?

I'm going to sit here and watch this guy's arm

break right now.

- One thing I learned surfing big waves,

if you do find yourself in a bad situation,

you're under the water, if you panic,

it's just going to make things much worse.

And pretty much the same when you're in the cage

and you do got to stay calm and just think,

you know what you got to do to get yourself out of it.

And this is the occasion you've been preparing for,

for a long time.

And you're not just going to have that opportunity

of getting that belt around your waist,

sort of slip by just by tapping.

So I'll just going to give it everything I could

to try and escape the situation.

- [Narrator] Richie's determination not to give up

and tap out is as bewildering as it was miraculous.

(crowd cheers)

- Gosh,

I don't know if the guy knew he was going to break

the arm or what,

and he just got a little slack for a second or whatever,

but Rich just like bent out of the thing somehow.

And it was pretty crazy.

He's going to last, no matter what happens.

- I was grateful to get out of the arm bar obviously,

but I was kind of dirty for even letting myself

get in that situation and I have to make it hard for myself

to get out of it and you know, and continue on the flight.

(intense music)

- I was still standing,

I would try and throw punches into the last round.

But then again,

I felt fatigued and probably a little bit more tired

than I would have liked.

(indistinct sports announcer)

- [Mark] After getting almost knocked out

in the first round and then withstanding an arm bar,

and five, five minute rounds,

it's not in his nature to give up and you just push through.

And he gained a lot of respect from the crowd

and from the guy he was fighting.

- He's got a character where he just,

it's not an option to fail.

He wants to succeed, he needs to succeed.

(indistinct sports announcer)

- I ended up getting paid on points, there I was gutted.

I didn't think about losing in preparation for the fight.

I just felt so confident, but then again,

he was no pushover, he was really experienced fighter.

So I had plenty of positives to take out of it.

- He'd come up to all of us

and he was like apologising for letting us down.

He trained as hard as he could and he fought as hard

as he could and he didn't leave anything behind.

And you know, you're not letting anyone down

when you give it your all like that.

- Oh, I was pretty emotional, not winning the fight,

but having Lucy there and I'm realising that

not all is lost and it's still pretty lucky anyway.

So I was still pretty happy in my life.

- He came up to me and told me he loves me.

I think he wanted to show his love

and also his appreciation for my support

that I've given to him leading up to that point.

- [Richie] Me and Lucy were pretty serious

before the title fight.

Hadn't really made it official or anything like that.

We knew where we're at.

- I came about to say, you know, yeah, let's do this.

Let's go out and let's give it a go.

And yeah, it so happened that he posted

his relationship status on Facebook the next day.

- The next day I was putting up there officially

that I'm in a relationship.

So there'll be a great opportunity to put it up

and for her that I wanted to give it another proper crack.

- But that's as official as it gets these days though.

Like, you can like hide your wedding ring,

but you can't really hide your relationship status

on Facebook.

- Such shit.

- Soon after Richie's title fight,

a huge swell popped up in Tazzy and straight away,

you know, the nerves just started to kick in.

Having to say to myself, if I can overcome this fear,

then nothing's going to scare me.

- Mark hadn't surfed since he's neck injury.

So going back there, there's a lot of excitement,

but still a little element of unease.

Kelly Slater was actually in Australia

and he had been my hero ever since

I was a young kid growing up.

- Last week I talked to Mark a lot

and I've been wanting to get down to Ship Stones for awhile.

- [Mark] I was nervous enough, but on top of that,

I also had my all time surfing hero, Kelly Slater.

I had Koby Abberton and the guy that made

my career possible from a young age.

And then I had my best friends and Rich.

It felt like the whole world was watching

what I was going to do.

(upbeat music)

It was probably the most nervous I've ever been in the surf.

You know, I had formed butterflies in my stomach.

Having Rich there at that moment,

gave me that little edge of confidence.

You know, we'd been pushing each other

our whole life to surf bigger and crazier waves,

and having him being the one there

to tow me in, it was just, he had my back.

If I was going to wipe out, he's going to be there

and I could see that he had the confidence in me

that I was going to be able to do this.

- [Richie] If I could bear or play any part in getting

his confidence back and then seeing

him surf as well again or do anything.

- [Mark] I just wanted straight away first wave,

no matter what I wanted a big one.

