Mauney Mania

Feel free to imagine this post being read in the booming voice used for Monster Truck Rally ads.  You know, "Sunday!  Sunday!  Sunday!"  It kind of sounds like that in my head.  Only in this case, it would be. "Sunday!  Monday! Mauney! Every day!  All day!"

That's because, as we all know, the PBR crowned J.B. Mauney as its world champion last year, and they are never going to let us forget it.  Let's review the postings on the PBR website as the new season has fired up:

1/3/2014: Mauney Embarks on NYC Media Tour, which begins, "It's been 68 days since J.B. Mauney won his first world title."  The PBR is concerned for us, in case we all had traumatic amnesia events sometime between October and now. Or, December and now, since that's when the PBR had a "Throwback Thursday" that was entitled "Mauney Wins World Title." Silly me, I thought TBT were for things that happened more than one month ago.

Let's not forget that they then tweeted "#TBT: Remember when @JBMauney won his first world title?!"  Gee, PBR, it was so long ago and you never talk about it, so I was in danger of forgetting-- thanks for reminding me!   (I am not going to catalog all their tweets about J.B., because I have other things to do with  my life.) As to the 1/3 article, outside the general gushing, I have nothing against the world champ having a media tour, but I don't remember them being so excited about some of their past champions.

1/3/2014: Q&A with 2013 World Champion J.B. Mauney, which is a transcript of a live Twitter chat with J.B. Mauney.  It's as inane as you are imagining.  Although it did reveal this gem:

Q: @shannonlee13: What is your next goal now that you are the World Champion?

A: @jbmauney: "To win three in a row." #PBRChat

While I'm sure Mauney would love to do that, as any cowboy would, I'm also totally sure it's the PBR's goal, too, so then an American can be the first to back-to-back-to-back threepeat champ. Since Brazilians cornered the first three-time champion (Adriano Moraes) and the first back-to-back champion (Silvano Alves), an American has to get some kind of first, right?

1/3/2014: Vieira and Pozzobon Take Round 1 in New York.  Based upon the title, you might think this article is about Vieira and Pozzobon.  You would be mostly right, but of course it has a giant video in the middle of an interview with J.B. Mauney.  Just like at all the events when someone else was the round leader or did something impressive, but the interview was with Mauney.  It's almost amusing how the PBR doesn't even try to justify it, they just do it.  We should expect it, I guess.

1/5/2014: Mauney's Hot Streak Carries into New Year -- "J.B. Mauney continues to rewrite the PBR record books," it says, glossing over Fabiano Vieira splitting the win quickly in the first paragraph so it can get back to J.B., of course with another video interview. 

1/6/2014: Alves Has Unlikely Weekend in New York, which somehow dedicates quite a few of its paragraphs to J.B. Mauney, including this stunner that gets copy-pasted into all of them:

Mauney has now won or claimed a share of four consecutive regular-season BFTS event wins and five wins all together, including the World Finals, in staging what is the greatest comeback in PBR history. 

Unbiased journalism at its best, folks  -- why wouldn't an article dedicated to dissing Silvano Alves need to add further insult by dedicating much of it to praising J.B.?  At least J.B. himself had the good grace to conclude that this uncharacteristic weekend for Alves isn't one he expects to be repeated.  

1/10/2014: Vieira: 'Every Win Has a Different Taste.'  This article purports to be about Fabiano Vieira, who split the NY win with J.B. Mauney.  But, wait for it, it's actually mostly about J.B. Mauney or what Vieira thinks about Mauney.  And in case we forgot:

Mauney has now won or claimed a share of four consecutive regular-season BFTS event wins and five wins all together, including the World Finals, in staging what is the greatest comeback in PBR history.  

Where have we seen that before?  I'm going to have to stop quoting it because it's in all of them, pretty much.

1/11/2014: Mauney Sets PBR Record for Consecutive Rides -- what else is there to say about this?  Hummer was about to blast off on the power of his own hyperventilating excitement.  But there apparently was more to say in written form.   I can't even bring myself to pull a quote.

1/13/2014: Mauney and Bushwacker Set for Showdown in OKC, which, surprisingly, actually spends a fair amount of time discussing Bushwacker.  Of course, Bushwacker isn't Brazilian and while a champion in his own right, isn't in the same standings as Mauney.

1/14/2014: Mauney Serving as an Inspiration to Outlaw, in which we learn that Mauney is a shining beacon of light for young American cowboys, complete with fawning introduction and interviews with Mauney.  It does raise the question, however, can one be a mentor without knowing it?  How zen.

