The Rock Fight Podcast – 2025 Rock Fight Awards!

Podcast: The Rock Fight: Outdoor Industry & Adventure Sports Commentary
Episode: The 2025 Rock Fight Awards!
Release Date: December 22, 2025
Host: Colin True (A), with Owen Comerford (D), Shantae Salibair (C), and Producer Dave (B)

Episode Overview

This special episode of The Rock Fight brings together the core crew to present the 2025 Rock Fight Awards—a celebration (and roast) of the outdoor industry’s biggest wins, weirdest missteps, top products, and the personalities that shaped the past year. With their trademark unfiltered banter, skepticism, and campfire camaraderie, the team doles out 15 tongue-in-cheek awards that shine a candid (sometimes harsh, always hilarious) light on outdoor brands, trends, execs, and community leaders.

Table of Contents

1. State of the Industry, 2025
2. Key Awards Breakdown
   • Brand Collaboration of the Year
   • Biggest Brand Boner (Self-Inflicted)
   • Open Container Award – Outdoor Community
   • Excellence in Overexposure
   • Outdoor Category of the Year
   • WTF Product of the Year
   • Emerging Brand of the Year
   • Zombie Brand of the Year
   • Brief Award for Creative Excellence
   • Consumer Education & Lifetime Achievement
   • Achievement in Trade Shows
   • Listener of the Year
   • Brand of the Year
   • Outdoor Industry Executive of the Year
3. Notable Quotes & Moments
4. Closing Thoughts and Looking Ahead

State of the Industry, 2025

• Political & Economic Climate:
  Owen notes, “Thanks to our new administration, it's been a challenging year: tariff turmoil, public lands under attack, dropping tourism, persistent inflation. Yeah, it's been quite the shit show.” (02:40)
  Despite obstacles, “outdoor retail has been surprisingly resilient—thanks primarily to our older and more affluent customer base...which is also probably going to be a problem as we look to growth in the future.”

• DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion):
  Shantae: “I think this is the year a lot of brands just punted on their DEI efforts...turns out a lot of these brands weren't so committed to the other parts of the demographic, as it were.” (03:26)

• Tone:
  Self-aware, satirical, and utterly unfiltered: “If we're the positivity, you know things are in trouble.” (04:25)

Key Awards Breakdown

Brand Collaboration of the Year [05:34]

Winner: Burton x Nara (Snow bibs with the “P-Zipper” for easy bathroom breaks)

• Notable Nominees: The North Face x Skims, HOKA x Half Days, Chaco x Waffle House
• Why It Won: “Brings distinct audiences together...[and] something that’s interesting with a natural fit.” – Dave (06:17)
• Standout Story: Nara founder Gigi’s mountain-top livestream to motivate sales teams. (07:21)
• Innovation: “The best new technology that’s come out in a long time...Anytime you’re smacking your head going, duh, why hasn’t it been like this before? That’s a pretty good innovation.” – Colin (09:43)

Biggest Brand Boner (Self-Inflicted) [10:12]

Winner: Arc'teryx – Blowing up the Himalaya

• Other Highlights: Columbia suing Columbia University, REI’s Doug Burnham Secretary of State nomination
• Analysis: “It hit all the marks that you want out of a brand boner. It was, like, poorly thought out, well executed...the PR response afterward was spectacular in its own right.” – Owen (12:21)
• Memorable Quote: “It was environmentally irresponsible. Although they did pull out salt licks...never forget the salt licks.” – Colin (12:42)

Open Container Award – Outdoor Community [13:59]

Winner: Caroline Gleich

• Why: Ran for Senate in Utah, giving conservation a national voice and continuing to rally for public lands despite facing outsized criticism and harassment.
• Praise: “She proves that leadership learned as a lover of the outdoors deserves a place in the national conversation.” – Doug Schnitzbahn (14:21)
• Panel Reflection: “Caroline might be the most harassed person in the outdoor sphere, to be honest.” – Shantae (14:51)

Excellence in Overexposure [15:05]

Winner: Lloyd Vogel (Garage Grown Gear)

• Acceptance Speech (excerpt):
  “I'd like to commend the outdoor industry for making a bold decision to temporarily stop listening to boomers...and let a white male millennial take a turn instead. Truly transformative for the industry’s DEI work.” (16:52)

Outdoor Category of the Year [18:15]

Winner: Trail Running

• “It is still the hot, hot, hot category. Report last year put it around $14-20 billion.” – Dave (19:44)
• “Every brand has a trail running brand… I’ll never forget being at OMA Media event…[thinking] Oh, there’s another trail running shoe by another brand.” – Colin (20:44)

WTF Product of the Year [24:31]

Winner: Merrell Hut Mach 21 TRL x Unknown Collab

• “It’s like somebody took a dump on top of a shoe.” – Owen (27:46)
• Other Strange Products: Satisfy arm chaps, Three Full Gear rain chaps, Chaco x Waffle House sandals
• Description: “I just want my foot to look like it’s encased in meringue. All-terrain meringue.” – Shantae (28:21)

