The Bull Diaries

The Stockyard Queen has yet to recover--she's lying on her fainting couch, fanning herself, and trying to appraise when she'll manage to hoist herself up and type a few lines about the PBR in Baltimore. In the meantime, however, she is pleased to offer up SoCal Jay's assessment, provided for your reading entertainment. Ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for the next installment of The Bull Diaries.

Episode 7: “What’s with the lime-green chaps?”

The Montana Barn Cat was kind enough to call us, the night before. “PBR on NBC tomorrow, Bubba. Be there or be known forevermore as a gosh-darned ‘rounder’ around here.” That’s a fate worse than a slow, painful death, to me, so we set a kitchen timer to get us to the couch on time.

“So these are the good bulls, right?” (She’s SO adorable.)

“Uh,” I replied, “yeah. But a better term would be ‘rank.’ It’s a bull-riding thing.”

“Rank?”

“That’s right. I’m not sure exactly of the derivation, but you know how stinky, dirty laundry in our laundry basket is a bad thing?” She nodded that she did. “Well, think of these bulls as the sweat socks in the bottom of a boy’s P.E. locker, in high school. The socks have been used again and again for a month, but they haven’t been washed, right? That’s RANK laundry. Not only bad, but NASTY, eh? Well, these bulls are that bad and that nasty. They’re that kind of rank.”

It was fantastic. We hooped and we hollered and I loved the close-up views of the bulls in the pen as the cowboy got on, their eyes either glaring with anger and anticipation or almost bored with confidence. We loved the replays. (Pam: “Geez! He bucked him right into the wall!” Me: “Yeah, they’ll do that. Did you catch the stream of bull snot and slobber? Good Gawd almighty.”) It was certainly the best bull riding stuff we’ve seen on our TV, for sure. It was a fun, exciting treat.

Somewhere in there, however, Pam asked, “What’s with the lime-green chaps? Aren’t they, like, traditionally brown?” I’d noticed the same, sparkly kind of thing with other riders.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Probably just guys trying to make a flash, I guess.”

And then she said, “And when did FRINGE start with chaps, anyway? Chaps were just to stop prickly brush from hurting cowboy’s legs, right? When did the fringe thing start?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “But I know someone who does.”

What I'm Looking Forward To

And so, tomorrow night, the 2009 PBR season begins. It's been hectic as hell around the Stockyard since last August, and the last couple of months prior to the finals were so nerve-racking that having a little time away from it all may have saved my sanity. Now I'm as excited as I've ever been to see the spectacle anew.

Did I mention that I'm excited? Did I tell you why?

The bulls. One aspect of the sport that keeps me on my toes is that new bulls appear without fanfare, and I have to pay strict attention to make sure I'm seeing all the new talent. But what about old talent? I can't wait to see them again, Avalanche and Booger Butt and Bones and all the rest. What have those adorable babies been up to? I've missed them all, and the prospect of seeing rookie bulls makes my palms sweat. Bring 'em on!

The boys. With two high-profile retirements last season, there has to be some room for the rest to strut their stuff in Baltimore, right? I am dying to see how all the veterans handle themselves, and I also am poised on the edge of my seat to see my good buddy Reese Cates and the rest of the class of 2008. But there must be some up-and-comers we'll see tomorrow night, too. Come along, children, show us what you're made of.

The bulls. What, again? Yes! You all know this is why I watch the PBR. I'm so excited to see those bulls, I can hardly stand it. I'm leaving right now to lay in a supply of Jack Daniel's and tortilla chips. I wish you were all here to watch it with us!

It may not be my place, but too bad--I declare the 2009 PBR season open. Let the games begin!

Unintended Consequences

Back in November, we quietly passed the anniversary of the first post at “Turn Him Out!” At the time, the season was racing to its spectacular finale and the birthday of the blog wasn’t nearly so important as trying to stay up to speed with the results of each weekend’s event.

