Woopaa Looking and Feeling Good as he Begins Pursuit of YETI World Champion Bull Title at World Finals
By: Justin Felisko
LAS VEGAS – Laramie Wilson and his girlfriend and fellow stock contractor Katie Perschbacher have been waking up around 5 every morning at the South Point Hotel Casino & Spa to head out to bull housing to check on their standout bovine Woopaa and feed him breakfast.
Woopaa will sometimes walk up to Wilson and eat some hay out of his stock contractor’s hand, but you won’t find Wilson giving Woopaa any pep talk before he bucks inside T-Mobile Arena.
“No, not my style,” Wilson said with a laugh. “I may go back there and rub on him or something, but it’s more for me, not for him. He don’t care. He’s so chill all the time. He just kind of la-di-dahs around and never gets in a hurry. Doesn’t really throw a fit in the chute or anything. So I may scratch him, but that’s to calm my nerves, not his.”
The No. 1 bull in the YETI World Champion Bull standings is the only bull they have bucking this week in Las Vegas, and with the days counting down toward Woopaa’s out at the 2021 PBR World Finals, those nerves start to hit Wilson a little bit harder.
“Yeah, the nerves are setting in, for sure,” Wilson told PBR.com this week. “It wasn’t bad until I see the rider draw, and we know who’s going in and all that. It’s kind of coming to fruition, I guess. Reality is starting to set in. Like, you’ve done good all year, but these two outs are everything.
“It’s make or break at the Finals.”
Woopaa has two outs coming up this week at T-Mobile Arena as he attempts to become the 18th bovine to win a PBR World Champion Bull title.
The 2020 ABBI Classic champion is set to buck Thursday night in Round 2, often referred to as the rank pen, against Daylon Swearingen.
“He’s good,” Wilson said. “He looks good. He’s acting good. This is probably the best he’s done on more than a day or two trip all year.”
Fans can watch the World Finals exclusively on CBS Sports Network beginning at 10 p.m. ET.
Swearingen was ecstatic when he learned he had drawn the No. 1 bull in the world, and that is no surprise either.
Woopaa has been ridden in five consecutive outs and seven times overall this season for 95.25 points or higher. Two of those rides are the greatest in PBR history – Jose Vitor Leme’s 97.75 points in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Dalton Kasel’s 96.75 points in San Antonio.
The PBR record for the highest-scored bull ride at the World Finals is 96.5 points (Chris Shivers on two-time World Champion Dillinger in 2001).
“That is pretty exciting right there,” Swearingen said. “He just jumps so high in the air, and he is so electric every time. Ah, it is pretty cool. So freaking cool.”
Wilson says there was a time earlier this season when he was concerned if Woopaa was being ridden too much. However, Woopaa has proven in the second half he can still receive massive bull scores while propelling riders to victory.
“I’m not going to lie, probably May in Omaha, I was kind of glad he’d thrown off a couple guys, and I’m like, ‘Phew, he’s not that rideable bull that everybody thought he was,’” Wilson said. “Because Jose (Vitor Leme) rode him at Fort Worth and Boudreaux (Campbell) rode him at Kansas City, so people were starting to talk about how rideable he was. But after he threw (Cody) Nance and Keyshawn (Whitehorse) off, I was like, ‘Maybe he’s not as rideable as they think he was.’
“But then the second half, when they’re 96.75, or 97.75… if they’re going to be that many points, they can ride him every day of the week. That’s awesome because those guys respect the bull, knowing they have the chance to potentially set a new record, which I don’t know if Jose’s will ever be broke. That’s definitely… I don’t know if I’ll ever see it broke. That’s a lot of points.”
The 2021 YETI World Champion Bull will be the animal with the highest average bull score from their top eight regular-season outs and two outs at the PBR World Finals.
Woopaa (46.94 World Champion Bull Average) leads No. 2 Chiseled (46.38) by 0.56 points heading into Thursday.
Chiseled has drawn Rookie of the Year leader Junior Patrik Souza.
The two bulls will then buck for the final time this season in the championship round Sunday on CBS national television (3 p.m. ET).
“Those points sounds like a lot, but when you’re talking two outs, it doesn’t take much to catch you,” Wilson concluded.
Follow Justin Felisko on Twitter @jfelisko
Photo courtesy of Andy Watson/Bull Stock Media
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