The only thing that was going to get me over the fears

was getting a proper huge wave.

I guess you gotta be careful what you wish for,

because one of the biggest waves I'd seen popped up,

you know, 10 minutes later and it was my turn.

- [Richie] I was a little bit like, all right,

there's a big one coming, do you want the next big one?

- [Mark] I just had to go.

I had to do it no matter what the wave was going to do,

I was going.

(intense music)

As I hit the wave surface I'd fall,

I just went, alright this is it, this is the wipe out.

You know, you're going to have to get through.

- [Richie] I was a little bit worried

because of the, you know,

the history in his previous wipe out, down there.

But in his first wave of the trip, it was a massive one.

And those massive ones, they can do all sorts of things

down there.

- [Mark] The wave just drew me up into the lip.

It feels like you're airborne underwater.

And I was just like,

it's just that sort of one or two seconds of floating

and you know what's about to happen.

And then all of a sudden, it just goes, BOMMM!

Like the craziest loud noise, just smashes into the water.

And you know, the turbulence is just trying

to rip your limbs off your body.

Like my arms are going everywhere

and I was just tucking up and I was just like,

please don't hit the bottom, please don't hit the bottom.

I just remember rolling, and rolling, and rolling.

All of a sudden it just stopped.

And let me go.

I was just like watch this, one stroke, two strokes.

I was up, the wave was over,

and I was just like, "I've done it!"

I've never felt happier in my life, you know?

- [Richie] He got a pretty good beating,

but it is probably a little smaller tonight.

I was pretty keen to jump on the rope again.

- [Mark] As soon as you handle a wipe out

that big in a wave, you're like, alright I'm back.

I was ready to take on anything after that.

- [Richie] That was like a great relief.

And if there was any concerns about surfing shippers again,

they were definitely gone.

Mark was finding that passion and that desire

to surf big waves again by going down the ships ends

and surfing it again.

And that's exactly what I wanted to do with my fighting.

I want to get back in there and prove to myself

and prove to everyone who was there to support me,

that I was better than that last performance.

After that loss,

I was trying to be positive and remain happy,

but I still just couldn't get over the fact that

I felt like I blew it.

I'd gone away with Kelly shortly after to go to ship stones.

He's obviously been through so much in his career,

ups and downs, and he is shedding new light on it.

You know, not to worry,

he kind of put it in perspective for me,

it just made me feel better about the situation.

- You know, I honestly,

I would probably argue that having that loss with Danny,

was the best thing I ever happened in my career.

And it's, you know, I think if you look at anyone's

stories of their lives, any person, you know,

it's in real sort of deep despair or a bad loss,

or, you know, something seemingly terrible happens

in your life where you can find what life's about,

you know, why you do what you do.

You know, for me, it was, it was to re-energize

what I do and find like a new life in it.

You know, for Richie that could be, it could be the same,

it could be something different, you know,

it's really how you take it.

And what you learned from when you lose.

- [Mark] Ten times World Champion now,

and one of the best athletes that there ever was.

So if he can give you any advice on how to deal

with loss and how to remain positive,

yeah, you're going to listen.

- I can understand being devastated and you know,

he had a perfect record until then, but everybody loses,

you know, that's just part of life.

It's just really having your mind open enough to accept

that maybe that's a good thing,

Not to be okay with like going out there

and losing every time, you know, but to be okay with that,

you have already lost, just process it,

get through it, learn from it.

You don't learn until you're shown something.

You know, even from a little kid, you can't expect to get up

and run when you come out of the womb, you know,

someone's got to help you out, you know, it takes a while.

So, you know, we're all just in different places

trying to learn more and more.

- [Richie] I had dreams of fighting in the UFC

and make it to global stage.

So if I didn't win this next fight,

my dreams and my goals of fighting on those massive stages,

it would seem more distant.

It's important to get a win

and keep those dreams alive, I guess.

(upbeat music)

Straight away, we got in there and I worked for the cleans,

got the cleansing out, taken in to the ground.

- [Mark] When Rich got his back,

you could see that he had him in a good position.

He was choking him.

I'm just that nervous,

I was just going, "tap, tap, tap, please tap!"

(crowd cheering)

- [Richie] Me trying to take MMA seriously

and become a professional athlete has definitely

introduced things into my life.

