Past Eight PBR World Champions to be Showcased on CBS National Television Sunday
PUEBLO, Colo. – Fans craving PBR content with the Unleash The Beast on a one-week break this weekend will not have to look too far.
PBR’s Champion Showcase, presented by Monster Energy, airs Sunday on CBS national television at noon ET (check local listings). Craig Hummer and two-time World Champion Justin McBride will go down memory lane and take fans back to the last eight World Championship races. Beginning with J.B Mauney’s first world title in 2013 to the recent rivalry between reigning World Champion Jose Vitor Leme and two-time World Champion Jess Lockwood, fans will be able to relive some of the greatest moments from 2013-2020.
The one-hour broadcast will showcase two-time World Champions Mauney and Lockwood, as well as three-time World Champion Silvano Alves, 2016 World Champion Cooper Davis, 2018 World Champion Kaique Pacheco and Leme.
The broadcast also comes following this weekend’s Pendleton Whisky Velocity Tour event in Lexington, Kentucky, which fans can watch exclusively on RidePass on Friday and Saturday night.
Below is a look back at each rider’s championship season that is featured on CBS, and don’t miss out on the 2021 PBR World Finals later this year at T-Mobile Arena (Nov. 3-7).
2013 World Champion J.B. Mauney
2013 Premier Series Stats
Rides: 47
Attempts: 90
Riding Percentage: 52.22%
Average Ride Score: 87.11
Top Ride: 95.25 points on Bushwacker (Tulsa, Oklahoma)
Wins: 6
Top 5: 12
Top 10: 15
90-point rides: 8
J.B. Mauney won five of the last nine regular-season premier series events to pull within 538.5 points of No. 1 Silvano Alves at the beginning of the 2013 World Finals. Mauney’s comeback did not stop at the front doorstep of the Thomas & Mack Center. Instead, he stormed to his first world title by winning four of the six rounds to usurp Alves for the $1 million championship.
Mauney (6-for-6) was sensational in Las Vegas with rides aboard Train Robber (88.75 points), Smackdown (93.75 points), JW Hughes’s Excavation (89 points), Breakdown (90.75 points), Slippery Devil (91 points) and Wipeout (93 points).
It was a comeback like none other in PBR history.
MCBRIDE ON CBS: “J.B. Mauney, I think of just the runs he is capable of going on, being able to ride the rank bulls. Look, that is what makes Mauney so special. That is what makes him different from anybody else: the highest-level bulls. He might buck off an 83-pointer, but then he is going to come back and be 93 in the short round. That is the biggest thing to me.”
2014 World Champion Silvano Alves
2014 Premier Series Stats
Rides: 50
Attempts: 92
Riding Percentage: 54.35%
Average Ride Score: 81.72 points
Top Ride: 92.25 points on Rango (Nashville, Tennessee)
Wins: 1
Top 5: 8
Top 10: 13
90-point rides: 1
Silvano Alves won a record-tying third World Championship and passed Justin McBride to become the richest athlete in Western sports history ($5,266,273.59) at the time. He went a perfect 6-for-6 to also win the World Finals event title for the first time in his career.
Alves rode DaNutso (86.25 points), Mr. Clark (87.75 points), Here We Go (69 points), Freakster (86.25 points), Hokey Pokey (85.5 points) and Asteroid (87.25 points) on his path to victory at the Finals.
He began the Finals as the No. 3 rider in the world standings and trailed No. 1 Joao Ricardo Vieira by 511 points. Alves ended the season with 13 consecutive rides.
The World Finals victory tied Alves with Adriano Moraes as the only riders to win three world titles in PBR history. Alves also joined Mauney, Renato Nunes and Mike Lee as the only riders to win the World Championship and the Finals event title in the same season. Lockwood would later do this in 2019. Mauney would later surpass Alves as the richest athlete in Western sports history.
MCBRIDE ON CBS: “You compare him and J.B. They were hot at the same points in their careers, and they are on opposite ends of the spectrum. Silvano is like that quarterback that gets it 10 yards at a time, every drive. He is never going to throw one down the field. That works if you can complete all them short ones. If you ever mess it up, it allows a guy like J.B. to beat you. Nobody, nobody, has ever been better at that sort of a strategy than Silvano.”