Now the season is nearly seven weeks behind us, and in just a little over two more, the 2009 season will kick off on the day after New Year’s in Baltimore, so maybe it’s time to take stock. The 2008 season threw me a lot of curves, most of which I’d have to lump into the category of “throwing stuff against the wall.” As sometimes happens, though, almost none of what got thrown stuck, and as Ruby would opine, some of what did stick “didn’t work out too good.” Here are a few items that come immediately to mind.

· Lauding the Next Great White (American) Hope. When Justin McBride announced that he would miss roughly the first half of the season to have surgery on his shoulder, it became clear pretty quickly that some folks at PBR headquarters, or at Versus, or maybe at both, were panicking because there would be no returning American hero to praise to the skies. During PBR broadcasts, there was an instant rush to latch onto the first U.S. citizen who had ridden decently and to start hollering about how he was a contender for the world title. Guys who passed through this revolving door included Travis Briscoe, Wiley Peterson, and Sean Willingham.

All the while, of course, Guilherme Marchi was launching his (ultimately) successful run for the world title, and from the beginning of the season he rode like he would not be denied, but instead of doing the obvious and lifting him up for our admiring gazes, the Powers That Be gave him only the cursory tip of the hat. The fans were not slow to point out this inequity, which of course sparked loud denials that American riders were getting more attention than Marchi was. I do not believe that every human being on the planet is irresistibly prejudiced in favor of his/her own, to such an extent that we can’t even recognize our own bigotries, and I am not accusing anyone of being a racist, but I think in this case, those who were responsible for this tawdry, and ultimately silly, charade should examine their consciences and try to do better next time.

· The Path to Greatness That Wasn’t. The bull draft was added this season with much fanfare, hoopla, and Ty Murray declaring that a rider getting to pick his bull would amount to the same advantage as winning pole position in NASCAR, but it hasn’t quite played out that way. If anybody thought having to pick their bulls in the short-go was going to force the riders to do more research, they were sadly mistaken. I don’t think it’s unfair to say that perhaps two of any given 20 riders in the short-go have much notion about which bull they should choose. Instead, what we’ve been treated is the sight of a rider lumbering up the ramp, where he is greeted by (generally) Justin McKee and (almost always) Cody Lambert. He mumbles to Cody, “What’s the rankest bull left in the pen?” or maybe “Which bull should I pick, Cody?” and Lambert makes a suggestion. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t have Lambert up there—I’d make the riders do their own picking without resorting to what amounts to a cheat-sheet. But then, when I was teaching writing, I drew up a list of seven rhetorical sins that would automatically win any student so foolish as to commit one an “F” on his/her 500 word essay, so obviously I think setting boundaries is pretty important.

Interestingly, at the finals Ty Murray said flat-out that Marchi had cost himself the event title by picking bulls he could ride, rather than the rankest one left. Sorry, Ty, you can’t have it both ways. What rider with any sense would risk losing the world title just to prove he has the biggest cojones? Clearly, the answer isn’t “Guilherme Marchi,” which calls into question the widespread notion that among Latin Americans, machismo will always trump brains.

· The Shootout that Fizzled. Introduced in about mid-season, the PBR Team Shootout may have been in the works for years, but it still smelled like something trumped up at the last minute to establish a relationship with ESPN. Maybe the PBR had been pounding on ESPN’s door for years, maybe ESPN came to the PBR—there’s no way to know. Nevertheless, the idea was interesting—each of the top 20 riders would chose a partner from among all the eligible PBR card-carrying riders, and the 10 teams would compete over a series of four events, with the four highest scoring teams going on to a finals in Pueblo. Sean Willingham immediately won himself considerable scorn from some of my readers, who thought it unsportsmanlike of him to pick Justin McBride, who was ranked in the bottom 45 because he’d been gone most of the season, but who still was the world champion. I didn’t think that argument held much water because despite all the camaraderie among them, bull riders are competing against one another, not just against the bulls. Had I been in Sean’s place, I might not have chosen Justin, but I for damned sure would have picked somebody I thought would help me win, not just somebody I wanted to help out.

