Moraes Discusses World Championships Ahead of Ridepass Airing of 1994 World Finals
By: Justin Felisko
PUEBLO, Colo. – There have been six riders over the course of PBR history to win multiple World Championships since the PBR’s inaugural season in 1994.
Adriano Moraes (1994, 2001, 2006), Silvano Alves (2011, 2012, 2014), Chris Shivers (2000, 2003), Justin McBride (2005, 2007), J.B. Mauney (2013, 2015) and Jess Lockwood (2017, 2019).
Looking at the list of those six riders, there is a common theme among the five riders not named Adriano Moraes.
Alves, Shivers, McBride, Mauney and Lockwood all won their multiple titles within a span of at most four seasons, whereas Moraes went seven years between his first two world titles and then another five years before he won his final gold buckle.
There was a 12-year gap between Moraes’s first title in 1994 to his last in 2006.
“I hadn’t realized until somebody said that to me,” Moraes said last month. “No athletes spread their titles in such a long period of time. Everybody wins, whatever they have to win, in their prime. It might be mid-career, beginning, end or whatever. They pack all their titles together. In my case, they were 12 years apart.”
RidePass will give fans an opportunity to watch Moraes win his first world title Tuesday night at 8 p.m. ET when the digital OTT network airs the final round of the 1994 World Finals.
Moraes clinched the PBR’s inaugural World Championship with an 88.5-point ride on Gist Buckle. The ride, according to Brett Hoffman of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram then, was the highest ride of the three-round, $250,000 championships held at the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas.
“I always think about riding my bull and never finishing first or last,” Moraes told Hoffman 26 years ago. “I’m thinking ride, ride, ride.”
Moraes took home a total payday of $47,288. He won $23,038 for finishing second to event winner Ted Nuce in the event average and $24,250 for clinching the world title.
In comparison, Lockwood earned more than $1.3 million last year when he won the 2019 World Finals and World Championship.
Forty-six riders competed at the first PBR World Finals. Moraes had entered Las Vegas sitting second in the world standings, trailing Clint Branger.
“I was thinking about coming here and riding all three bulls and seeing what happened,” Moraes told Hoffman. “What I am afraid of is getting bucked off. I always compete against my bull. I’m always afraid of hitting the ground before the buzzer.”
Moraes won the 1994 Bud Light Cup title based on a points system featuring eight regular-season events and the Finals. According to the Star-Telegram, Moraes edged out Branger by 173.5 points.
The now-50-year-old said that while he appreciated winning the first PBR world title, his second gold buckle seven years later was, in some ways, more like winning his first world title.
The PBR was a startup organization in 1994, beginning to lay the foundation of becoming the worldwide, mainstream sports league that it is today.
Moraes would have to compete in 28 premier series events to win the 2001 World Championship and $423,759.69.
“The first one didn’t mean much to us at the time,” Moraes said. “At the time, we were just starting and we only had six or eight events. It was still the great NFR. Everyone wanted to go to the NFR. All the top guys were also qualified for the NFR. I was qualified for the NFR as my first time. Everybody had that expectation for the NFR. The PBR Finals was a little over a month before the (NFR). After the PBR Finals was over, we did not celebrate or nothing. We started thinking about the NFR. I went to the NFR and rode all 10 bulls, and I ended up being only the third guy (ever) to do so, and I won the average at the NFR. So those two things overshadow my PBR world title.
“But in 2001, when I won my second time, to me I felt like it was my first one. The first one, yes, everybody respected my ’94 (title), but they could only say it was six or eight events. The points system helped me, and it did help me. The second one, the PBR was already established, we had great World Champions like Tuff Hedeman, Owen Washburn, Michael Gaffney, Troy Dunn and Chris Shivers. We were something. We were the greatest back in 2001. (1994) was a glamorous title that I had, but it wasn’t in that era. The second title, felt pretty much like (my) first one.”
Moraes’s dominance in the PBR stemmed across multiple eras, a true rarity in the sport. Moraes was 24 when he won his first world title, and he was a PBR-record 36 when he won his last in 2006.
McBride was in the prime of his career in 2006, and he was looking for a second consecutive world title before Moraes defeated Father Time and the rest of the PBR locker room.
Moraes’s longevity is impressive, says McBride.
“That is why Adriano will always be regarded as one of the greatest of all time in the PBR,” McBride said. “When I came around – 1999 was my rookie year – Adriano was already considered a legend. To me, I would think probably how guys when they come around now, and are 18 or 19 years old, and how they look at J.B. Mauney. That is what Adriano already was by the time I came around. Then to watch him rattle off two more world titles during my career, because he and I retired the exact same year, to see him win those two world titles in my career, and he was already a legend by the time I came around, that really speaks volumes of what Adriano could accomplish and what he did accomplish.
“When he won his last one in ’06, he was shell of what he was when I came around. But to see the determination, because it didn’t even look like he was going to finish the Finals when he won his third one, and to see the determination and come back and make those big rides at the right moments that he did it in. Adriano always had a flare for the dramatics, and he did it up and showed up in a big way at that Finals.”
The list of riders that Moraes had to defeat to win his world titles in 1994, 2001 and 2006 is unlike any other.
“I rode with guys like Tuff (Hedeman) and I won,” Moraes said. “I rode with guys like Justin (McBride) and I won. I rode with guys like J.B. (Mauney) and I won. Or Chris Shivers. Or Ednei Caminhas. Or Guilherme Marchi. All those great guys that we rode together, and they were from different eras. In my career at PBR, the legends, the founders of the PBR retired, then the second generation come in, the Justins, the Ross Colemans, all those guys. And I saw them ride their entire career in the PBR, and I also saw the young guns. The guys that are now the old guys. Like J.B. and Brian Canter. All those guys come along.
“I believe my titles in those three eras show consistency and show that I was a good player for a long, long time.”
Follow Justin Felisko on Twitter @jfelisko
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