Emerging Brand of the Year [29:06]

Winner: Pacfire (portable, backpackable smokeless fire pit)

• “A real innovation...it just folds flat. When you see it demonstrated, you’re immediately like, ‘Oh that’s cool. I want one of those.’” – Colin (31:50)

Zombie Brand of the Year [33:25]

Winner: Spider

• “They hang around on the backs of their name and deep consumer discounts. Not quite dead, but not quite thriving either—they are the zombies of our space.” – Colin (32:51)
• Honorable Mentions: Marmot, Prana, Chaco, Fitz, Sierra Designs, Billabong/Quicksilver (“the surf brand zombie horde”)

Brief Award for Creative Excellence [36:55]

Winner: Columbia – "Engineered for Whatever" campaign

• “Unexpected and familiar at the same time...backed up with new creative pieces, one after the other—doubling down on the absurdist lengths they’ll go to to prove their functionality.” – Dave (41:00)
• “It might change the perception of what the Columbia brand is.” – Colin (41:00)

Consumer Education & Lifetime Achievement [42:05]

• Golden Bidet Award for Consumer Education: “Coach” from Marion Outdoors – for energetic, engaging gear education on social.
• Justin Hausman Memorial Rock Fighter Lifetime Achievement: Justin Hausman, original Rock Fight co-host and “curmudgeonly and delightful” outdoor writer.
  • Justin, in his acceptance: “[It’s] a shock that this podcast is going on without me. But good job, Rock fighters.” (43:44)

Achievement in Trade Shows [44:56]

Winner: The Running Event

• “It brings the kind of the brand retailer partnership from GOA with the energy of the Switchback [show]…and with a great award show at the end.” – Owen (47:21)

Listener of the Year [47:46]

Winner: Ben Ryan

• For sending a photo of himself listening to the pod while climbing the Matterhorn—then upping his own game by calling in from Antarctica’s Union Glacier Camp.

Brand of the Year [50:08]

Winner: Norda (Trail Running Shoes)

• Why: “Not just about performance, it’s about the thoughtfulness behind the brand...There’s a little bit of a level up from Norda. If you line it up with all the brands, they stand apart as a package.” – Colin (52:46)
• On Price Point: “They did such a good job convincing people that, hey, listen, [the shoe] is made to last, you’re going to love it, it’s worth the money.” – Shantae (54:17)
• Reflection: “They encapsulate a little bit of where we are as an industry now—trail running, high price point, partial ownership by Zegna—it just kind of encapsulates where we are as an industry, both good and bad in some ways.” – Owen (54:49)

Outdoor Industry Executive of the Year [57:49]

Winner: Cassie Abel (Wild Rye)

• Praise: “Founder of her brand, vocal advocate during the worst parts of the tariff conversation, and their brand is something the industry desperately needs.” – Colin (58:33)
• Cassie’s Acceptance:
  “Holy shit. Wow...This year has been the highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows. Honestly, the fact that we made it to almost the end of the year is something worth celebrating within itself...business is a team sport and I am grateful to be on a team with this whole industry.” (59:36)
• Panel Commentary:
  “Cassie is just there for everybody...I’ll talk to a founder or an emerging brand and they’ll say, ‘Oh yeah, Cassie’s the best. She’s helped me this way, that way, the other way. I don’t know how she does it all.’” – Owen (62:03)
  “She elevates the way women get to present ourselves, the way we get to feel in the clothing we wear.” – Shantae (61:01)

Notable Quotes & Moments

• “Welcome to the Rock Fight, where we speak our truth, slay sacred cows, and sometimes agree to disagree.” – Colin (00:00)
• “If you’re not affluent, get out of here. All right. The affluent is what we’re looking for.” – Colin (03:19)
• (On Overexposure): “We have not yet overstayed our welcome, but we’re getting close.” – Colin (15:39)
• (Accepting Overexposure): “It’s an honor to be the overexposed winner in the outdoor industry and simultaneously a complete stranger to my 15-month-old. Clearly my priorities are in the right space.” – Lloyd Vogel (16:52)
• “It’s like somebody took a dump on top of a shoe.” – Owen on the Merrell WTF winner (27:46)
• “They hang around on the backs of their name and deep consumer discounts...they are the zombies of our space.” – Colin (32:51)
• “She’s a true champion for not just her company, but the cause as a whole. And Cassie’s a badass.” – Shantae on Cassie Abel (61:55)
• (On Listener of the Year): “Next year we’re going to need to get somebody on the International Space Station.” – Colin (49:44)

Closing Thoughts and Looking Ahead [63:41]

• “That’ll be debatable. It’ll probably take us a full year to figure that out.” – Dave (63:41)
• The crew promises new categories for Sales Agency and Retailer of the Year in 2026—and a return for Owen’s predictions episode on January 5th.
• Preview: Hopes for more normalcy in 2026, but with the promise to “step up and participate” in brutally honest industry commentary.

This episode is a must-listen for outdoor insiders and gear nerds who want a side of irreverence—a rare backslap and facepalm for the people, brands, and trends that shaped 2025.