But since the pay-outs were winners-take-all, and the riders didn’t gain anybody any points toward the world title, the most significant outcome of the Shootout was that several guys got hurt, some of them badly, and had nothing to show for it. Justin McBride suffered a concussion and dropped out of the competition almost immediately, and Brian Canter was out for months with a facial injury. In an unrelated but still eerie occurrence, Wesley Silcox, a PRCA champion who was Dustin Elliot’s partner, broke a leg at an X-Treme Bulls event and thus had to drop out of the Shootout. In the end, L.J. Jenkins and Austin Meiers won, an outcome I doubt anybody expected. Meiers probably benefited most from the Shootout, since his 2008 season, both before and thereafter, was, er, not what he’d hoped it would be.

· The Match I Hold a Grudge Against. Of all the bad ideas broached in professional sports, the Insta-Shot Grudge Match has to be one of the worst. Sponsored by the makers of a sleazy product with even sleazier advertising, and featuring a bull painted blue for the competition, the Grudge Match’s best feature is that it vanished from view quickly when the sponsor apparently pulled out. (Uh, sorry about that.) Several readers speculated here about whether the bull’s genitals were also painted blue, and several agreed that the guy who got that job should win the Grudge Match, hands down. I guess we should be happy that our good friend Bob, the public face of equally sleazy Enzyte, has only put in occasional appearances on Versus this year. I live in fear that Bob and the Insta-Shot folks will get together, and then we’ll have to endure commercials touting aids for both enhancing the requisite equipment to screw all night long, and the energy to do so.

· The Crowning of Justin Almighty, Who Promptly Abdicated. I’ve no doubt that all the hype surrounding Justin McBride’s return to the BFTS played at least some part in his decision to retire. I don't know whether the PBR/Versus folks were as dismayed by his announcement as many fans were, but I, like anybody else who was paying attention, did see Justin McKee sheepishly running away after McBride commented about “the media” in a behind-the-chutes interview. If J.W. Hart, who is McBride’s unofficial chief booster, wonders out loud why McBride is being interviewed when he hasn’t done anything yet, you can take it to the bank that the attention is over the top.

I’m not arguing, really, that the PBR and/or Versus shouldn’t keep trying to make things interesting, but I do think once the new idea is in play, everybody should resist the temptation to micromanage the outcome. Please, guys, let’s roll with the punches, okay? Part of the fun of throwing stuff against the wall is seeing what sticks and what slides. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains. Sometimes, you strike out.

Something I Didn't Expect

As crabby, cantankerous, sarcastic, and even rude as I can be sometimes, every once in a while something challenges me to re-evaluate a long-held opinion, and I’m gratified to learn that I can change my mind and benefit from the process. 

Thus I feel no fear when I tell you that the rider I was most impressed with, and the one I ultimately ended up feeling sorry for, during the PBR World Finals is Chris Shivers. This is mostly a testimony to the fact that no matter what you think you know, you probably don’t know everything, and sometimes what you don’t know makes all the difference. It powerfully underscores the admonition “Judge not, that ye be not judged,” and gives me reason to hope that I, and everyone else, might be able to keep an open mind and thus improve as a human being.

I’ve said before that Shivers’ inclination to talk about “making money” bothers the crap out of me, and I’m perfectly willing to concede that my Southern upbringing is at the bottom of that, since I was taught growing up that talking about money is vulgar. If I had ever once in my mother’s presence asked someone what s/he paid for something, I probably wouldn’t be writing this now, since Ruby would have crammed me into a barrel and fed me through the bunghole till I was of age and she could decide whether to let me out or plug the bunghole up.

You think I’m joking, but I’m really not. Ruby grew up poor on a dirt farm in a Southern state, and she had precious little beyond determination and a rock-solid set of values to get her out of there. Some of her prejudices make me shiver whenever she takes them out for a stroll, and yet she also has a remarkable delicacy in her dealings with people that bespeaks her fundamental generosity, even for people she doesn’t know or doesn’t agree with.

I got the shock of my life several years ago when Ruby, who regards gay people with suspicion, if not some level of fear, asked me why Anne Heche had ended up in somebody’s backyard in Fresno, mumbling incoherently, just after she and Ellen Degeneres had broken up. “I think she was drunk,” I said carefully. “Oh,” said my mother. “I thought her heart was probably broken.” If I never learned anything from Ruby beyond that willingness to walk in somebody else’s shoes, I would still owe her a tremendous debt.