And a lot of discipline and dedication that have

made me grow up and matured me,

which I don't know where I would've got them from

hadn't I not gotten involved in this sport.

So definitely that help mould me to the person I am today.

Definitely helped me resurrect my relation with Lucy

and really appreciate it.

If it wasn't for my friends around me and Lucy,

things would've been different,

so I'm pretty happy with it now.

- He's obviously matured a lot.

He's gone through a lot.

Those pitfalls that he had in his life has

obviously changed him as a person.

But the relationship now is different in the sense that

it's a relationship based on a big foundation of friendship.

- [Mark] I don't reckon there's any way either of us

on our own would have gotten to where we are now.

To have been able to help each other out

and through the ups and the downs,

and to be where we are now, it's a good feeling.

- [Richie] We've developed such a strong mateship

over the last couple of years

with everything that's happened,

it's just unreal to celebrate these moments together.

I want to keep chasing the biggest waves around the world

and find the biggest shows in the world.

My dream is to one day be in the UFC

and be on shows of that calibre.

And after years of getting things wrong,

I'm finally starting to understand what has to be done to,

you know, to reach that level

and become a professional athlete and do the right thing.

So I don't have any plans on giving up one for the other.

I believe I can really push both as far as I can go.

And the goal is to be on the world stage in both sports.

(upbeat music)

- [Mark] My dreams are to just to enjoy what I'm doing

for the next five years.

Like as amazing as it is being a professional surfer,

it's still easy to get complacent

and find everything negative about it.

The travel and being away from home.

I see parts of Richie and Lucy's relationship

that I really do want companionship,

always having someone like that there for you to rely on.

But for me,

just the way I'm travelling and stuff at the moment,

I don't know what the future will hold.

I don't know what sort of people I will meet down the track,

but I'm so happy just with the friends and the family

that I've got, that you know,

I don't feel like I need to have that

other one strong relationship.

I'd rather just spend my time with my family,

and my friends, and my career.

Definitely in the next five to 10 years,

I'd love to have kids, I can't wait.

But I don't think I'll be risking my life the way I do

when I have kids, it'd be selfish.

We had such an amazing two or three years,

so we wanted to celebrate, but you know,

in the past we'd gone out and celebrate on the drink

and had an all night drinking session

and then end up in trouble.

So we just wanted to do it differently.

And there couldn't be a better way than spending

the whole night instead of in a nightclub, drinking out,

surfing our favourite wave in the world.

- Mark always believed it was possible, you know,

surfing hours at night.

Surfing hours at night.

Surfing hours at night.

- [Mark] We had gotten our careers in a place

where we could actually afford what it would cost

to put all these massive lights in place,

get the insurance, get the permits, get everything together,

and pull off something that was just a dream in the past.

- [Richie] People were against it for all sorts of reasons,

but pretty made our decision and had the confidence

we could pull it off.

So, sometimes you just have gotta back yourself, I guess.

- [Mark] Ours is the most dangerous wave in the world,

size for size, and the waves at the opening

of Botany Bay, so the big swell lines charging out

of deep water, they fold over themselves,

pitch onto this reef ledge that's only one or two feet deep.

Below that is just razor blade barnacles.

And then 10 feet down the line from that is a cliff face.

So if you don't hit the bottom, get cut on the barnacles,

you'll get smashed in a cliff.

You know, there's been crazy cuts from the rocks.

I dislocated my hip out there once.

There's so many risks, but the rewards,

when you make a wave like that, make it all worthwhile.

- [Richie] I get nervous and scared, you know,

paddling out there in the middle of the day.

To be out there in pitch black,

the adrenaline is pumping and the fear factor is there,

but it's all there.

So you, it helps you switch on and try and do your best.

- [Mark] Doing all that in the days hard,

but you can pull it off, but don't in the night,

it was just something else.

(techno music)

- We just surfed through the entire night.

- [Richie] It was just unreal, to be a part of that,

definitely something you remember forever.

It was just surreal to end the surf as the sun was coming

up, you know, this way we got to go on a surfing bender.

You know, I don't know what's going to happen next.

I guess anything's impossible.

- Everything's impossible,

don't bother about doing anything.

- Don't even try, seriously.

(upbeat music)