Mayhem in the Bowl: Keegan Palmer, Greyson Fletcher, and More Light Up the Park Best Trick Jam at the 2025 RSEO
Keegan Palmer. Photo: Muller
Shutting down the bowl on Saturday at the 2025 Rockstar Energy Open (RSEO) was the Park Best Trick Jam, and everyone went all out for a chance at some cash, an RSEO trophy, and a Nixon watch awarded to the person having the Best Time.
There was no organized start order because the Park Best Trick Jam combined more than 40 men and women eligible to join the 45-minute session. Despite a little carnage, there were more incredible makes than anything else—although, at first glance, it absolutely looked like more chaos than control.
The top of the hip was lined with skaters eager to drop from the pool coping, but scattered around the rest of the deck were more people dropping and rolling in one after the other. It didn’t take long for the bowl to fill with sometimes as many as five people weaving past one another to hit the spots they were eyeing.
Greyson Fletcher. Photo: Muller
The Rockstar logo was getting hit from all angles. Greyson Fletcher managed a frontside blunt on the angled sides, making for a crazy off-axis make. There were a few footplants, including one going frontside from Kevin Kowalski, and a bunch of stalls on the sides—like the back tail from CJ Collins—to name just a few of the MANY tricks landed on the star.
Then there was the center island vert extension, which saw a ton of action, including a huge Caballerial heelflip indy from Phoenix Sinnerton, and a big finger flip body jar from Hinano Kusaki.
Celebrating his birthday, Liam Pace made his way into the bowl right away and began to pick up speed. He and Greyson Fletcher not only kicked off the jam’s momentum with a doubles best trick—Liam axel-stalled the Rockstar logo while Greyson stalled a smith on Liam’s board—but about halfway through the event, the two had a small collision just as Liam was coming out of a grind across the back of the center island from the deep end into the shallow. It was the reverse of the grind Greyson had made just a few minutes earlier. From start to finish, the entire session was a thing of crazed beauty.
Greyson Fletcher. Photo: Muller
“I’m having the Best Time! Thanks for having us, Rockstar!” said Greyson Fletcher after learning he’d won Nixon’s Best Time award. “It was sick! Finally, people were jumping in at the same time together—that’s what skateboarding is all about.” Greyson said that when he was growing up, this style of contest was more common, but hardly seen at all in the last ten years. His thoughts? “Make more contests!”
“Portland is the best place in the world—Dreamland Skateparks and Burnside, shout out to Mark ‘Red’ Scott,” Greyson continued. “I like the skateboarding out here. There’s a lot of badass skateboarders. Shout out to Nick Peterson.”
On the hip were a slew of tricks, but the kickflip lien from Taylor Nye was one of the first major ones. Then came a kickflip indy from Mizuho Hasegawa. Luigi Cini brought out his signature 360 flip indy, too. The gnarliest trick over the hip was Keegan Palmer’s alley-oop backside 360 tailgrab to fakie. But it was Yuro Nagaharo landing into the hip after being the only person to spot—and attempt—a massive gap off the vert wall and over a corner section of the park. He won a serious wad of cash for that one.
Other highlights from the vert wall included Issei Sakurai’s giant lien to tail, an alley-oop nosegrind from Mizuho, and a back-to-back McTwist showdown from Jordan Santana and Yurin Fuji that stole the show.
In the end, though, it was Keegan Palmer who earned Best Trick of the jam with a backside noseblunt—popping and gapping back into the bowl, hands free.
Keegan Palmer. Photo: Muller
“The park this week has been way better than I imagined. They killed it—the transitions were so smooth,” said Keegan, raving about the setup. He went on to talk about the format of the event as not only a fan favorite but also a super fun way for the skaters to mix it up. “I only get to do that once a year. The last time was last year… here!” he laughed. “It’s gnarly and a throwback to how a lot of contests used to be. If you don’t eat shit and get away with some things—I got away with some things today, so I’m happy—it’s great. But sometimes, you get in there and get smoked, like we saw a few times today.”
There were definitely a lot of boards flying and a ton of mayhem, but in the end, everyone skated out in one piece—and some with pockets full of cash.