I guess my attitude toward Shivers started changing when he got stepped on in Hawaii two years ago yesterday and broke both his leg and his ankle. It was an ugly wreck, and an injury I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Oh, maybe on her, but still, you get my drift. This season in Chicago, Cowboy slammed Shivers headfirst into the front of the bucking chute and broke his left cheekbone and eye socket. (Maybe that’s the injury I should be wishing on she who will not be named.) That was another awful accident, and I began to feel it was time the little guy caught a break.

But when Shivers turned up at the 2008 finals after being away for nearly four months, and told Leah Garcia that the surgery he’d had to repair a herniated disc in his neck had gone great, I suddenly understood something that hadn’t been evident. 

Anyone who has ever suffered with herniated discs knows that kind of pain will eat you alive. It makes you short-tempered and peevish, and it’s amazing to me that Shivers managed to get out of bed in the morning and onto the backs of as many bulls as he did with such an injury. Shivers said that until he woke up from surgery, he really had had no idea of how bad he’d been feeling, or how good he could feel.

And he went right back to riding like the champion he is, covering five bulls in his trademark style. Then in the seventh round, he rode Walk The Line for 91.5 points, only to get thrown into the corner post and stepped on in the dismount. I have to wonder if, had he not taken that shot, he might have ridden Troubadour in the short-go, and given Robson Palermo a run for the event title. 

As it was, he finished fourth, a mere 82 points behind Palermo, and anybody who has watched the sport for any length of time knows well that 82 points is a day off for Chris Shivers. Basically, it’s one mediocre ride, and Shivers almost never turns in a mediocre effort.

I’m really glad that Shivers has gotten some relief, but the fact that he rode through that pain for as long as he did makes me respect him even more. He might be the walking definition of “cowboy up.” One thing is for certain, Shivers left nothing on the table at the finals. Every time the gate swung open, he brought it. I look forward to seeing him bring it next season.

Straws in the Wind

Sometimes it’s the little things that tell the whole tale. An interesting aspect of the coverage of Justin McBride’s retirement at the PBR World Finals was that for the first time I can recall, McBride’s discomfort with all the hoopla was increasingly evident. I don’t mean to suggest that he was rude or short when he was on camera, because he was unfailingly polite. It just seemed to me that the strain of having people in his face all the time was finally starting to show, or maybe it was just the relief of knowing he wouldn’t have to put up with it much longer that was showing.

In Fried Twinkies and Buckle Bunnies, Josh Peter describes McBride as wild and profane in the locker room, so it must have taken McBride a while to learn how to talk to the media without blurting out something inappropriate. The closest he came to outright saying he was tired of it all was during an interview early on the first weekend of the finals, when Justin McKee cornered him to talk about his ride. McBride dispensed the usual platitudes about the bull in question, but then he said something that caused McKee to immediately back off and say, in effect, he knew McBride didn’t enjoy that sort of thing.

But there was another moment, in the piece about McBride’s decision to retire, when he said that he was retiring because he didn’t enjoy riding bulls anymore and was looking forward to doing something different. He specifically said he wasn’t going to miss being interviewed and all that sort of thing, and at that moment, I thought I might have glimpsed a flash of that kid that Peters spent time with during the 2004 season.

Even though I hated it every single time the Hyping Justin machine started up on Versus, I never thought that McBride was inviting it, and on at least one occasion, he rather pointedly said that Marchi was the best bull rider in the world this season. Unfortunately, the folks who should have been paying attention just as pointedly ignored what he was saying and continued to laud him to the skies and make stupid remarks like, “The reason Guilherme is doing so well this season is that Justin isn’t riding.” I don’t think I have ever seen such an example of fractured logic in my life, and I spent several years teaching college freshman how to write a decent sentence, so I am a master at spotting fractured logic when I see (or hear) it. The coverage of the event when Justin returned, which one of my readers dubbed "The Justin Almighty Show," was just embarrassing, and I have a suspicion that McBride himself probably had the grace to be embarrassed by it.