The flood started to slow down at this point, since Mauney bucked off a bull and so was no longer able to add to the consecutive ride streak, and didn't finish especially well.  Which is to be expected-- no one rides everything all the time.  However, something quite stunning showed up just recently.

1/20/2014: Champions to Collide in OKC 15/15 Bucking Battle, where outside of the standard gushing about Mauney, it features the interesting fact that apparently the 15/15 matches, when based on bull and rider rankings and not randomly assigned, were developed partially to force Silvano Alves into riding bulls he was unlikely to draft (bolding mine):

“He told Roy to tell me the best guy should have to get on the best bull,” Lambert recalled. “He felt like we had the draft and everything and that our No. 1 bull rider, at that time, dodged the toughest bulls.”

Lambert had known Roy – a bull rider, contractor and cutting horse trainer – for a long time, but had only met the elder Carter a few times over the years.

But he liked what he heard.

In fact, so too did the PBR Board of Directors along with the competition committee, they just felt it couldn’t be that way every time there was a 15/15 Bucking Battle.

“You (have) to mix it up a little more for the competition,” said Lambert, who explained the matchups are set like this only the first time each year and that from here on out – the next one will be in Anaheim, Calif. – the current Top 15 riders will be randomly matched with the Top 15 bulls available that weekend.... This particular way of matching riders and bulls illustrates what the 20 founders had in mind when they founded the PBR as an organization that would feature the best bull riders in the world against the best bucking bulls in the world.

This isn't exactly a surprise, but it's extraordinary (and not in a good way) that it was admitted and quoted.  The PBR seems to have been struggling with there being so few rides and fans getting bored (thus the draft) versus people apparently feeling the draft lets cowboys choose the "easy' bulls (a whole 'nother loaded topic), and in the process, utterly failing in controlling the messaging and PR about it (characteristically).

1/22/2014: Mauney vs. Bushwacker Reminiscent of Frost vs. Red Rock.  I'm kind of afraid to touch this one, to be honest, and probably the PBR should have shown a lot more caution themselves.  Let's just say that I think it's best to let "lore" develop on its own as time goes on, rather than to attempt to force it.  And having people who have active roles in PBR events being so partisan is, let's just say, not politic.

1/23/2014: By the Numbers: Mauney Riding Rankest Bulls at Dominant Rate.  I do generally like Slade Long's statistician's take on things, but at this point, I am totally fatigued by the PBR's Mauney media machine, especially when it basically concludes that he is the best there is and ever was and ever shall be.

Anyway, I  may have missed a few (I admit, my eyes started to glaze over after a bit, especially when every fourth word was "Mauney" -- only a slight exaggeration), but I'm sure the point is fairly clear: that's a lot of articles dedicated to J.B. Mauney in the span of a mere couple of weeks, and the mania is bleeding into articles that are nominally about something else.  And this is barely touching the endless commentary on the broadcasts and the numerous interviews with J.B. Mauney (passing over people who actually won rounds or the event, at times), which could have its own dedicated post.  And I am only barely getting into the apparent downplaying of Silvano Alves' accomplishments in order to pump up the legend of J.B. Mauney further, and of course the PBR's weird messaging issues.

But let me be clear on this, also.  I'm not slamming J.B. Mauney; he is a talented rider and he can't help it if the PBR is in love with him and apparently can't stop talking about him for five seconds.  But as much as I tell myself that, the PBR is making it very, very hard for me to like him at this point.  Mauney's not the only bull rider on tour.  He's not the only world champion on tour.  He's a talented guy who made a good attitude adjustment, but there are only so many times we need to hear that he's "having fun" and credits his family for his success, only so many articles we need to read about how super amazing he is or someone else thinks he is-- we get it.

Seriously, PBR, we get it.  We really get it.  You love him.  All must love him or despair.  He's simply the most supercalifragilisticexpialidocious rider there ever was or ever will be.  Are you satisfied?  What else do we have to say to get some variety in coverage?

Final note:  if the PBR isn't worried about causing fan fatigue, maybe they should should chew on this: their deification of Justin McBride likely hastened his departure from the sport.  Living up to the hype becomes stressful; constantly dealing with the media becomes overwhelming.  Think long and hard, PBR, before you hang everything on one guy.  Mauney is your new golden boy, but the longer you put him on your own special pedestal, the more likely it is he'll want to get off.

(In the distance, I can still hear Hummer's voice shouting, "Sunday!  Sunday!  Sunday!  Mauney!  Mauney!  Mauney!")