2015 World Champion J.B. Mauney
2015 Premier Series Stats
Rides: 39
Attempts: 66
Riding Percentage: 59.09%
Average Ride Score: 87.74
Top Ride: 92.75 points on SweetPro’s Bruiser (World Finals)
Wins: 4
Top 5: 11
Top 10: 14
90-point rides: 8
J.B. Mauney overcame a torn left ACL during the first half of the season and eventually ran away with the 2015 world title, taking over the world lead in Thackerville, Oklahoma, in September and never looking back. Mauney won four events and erased Joao Ricardo Vieira’s 1,662.5-point lead before essentially cakewalking his way to a historic world title.
Mauney was the only rider in the previous points system (2015-2019) that ever clinched a world title before Championship Sunday at the World Finals, and he did it handily.
The North Carolina native began the World Finals 3-for-4 before shutting things down after injuring his left shoulder during his 92.75-point ride on SweetPro’s Bruiser. Mauney had already clinched the world title following his 86.5-point ride on Say Goodbye in Round 3, but that did not stop him from selecting Bruiser during the draft for Round 4.
It was classic Mauney, wanting the rankest bull possible.
And in 2015, there was no one better or ranker than James Burton Mauney.
MCBRIDE ON CBS: “You seen him reach a new level of being able to ride the rank bulls because, for me, on both of Mauney’s world titles, that is what won them: those championship-round-caliber bulls. He is not always going to have the highest riding percentage out there, but you look at the event wins, the round wins, the 90-point rides, all the World Champion bulls he has ridden in his career. That is what made him a World Champion.”
2016 World Champion: Cooper Davis
2016 Premier Series Stats
Rides: 42
Attempts: 80
Riding Percentage: 52.5%
Average Ride Score: 86.07
Top Ride: 91.5 points on I Always Stand (Albuquerque, New Mexico)
Wins: 3
Top 5: 12
Top 10: 19
90-point rides: 2
A year after thinking he would never be a World Champion, Cooper Davis’s rededication to his fitness and the sport of professional bull riding paid off in 2016 with a gold buckle.
Davis overcame a 226.58-point deficit in the world standings on the final day of the 2016 World Finals to usurp Kaique Pacheco and win his first World Championship. Pacheco bucked off Slinger Jr. in 6.46 seconds in the championship round, clinching the title for Davis after he had won Round 5 with a 91-point ride on Catfish John.
In 14 months, much had changed for Davis.
He increased his riding percentage by almost 22%, won his first PBR World Championship gold buckle, won three premier series events and a 15/15 Bucking Battle, and earned more than $1.6 million since beginning his diet and workout regimen that resulted in a 24-pound weight loss. He also won the 2015 PBR World Finals event as a rookie.
MCBRIDE ON CBS: “His willingness to win. That mindset we talked about. When he lost the weight to get fit to be where he needed to be to be a World Champion. That attitude that he brings and that willingness to do whatever it takes to get the win is what separates Cooper Davis apart and why he is a World Champion.”
2017 World Champion: Jess Lockwood
2017 Premier Series Stats
Rides: 28
Attempts: 64
Riding Percentage: 43.75%
Average Ride Score:
Top Ride: 90.25 points (4x) on BC Circular Insanity (Sioux Falls, South Dakota), Luke (Austin, Texas), Big Dutch (World Finals), More Big Bucks (World Finals)
Wins: 4
Top 5: 6
Top 10: 8
90-point rides: 6
Jess Lockwood used a PBR-record three consecutive round wins to begin the World Finals to propel himself to the 2017 world title over Derek Kolbaba, Eduardo Aparecido, Kaique Pacheco and Cooper Davis.
The soon-to-be youngest World Champion (20) in PBR history began his late-season surge at the Velocity Tour Finals, going 3-for-3 and cutting Kolbaba’s lead to 447.5 points.
Lockwood finished 2017 28-for-64 (43.75 percent) with four event victories, including the season-opening PBR Major in New York City.
He was able to overcome having the lowest riding percentage for any World Champion by making it count the most when he made the whistle. Nineteen of his 28 qualified rides resulted in him finishing in the Top 5 of a premier series round.
2018 World Champion: Kaique Pacheco
2018 Premier Series Stats
Rides: 42
Attempts: 84
Riding Percentage: 50 percent
Average Ride Score: 86.18
Top Ride: 92.75 points on SweetPro’s Bruiser (Last Cowboy Standing in Las Vegas)
Wins: 5
Top 5: 9
Top 10: 12
90-point rides: 4
Kaique Pacheco’s bid at winning the 2018 World Championship appeared doomed when he tore his left MCL/PCL at the 2018 Velocity Tour Finals attempting to ride Fly Over just four days before the start of the 2018 PBR World Finals.