It’s impossible to say whether the Hype Machine originated at PBR headquarters or if it was strictly something the folks at Versus cranked up, but when McBride was forced to sit out the first half of the season to nurse a shoulder injury, it became very clear very fast that somebody somewhere was panicking at the idea that there would be no conquering American hero this season. Various substitutes for McBride, including Travis Briscoe and Wiley Peterson, were offered up, and none of them worked out very well. Briscoe started off riding reasonably well, but then he also started praising God every time somebody shoved a microphone at him, and shortly thereafter his season went south. I'm not suggesting there's a connection between those two things, though it would please me mightly if there were.

After he broke his leg at an amateur rodeo, Briscoe was shuffled off center stage right smart. For a brief stretch, it looked like Peterson, who seems like a nice enough guy, was being groomed for the spot, but he is so awkward and stiff in front of the camera that it was soon clear he wasn’t the man for the job. I’m thinking specifically about the segment on whether helmets should be mandatory equipment, which featured Wiley. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody who looked so uncomfortable on television. He seems to be able to handle post-ride interviews decently, but he clearly was out of his element in a situation that required more of him.

All in all, I think McBride acquitted himself as well as he could have. He never seemed to court the hysteria, but he appears to have cooperated as much as he could stand to, and I have to think he was doing it not only for himself, but also for what he thought to be the good of the sport. I don’t believe that anyone forced McBride into retirement—I think he is leaving on his own terms and he appears to be excited about the prospect. He says he’s been riding since he was three, in which case he’s earned a rest, and certainly he is financially set to do whatever he wants with the rest of his life. He’s got a wife and a little girl to think about, and he seems to have grown up enough over the past couple of years to realize that there are conflicts between being a professional bull rider and being a husband and father. In the In Harm’s Way episode about bull riders, McBride’s wife Jill remarked that she’d like to have him home more, which I suspect is bull-rider-wife code for, “What I really wish is that he wasn’t off doing something that could get him killed every weekend.” It says a lot about her appreciation for her husband that she recognized the bull riding was something he just had to do, and it says a lot about McBride that he’s matured enough to recognize that he really doesn’t have to do it anymore.

But it is equally obvious to me that he’s relieved that he won’t have to contend with the media, at least for a while. That relief could turn out to be short-lived. As the divine Jean observed on the zonkboard yesterday, if McBride’s music career takes off, he will be dealing with fans less mannerly than those he usually encounters at PBR events. But I don’t see any signs that McBride will decide to “un-retire” if the music business doesn’t work out as he’d like it to. He is leaving the sport as a class act, and I wish him, and his family, all the best as they launch out into this new adventure.

Guest Post by Sheila

Folks, after many weeks of wandering in the wilderness of work, the Stockyard Queen just can't seem to quit posting about the PBR World Finals. I had planned to write a tribute to Adriano Moraes, but our loyal reader Sheila actually was fortunate enough to attend the finals and go to Adriano's retirement luncheon, and she has graciously sent me a report of the experiences she and her husband had there. So I am going to let Sheila's account stand as a salute to Adriano here. I am also grateful to her for generously permitting me to illustrate this post with some of the photos she made on the trip. Unfortunately, I can only post a few here, but if you click on the link, it should take you to her entire slideshow, which I recommend highly. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, with ruffles and flourishes, this guest post, and I invite you, at Sheila's suggestion, to also visit her husband's URL, where he has a PBR section as well: www.budrudesill.com

Reflections of the PBR World Finals

by Sheila

The PBR World Finals in Las Vegas were the first and most likely the last finals my husband, Bud, and I will attend. 2008 was the perfect year for us to go, what with Adriano’s retirement party, my retirement, Guilherme’s probable win, and the 15th anniversary of the PBR.

Most of the pre-shows, especially the first weekend, were awesome with the usual pyrotechnics, music loud enough and exciting enough to get even the most complacent fan clapping or stomping their feet. But the best was yet to come—the riders and the bulls! How thrilling to see Mike Lee doing acrobatics while being lowered into the arena from the rigging overhead, and Guilherme Marchi emerging from the cockpit of a fighter jet!

