I may as well just come out and say it—I have absolutely no interest in rehashing much of anything about the Built Ford Tough Invitational in New York City last weekend. With the exception of tipping my hat to newcomer I’m a A Crook, paternal brother of I’m A Gangster and virtual aficionado Jaye’s new main squeeze, I’m pretty much done.
But the interesting thing about being too discouraged by the general tenure of the event to comment is that I got to see what some other PBR fans thought, and brother, am I glad I waited! Almost to a man or a woman, they were as unimpressed as I was. Pretty much immediately, the regulars weighed in here, announcing that they thought the bulls’ performances were subpar. None of us is quite mean enough to really rip on the boys unless they behave badly, but I noticed that only a few guys, like Reese Cates, Robson Palermo, and Ryan Dirteater, even got mentioned, and their riding was not always exactly the main event, so to speak.
I was no different. With only a handful of exceptions, the bulls left me cold, and that includes Copperhead Slinger, who had an uncharacteristically sluggish trip with J.B. Mauney. I mean, Wiley Petersen rode Sir Patrick, for heaven’s sake. When that happens, you know somebody is off his feed.
Nor did many of the boys impress me, and even Kody Lohstroh, Cody Campbell, Shane Proctor, and Mauney didn’t make me want to watch their rides over and over.
And the judges—what can I say about them? Three guys who plainly deserved them were denied rerides. The scoring seemed either weirdly low, or ridiculously high. And then there was the outcome. Check out CThrash13’s comments about it at 8 Second Addiction—I totally agree with him. There’s something odd going on when a newcomer and a veteran both go four for four and, surprise! The veteran, who also just happens to be the one predicted to knock Guilherme March off his pedestal at the finals, wins the event—by 1.75 points. Maybe Mauney should have won, but I’m not convinced. Of course, I have to admit that by the time the short-go rolled around, J.B. could have ridden a wooly mammoth with a cattle prod up his butt, and I would have yawned in the man's face. I was pretty much ready to throw in the towel and go watch Rachel Ray make hash of an onion. At least on that show, somebody might gotten tangled up with a chef’s knife and wind up in the emergency room.
I hope all of us—boys, bulls, judges, and fans—aren’t suffering from a big dose of ennui after last season, but if I don’t see some bulls bucking harder in the long rounds next weekend, I may have to reconsider my options. After all, the new season of 24 has begun.
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4 comments:
Oh, I hope you don't give up completely. I feel like I've finally found my niche with all of you.
Granted, it's taking some time to heat up, but it might. Someone on a different board, when responding to a post about the sub par bulls, mentioned that a thread by the same title was started last year, right after the MSG event and that eventually, it got better.
I feel like I'm still new to the sport (although, going into my 3rd full season, I'm getting a bit jaded), so I'm in it for the long haul. Although, it's too bad I don't drink anymore--that may make the events a bit easier to swallow.
If I had drank as much as I wanted to on Sunday evening, I'd still be lying under the kitchen table. I can totally see how all the human participants might be feeling a little lackluster, but that doesn't explain why the good bulls (what few there were of them) didn't perform up to snuff. I find it nearly impossible to believe that it was the weather. After all, they were inside the arena it, not out on the street, and in Billings last year, the stock pens were outside in the snow, and the bulls bucked like crazy. So I'm totally puzzled on that front. But I'm not ready to give up yet, I promise.
I was so un-enthralled that I started working on a knitting project and keeping one eye on the TV to see if anything interesting was going to happen. Maybe drinking would have been a more entertaining option...
I did find it sort of... hm, "funny" is not the right word... curious that the other day, Ty Murray (I am pretty sure) was going on about Marchi and how he was choosing a bull he could ride and how you don't win that way, whereas this week Marchi chose a much more difficult bull and no one had anything to say about that.
Marchi seems to me to be choosing bulls in a long-term, calculated way, not just the rankest one in the pen at the moment or the one with the name he likes the best or whatever, which I thought was the whole point of the new bull draft. Silly me.
I'm with you Shannon. It's nice to find some folks like y'all who love to talk about the PBR--and other things--intelligently. And with better spelling, grammar and punctuation! Let's hope as the weather gets warmer, the action will too. I think we have some great new bulls to watch.
S. I totally agree with you about Guilherme. I think he truly wants to be in the sport a long, long time and is willing to do what it takes to accomplish that goal. He works on his fitness (that STRETCHING!) and picks bulls that enable him to ride consistently. Last year he proved that riding consistently--not recklessly--can win ya the championship buckle, and I'm pulling for him to have a repeat. Sometimes the other rider's "I gotta have the rankest bull" attitude bugs the devil out of me!
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