Unleash The Beast: American Roots Edition Countdown: No. 3 Boudreaux Campbell
By: Justin Felisko
PUEBLO, Colo. – The 2021 Unleash The Beast: American Roots Edition series begins Saturday afternoon at the Southeastern Livestock Pavilion in Ocala, Florida, with the PBR Monster Energy Invitational.
PBR.com will be counting down the final days leading up to the UTB season opener by looking back at the Top 5 bull riders at the conclusion of the 2020 season.
Today, we look at 2020 PBR World Finals event winner Boudreaux Campbell, who finished third in the 2020 world standings.
No. 3 Boudreaux Campbell
World Championships: 0
Best World Standings Finish: 3 (2020)
2020 Premier Series (UTB) Stats
Rides: 10
Attempts: 18
Riding Percentage: 55.56%
Top Ride: 91.75 points on I’m Legit Too (Lincoln, Nebraska)
Average Ride Score: 88.15 points
Wins: 1 (Arlington, Texas)
15/15 Bucking Battle Victories: 0
Round Wins: 0
Top 5: 2
Top 10: 4
90-point Rides: 3
2020 Recap: Campbell shockingly won the Rookie of the Year title by going 4-for-5 at the PBR World Finals, winning $368,500, to finish 2020 No. 3 in the PBR world standings.
Campbell competed part-time in the PBR in 2020, ultimately riding at only five Unleash The Beast regular-season events and six Pendleton Whisky Velocity Tour events. His World Finals victory was the sole reason for his Top-5 finish in the world standings after he finished his first season on the premier series 10-for-18 (55%) with four Top 10 finishes. Campbell, a member of the victorious Team USA squad at the 2020 Global Cup USA, punched his ticket to the World Finals by riding I’m Legit Too for a career-best 91.5 points in Lincoln, Nebraska.
The 22-year-old also went 9-for-18 on the Pendleton Whisky Velocity Tour and helped Team Pendleton Whisky finish runner-up to Team Cooper Tires at the Monster Energy Team Challenge.
Campbell was the only bull rider to qualify for both the PBR World Finals and NFR in 2020. However, he struggled mightily at the NFR after entering the event in contention for the PRCA’s bull riding championship. He was the No. 3-ranked bull rider in the PRCA entering Round 1, only $6,458.63 out of the No. 1 spot, but he went 1-for-10 and finished 10th in the PRCA standings. Campbell went 32-for-79 (40.51%) in PRCA competition.
OUTLOOK: Campbell will miss the first few events of the season following surgery Monday for a broken right hand/wrist (free hand). The Crockett, Texas, bull rider is hopeful to be back to riding in early February, and he is targeting the Feb. 13-14 PBR Del Rio Invitational in Texas.
2021 will be Campbell’s first full-time run in the PBR. He aspires to battle it out with 2020 World Champion Jose Vitor Leme and perennial contenders like two-time World Champion Jess Lockwood, 2018 World Champion Kaique Pacheco, 2016 World Champion Cooper Davis and Joao Ricardo Vieira.
Campbell also aspires to qualify for a fifth consecutive NFR this season.
RidePass host and five-time PBR World Finals qualifier Colby Yates projects Campbell as a Top 10 rider in 2021, but he is curious to see if he can compete on a weekly basis against the top tier of champion contenders.
“I would say right now he is probably a Top 10 contender, no doubt, but I don’t know if he is ready to win a world title yet,” Yates said. “He is another one of those guys. I watch these guys and see what they are doing, and when Boudreaux Campbell sets his mind to it, you can see it in his eyes. He knows what he is doing. You could see it.”
Yates recalls Campbell’s focus in Lincoln, Nebraska, when Campbell was trying to lock down his first World Finals qualification.
“At that particular moment, he shut everybody out,” Yates said. “He was so focused, and you could see it in his eyes. He was fixing to win. That is what he did. He didn’t win the event, but he did what he was supposed to do. Same look I saw on him at the PBR Finals. If he can figure out how to latch onto that and keep that consistent, then yeah, most definitely he could be player, for sure. I just don’t know if he is there. If that were the case, it would have probably been the same thing at the NFR, but we didn’t see that.”
Two-time World Champion Justin McBride also believes Campbell needs to be more consistent, but he also sees his potential.
“It looks like we got Boudreaux coming in for a full year this year,” McBride said. “Boudreaux still has a long way to go. The NFR showed that when he had nine bulls to go away from his hand. But, the thing I like about Boudreaux is he is willing to get better. He doesn’t think he is as good as he can be right now. He is willing to get better, and he puts forth a lot of effort, and he has a good attitude. That will help a long way.”
Follow Justin Felisko on Twitter @jfelisko
Photo courtesy of Christopher Thompson/Bull Stock Media
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