PUEBLO, Colo. – J.B. Mauney stepped up onto the shark cage in the Tucson Convention Center and proudly selected Mr. Bull in the Built Ford Tough Championship Round.
In the beginning of his career, Mauney would have been at the discretion of a random bull draw for the championship round.
Instead, the PBR’s championship round draft system puts Mauney and the rest of the Top 35 bull riders in the world partially in control of their destiny at a Built Ford Tough Series event.
The current world leader then proceeded to ride Mr. Bull for 90 points and his 26th career victory on Saturday night.
The draft allows a rider to pick a bull that he either thinks fits his style, or as Mauney has done throughout his career, step up to the challenge of taking on the rankest bulls in the PBR.
The championship round draft, which was implemented at the start of the 2008 season, is one of the topics talked about in this week’s episode of “Road to Vegas.”
Host Craig Hummer is joined by two-time World Champion Justin McBride, PBR Director of Livestock Cody Lambert, nine-time World Champion Ty Murray and 2002 World Finals event winner J.W. Hart as the group discusses the “Then vs. Now” of the PBR.
The show airs Monday night at 8 p.m. ET on CBS Sports Network
During the show, Murray explains the thought process he and then PBR CEO Randy Bernard had when they first came up with the idea of the championship round draft.
“I thought of the draft because all of the bulls are rank,” he said. “When you look at the championship round, they all buck. In our era, there were so many times there were great famous bulls I never got to get on because I never drew them. In this show, when you are talking about then and now, the idea of the draft was we were going to see a bunch of great guys get on great bulls.”
Lambert admitted he was a little skeptical when he first heard of the idea from Murray and Bernard.
“I said it never would work, but then they explained it to me again and I thought maybe we will get to see something great,” Lambert said. “We will get to see personalities. Maybe we will get to see some kid we never heard of step up and take the toughest bull there and become an overnight hero. There were a lot of good things about it.
“The bottom line was to try to and get the riding percentages a little higher, to get them to make the whistle more often if they pick their bulls that fit them pretty well.”
Since the draft was set into action, the BFTS has seen a host of memorable matchups and rematches between the rankest riders and rankest bulls.
None have been as popular as the historical battles between Mauney and three-time World Champion Bull Bushwacker.
Mauney selected Bushwacker in a championship round draft eight different times, including the second pick in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 2013 when he finally conquered the bovine athlete for 95.25 points.
“Some guys like it, some don’t,” Lambert said. “Some fans like it, some don’t. But when J.B. Mauney stepped up and picked Bushwacker and rode him – I don’t know anybody that didn’t like that.”
Ryan Dirteater rode I’m A Gangster Too for 88 points Saturday night after selecting Jeff Robinson’s bull for the eighth time in a championship round draft.
“This time it worked,” Dirteater said. “That bull, you have to ride him jump for jump. I have been on that bull 10 times. I have always liked the way that bull felt. I have won a lot of money with him, but he has bucked me off a lot and cost me a lot.”
Hart said he would have loved to have the opportunity to draft bulls when he was riding so he could have taken a crack at some of the sports’ greatest.
“I never got to get on Little Yellow Jacket, Mossy Oak Mudslinger or Blueberry Wine,” Hart said. “Had the draft been in place when I was riding in those bulls’ eras, I could have promised you I would have got on all three of them.”
Murray said the draft helped alleviate that problem for modern riders.
“You are not going to have that thing where you see a great rider that never gets on Bushwacker,” Murray said. “You would see the great riders get on Bushwacker.”
McBride was the only rider on the panel that was able to experience the draft in his career, and he said it was easier for him when he would let Lambert select his bull for him.
“Well it was different. I had surgery and was out for seven to eight months of the season when the draft was in place,” McBride said. “I didn’t really like it. I didn’t like getting involved thinking about the bulls that much. When I could keep my ego out of the way I would let Cody picked the bulls for me. I never bucked off a bull that Cody picked for me and I bucked off some bulls in the draft era.”
One thing that McBride, and the entire panel agreed upon, was the draft has allowed for new strategies and personalities to shine in the sport.
Similar to a football coach weighing the pros and cons of kicking a field goal versus going for it on fourth down, riders on the BFTS have to decide how they want to try and go about winning an event and a gold buckle.
“It changed the game a little bit,” McBride added. “It really did. It allowed guys to start having these strategies. It is interesting too because it allows people to kind of see, well this is kind of this guy’s personality.”
Follow Justin Felisko on Twitter @jfelisko
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