The atmosphere for our 11-day stay was electric—everything from The Fan Zone, the drafts, the Meet & Greets, Flint’s radio show, the mutton busting, the hotel elevator door opening to Wiley Peterson, JB Mauney, Guilherme, Adriano, and several of their wives and children, to the main events at Thomas & Mack.

Guilherme is the 2008 World Champion! Yeah! Robson Palermo is the World Event Champion, which was a surprise. A happy one, although I’m a BIG fan of J.B. and believe his ride on Crosswired should have been the highest scored ride of the PBR’s fifteen year history! Back to Robson. He wasn’t or didn’t seem to be a contender for the title, yet he rode exceptionally well and rode one more bull than J.B. Only Guilherme and Robson rode seven of eight bulls!

As for the farewells to Adriano and Justin, I’m sad that Justin’s name was ALWAYS mentioned first and Justin was ALWAYS introduced last in the most revered position. The PBR still thought it was The Justin McBride Show.

Three Meet & Greets and no Justin. Then after the draft for the sixth round (I think) I noticed a line forming. Yes, it was Justin signing autographs, but the fans had to pass a table with two people selling Justin tee shirts and his infamous CD. I have to say that the only reason I stood in that long line in the hot sun with my sinus infection is because of the “baseball cards” of the top 45 riders in the Official Souvenir Program. Every other rider, including alternates and even a surprise visit by Cory Rasch, the bull fighters, and Flint had already signed, and if I wanted a complete set, I needed Justin’s autograph, too. I have to say that Justin was extremely charming while signing autographs and having his picture made with just about all his fans. I was civil with a smile and he smiled back and even shook my hand! I’m pretty convinced that the PBR pushed Justin into retirement by showing favoritism that he didn’t need or want. I also don’t believe that Justin wanted to constantly be in the limelight—he just wanted to ride his bulls and go home. I hope they don’t do the same to J.B. next season. They just seem to need an American for their Poster Boy!

Most of the judging seemed fair. Justin got a re-ride, but at least four others who seemed to deserve one didn’t. The crowd booed low scores for Guilherme and others, but no one booed the inflated scores for Justin. I really think the PBR wanted him to win the event title.

Adriano’s Retirement Party was the highlight of the finals. Randy Bernard, Paulo Crimber, Michael Gaffney, Cody Lambert, Guilherme, Ty Murray, and some of the “suits” gave speeches which left EVERYONE in tears! When Dr. Tandy Freeman began his speech, he spoke a couple sentences in Portuguese that brought the house down! Adriano, Flavia and their three sons sat on a couch on the stage. When Adriano got up to speak, his youngest son burst into tears. Everyone had said how much they would miss Adriano and the boy evidently thought his daddy was going away. Adriano turned to him and said, “Don’t cry. I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to be your daddy forever.”

I’ve never seen a more gracious and humble champion.

A quote from Randy Bernard: “Adriano is a three time World Champion who is still signing autographs. He wants to be with his family, wants to be with his friends, wants to represent his country. To me, nothing represents a sport better than those qualities.”

Adriano said, “Don’t take pride in what you do right. You need to be ashamed of the things you do wrong, but when you do things you’re supposed to you’re just being an ordinary man.” He also said that when he died, he wanted his headstone to simply read, “Here lies a good man.”

As for Vegas, the transportation was horrid and expensive. Since the events are spread out from hell to breakfast (one end of town to the other) and even back-to-back, it was difficult enough on the fans, let alone the riders! The final round was at 11:30 a.m. and most of the riders arrived before 10:30 in limos and shiny Ford trucks to walk the red carpet one last time.

At the awards banquet, when Guilherme was introduced as the 2008 World Champion, Justin McBride was the FIRST person to stand and applaud!

Bud and I aren’t “Vegas” people! We didn’t and don’t gamble, the shows we attended were expensive and overrated, and we missed our home cooking! Don’t get me wrong, we love eating out, but not every meal for 11 days (unless we’re in Europe, of course!). I think Mandalay Bay used to host everything, even the first three rounds, but now everyone wants a piece of the PBR! One of the arena announcers stated that the PBR left $30,000,000 in Vegas last year! And the champion won only $1,000,000!