Instead, Pacheco put on a memorable performance of toughness and grit at the Finals by riding his first two bulls – 87.25 points on Rugby and 88.75 points on Smooth Wreck – and finishing 2-for-5 to hold off Jose Vitor Leme’s last-second push for his first world title.
The fourth-year pro concluded 2018 422.5 points ahead of Leme in the final world standings. Pacheco led the PBR with five event wins and three 15/15 Bucking Battle victories. He also was No. 1 in qualified rides after going 42-for-84 (50 percent) in 27 premier series events.
The Itatiba, Brazil, bull rider took over the world No. 1 ranking with his Last Cowboy Standing victory and would not let go of the ranking for the final six months of the season.
MCBRIDE ON CBS: “Solid is the word that describes Kaique. He is a guy that rides the bulls he is supposed to. He is not going to wow you like a J.B. Mauney in the championship round, but he is going to knock them down. Consistency is key at times in this sport, and nobody was better than Pacheco.”
2019 World Champion Jess Lockwood
2019 Premier Series Stats
Rides: 44
Attempts: 65
Riding Percentage: 67.69%
Average Ride Score: 88.52 points
Top Ride: 94 points on Heartbreak Kid
Wins: 5
Top 5: 11
Top 10: 13
90-point rides: 14
Jess Lockwood made history in 2019 by becoming the sixth rider in PBR history to win multiple World Championships.
The 22-year-old is also the youngest rider ever to win two or more gold buckles, and his 5-for-6 showing at the 2019 PBR World Finals also made him one of five riders to win the World Championship and World Finals event title in the same season.
Lockwood concluded 2019 with career highs in qualified rides (44), attempts (65), riding percentage (67.69%), 90-point rides (14), 15/15 Bucking Battle wins (4), event wins (5) and round wins (14) on the premier series.
Lockwood’s average ride score of 88.52 points was the highest average ride score for a World Champion in PBR history, breaking the previous record of 87.79 held by Chris Shivers (2003).
No longer a bull riding prodigy, Lockwood is now a PBR legend alongside fellow multi-time World Champions Adriano Moraes, Silvano Alves, Justin McBride, Chris Shivers and J.B. Mauney. He also joined Mike Lee (2004), Renato Nunes (2009), J.B. Mauney (2013) and Silvano Alves (2014) as the only riders to win the World Finals and the world title in the same season.
MCBRIDE ON CBS: “Jess is just really good. When you just boil it down to bull riding, take the personalities out of it and you just boil it down to fundamental bull riding, Lockwood is really, really sound in either direction. That is where I feel like Lockwood has had an advantage on guys since he came around. It doesn’t matter which direction a bull spins. When you got that, you’ve got the stuff.”
2020 World Champion: Jose Vitor Leme
2020 Premier Series Stats
Rides: 44
Attempts: 65
Riding Percentage: 67.69%
Average Ride Score: 88.15 points
Top Ride: 95.75 points on Woopaa (Arlington, Texas)
Wins: 7
Top 5: 11
Top 10: 13
90-point Rides: 9
Jose Vitor Leme’s march to the world title was highlighted by a remarkable seven event wins and a 67.69% riding average on the premier series. The two accolades had Leme flirting with the PBR’s record for most wins in a season (Justin McBride, 8) and highest riding percentage (Guilherme Marchi, 70.75%).
Leme also led the PBR in qualified rides (44), round wins (16) and 90-point rides (9). The 2017 PBR World Finals event winner was motivated to finish the job he started in 2019 and not lose the world title during the 2020 PBR World Finals, using an emphatic 95.75-point ride on Woopaa in Round 3 to clinch the world title.
Leme never faltered through the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, and he never let go of the world No. 1 ranking for the final seven and a half months of the season. He refused to slow down even when stiff opponents such as Lockwood, Chase Outlaw and 2016 World Champion Cooper Davis were at home recovering from significant injuries.
2020 was pure domination by Jose Vitor Leme.
MCBRIDE ON CBS: “He really was (dominant) from start to finish. He learned how to ride bulls away from his hand. Left-handed guy, that is bulls going to the right. I think that is what made him that unstoppable force because when you think about it, since 2008, they have been in the draft era. They get to pick the majority of their championship-round bulls. When you can go into a championship round and not pick a bull because he goes a certain direction, but you can go on in and pick because he is the best bull, you are dangerous, and that is what Leme was able to do this year.”
Follow Justin Felisko on Twitter @jfelisko
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