Friends and
neighbors, as is usually the case, the PBR World Finals are a veritable feast
of possible subjects for the studious blogger, and I can hardly decide which
dish to offer up for your lasting pleasure (or indigestion) first. But since tonight’s
festivities will doubtless produce yet another embarrassment of riches, I must
talk for a minute about that nasty situation last night with Austin Meier.
And we might as
well just flop it out on the table. What on earth possessed the producers to let
the cameras keep rolling as Austin writhed in anguish on the floor behind the
chutes? Can this possibly be the same PBR that whisks the wounded (walking and
otherwise) off the main stage and into the wings and from there straight into the backwoods, never to be heard from again?
It’s all very
well for Austin to show us he has a sense of humor with those droll ads about
his encounter with the massage therapist (although I have to wonder if anybody
at PBR headquarters realizes that you have to be NEKKID to have a massage). It’s
quite another to stand around gawking while the man moans and gasps for breath
after being thoroughly banged around in the chutes.
I really have to
wonder what Austin himself thought about it. Certainly he showed us what he’s
made of when he crawled back over the fence and onto the back of the bull. But Austin's face really shows it when he’s in
pain--more than just about any other bull rider I can think of. When Leah Garcia was interviewing him after his ride, he looked like he’d
been dragged through a rat hole backwards.
Here’s hoping that he’s feeling
better tonight. Mostly, though, here’s hoping that somebody who works for the PBR (dare we say David Alan?) has the good sense not to
repeat such an atrocity. I for one do not ever want to see anything
like that ever again. Just fucking forget it.