All in all, it was a fantastic experience. But, I’ll encourage you to go in the future and tell me all about it!

And Then There's That Little Matter of the Event Title

I would be completely remiss in my self-appointed position as humble chronicler of all things PBR if I didn’t talk about Robson Palermo’s stellar performance at the World Finals. In this case, it’s not a chore, it's a pleasure. Palermo has been one of Montana Barn Cat’s favorites since he first appeared on the BFTS in 2006 (the nickname “Jungle Boy” had a lot to do with his enthusiasm), and over the 2008 season, he grew on me, as well.

In many ways, Palermo was riding under the radar till the very end of the finals. Guilherme Marchi’s quest to win his first world title was the main story, and rightly so, but there were also the retirements of Justin McBride and Adriano Moraes to distract us, and of course J. B. Mauney started off riding like a house afire, winning three of the first four rounds. Renato Nunes and Valdiron de Oliveria were both in the running for the world title, as much as anybody could be, given Marchi’s commanding lead.

And then along came Robson, just quietly getting the job done. He rode seven of his eight bulls, only getting bucked off Voodoo Child in round two. Certainly there’s no shame in that—Voodoo Child has only been ridden once in nine outs over the past two seasons. And the more he rode, the higher he seemed to score. His lowest score came on the third night, when he got 85.75 for staying aboard Lost in Paradise. He ended up with three 90-plus point rides, and finished off the short-go by riding Camo for 87 points. It seemed like the judges suddenly woke up that second weekend and realized Palermo was coming up on the outside, and closing on the finish line fast.

All this was an amazing display of consistency and style on Robson’s part, but it is doubly interesting when you consider that he was out with injuries a lot of the season. He rode in 27 of the 33 events, which is no slouch, but also isn’t going to put you in a position to win the world title when several of the top contenders are getting to every event.

His injuries over the past year read like a litany of the kinds of accidents bull riders are prone to. He started off the season riding really well, and almost immediately started getting hurt. In January, he sprained his lower back roping cattle. (Pay attention, boys—maybe it would be wiser to lay off the stuff that doesn’t pay the bills.) Two months later, he fell on his head in Kansas City and suffered a concussion. A week after that, he separated his left shoulder in Tacoma. Another couple of weeks later, and a bull whacked him with his horns and bruised Palermo’s neck. In the first week in April, he got stepped on in Albuquerque and was out for a bit with a bruised leg. When he returned to competition in Omaha in mid-April, he broke his left leg and was out for a month. He came back in San Antonio and sprained his left shoulder again. At the end of June, he sprained the thumb on his riding hand. A week later, he separated his right shoulder when he hit the ground. (I guess he wanted his shoulders to match.) In July, riding with torn cartilage in his left shoulder, he butted heads with the bull and sustained another concussion and bruised up his face. In the middle of August, he finally came to his senses and took some time off, returning in time to compete for Brazil in the World Cup in Chihuahua, Mexico.

Just reading Palermo’s injury report makes me hurt. Incidentally, Robson is a small guy—5' 6" and about 120 pounds. The PBR commentators are always harping about how tiny Brian Canter is, but Palermo is only about four inches taller (assuming Canter is telling the truth about his height, a fact that in my experience most men—particularly short men—either fudge or outright lie about), and he weighs about the same as Canter did before he broke his jaw in August. Palermo is stockier than Canter, but nobody that small is built to take this kind of punishment. It’s hard enough on the big stout guys.

When Robson finally came back, it took him a while to find his groove, but find it he did, and the quarter of a million dollar pay-off had to make all those bumps and bruises feel a little better. He finished the finals ranked sixth in the world. Though I said in an earlier post that Guilherme was peaking just in time for the finals, in hindsight it’s clear that Guilherme never peaked. He just rode, consistently and well, for the entire season. Palermo is the one who peaked, at just the right time. He cowboyed up, and he’s got the buckle to prove it. If he can just stay healthy (and obviously in his case, that’s a big “if”), he has a bright future in the PBR.