Jesus Believes it Will Take a J.B. Mauney Kind of Performance to Win Home State Event
TUCSON, Ariz. – Cody Jesus glanced up at the Tucson Arena grandstands and saw the raucous Arizona fan base continuing to cheer on Saturday night.
Jesus had just ridden Trucker Bill for 88.5 points in Round 1 of the Monster Energy Invitational, but it was just one of 19 rides on a sensational season-opening night of bull riding in Tucson.
“Man, this is one hell of a bull riding,” Jesus said with a big grin. “It’s going to be tough to win. I just need to stay on two more bulls tomorrow and see where I fall.”
Jesus grew up six hours north of Tucson in Window Rock, Arizona, and the Navajo native would love to earn his first premier series victory in his home state during Native American Heritage Month.
“It would be special, it’s as close as I’m going to get to Glendale or Albuquerque and I was looking at it, I think J.B. (Mauney) won here (2015), so that’s one guy I look up to and it would be cool to win the first UTB back to start the season.”
Jesus finished Round 1 tied for sixth place, and he will very much be in contention for the victory on Championship Sunday (4 p.m. ET CBS Sports Network).
The 24-year-old admits he is beginning the 2023 Unleash The Beast season with the most confidence that he has ever had in his career due to his success in the past year.
Jesus nearly won the 2022 PBR World Finals last May, finishing runner-up to World Champion Daylon Swearingen with a 5-for-8 performance inside Dickies Arena, after winning the 2022 Pendleton Whisky Velocity Tour Finals.
He then flourished riding for Cody Lambert and the Texas Rattlers in the PBR Team Series.
For the first time in his life, Jesus, who first made his PBR debut at 18 years old as a Native American invite at the annual Ty Murray Invitational in Albuquerque, New Mexico, truly believes he can contend for a world title.
“Yeah, there’s something different this year,” Jesus said. “Throughout my whole career, I didn’t really believe in it, but deep down I really do, it’s for real now. (Learning from) Lambert, the way my riding is going and just maturing as a bull rider, I’m taking it to heart, and I really think I could be a World Champion.”
Jesus also knows he isn’t that far off either when he pulls up his riding statistics and sees he has 17 buckoffs in the 6-to-7.99-second range.
“Cody is making me believe that I should ride every bull, and that I can ride every bull,” Jesus continued. “After he’s been making me believe that, I go and look at my profile on PBR.com and I look at how many 6 and 7-second rides I got. If I finish them, some of those potentially win a round, win an event, so if I finish all of those, I can ride 60-70% of my bulls, usually that will win a world title. I believe if I finish those bull rides and finish every single bull ride this year, and actually set a goal to be a World Champion, I think I’ll do good.
“I’ve never set a goal to be a World Champion. I always said that I wanted to win a world title, but now I’m setting that in stone, sooner or later I’m going to try to win one, and that’s what I believe.”
Jesus was one of three Texas Rattlers to notch a qualified ride Saturday night in Tucson as Brady Oleson and Daniel Keeping tied with Cooper Davis for the Round 1 victory.
“I feel like one of the guys in our locker room is going to be the World Champion this year, but I can’t tell you which one, but maybe it will be Cody,” Lambert said in Las Vegas.
It is not lost on the four-time PBR World Finals qualifier either just how important a role he plays in being a role model for other aspiring Native American bull riders too.
“What I’ve done now, it isn’t even a whole lot, and it’s kicked open doors and shown kids to believe and stop hanging around with the bad crowd and go focus on bull riding and know that they can make a living off it,” Jesus said. “They come up to my house and see what I have and that all came from the PBR and bull riding. Winning a world title could open doors even wider for all Native Americans and up-and-coming bull riders.
“I never thought I would be where I’m at today,” Jesus said. “Being that little kid, there’s guys like Derrick Begay who’s opened doors and Native Americans like that who have showed me you can do it and all I need to see back that was that I could do it, and all these kids need to see now is that they can do it too.”
Follow Justin Felisko on Twitter @jfelisko
Photo courtesy of Andy Watson/Bull Stock Media
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