Wright Joins Murrray in Record Books with 2020 PRCA All-Around and Bull Riding Championships
By: Justin Felisko
PUEBLO, Colo. – Stetson Wright has once again put his name in the record books next to one of the all-time greats and legends of Western sports.
Wright used an 89-point ride on Angel’s Landing Saturday night to win the PRCA bull riding championship at the 2020 Wrangler National Finals Rodeo after clinching the PRCA’s All-Around World Championship a night earlier. The 21-year-old is the first cowboy to win the All-Around World Championship and a roughstock world title in the same year since PBR co-founder and nine-time World Champion Ty Murray won the all-around and bull riding titles in 1998.
“That’s what I always wanted growing up, to be one of the best cowboys to ever live,” Wright told ProRodeo.com. “That means a lot. To hear people talk that highly about me makes me feel lucky and happy to be where I’m at.”
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Murray and Wright have never actually met each other in person just yet, but the two have talked plenty of times on the phone and exchanged text messages. Murray sent Wright a congratulatory text this weekend when he learned of Wright’s accomplishment and told him that he was proud of him.
“It’s so fun to watch,” Murray told PBR.com on Monday morning. “Comparing the timed events to the roughstock events is like trying to compare baseball to football. It is two completely different things. The roughstock was what I was so captivated by my whole rodeo career, and it is so fun to see Stetson’s talent. It seems like he is only getting better. He is so young, and he looks a hell of a lot better this year than he did even last year. That is the idea. You want to be trying to get better your whole career no matter how long it lasts. That is what every champion is striving for, and it looks like he is doing that.
“I just see a really, really talented kid. It looks to me the sky’s the limit for him.”
Wright is the youngest cowboy to win the All-Around World Championship in his first two seasons after last year becoming the first roughstock cowboy to win the all-around since Murray did it in 1998.
“I was in the race for the all-around, and to come out on top I was at a loss for words. I was starstruck to beat guys I look up to,” Wright said. “But winning the all-around world title meant so much to me, but to win it again feels better for the simple fact that people might say I was lucky my first time. But I feel like after the second one, maybe they’ll still think I’m lucky, but everyone has their own opinion, and it doesn’t change the fact that I got what I wanted, so I’m just happy to be here.”
The Milford, Utah, cowboy was the captain of Team Las Vegas this past summer at the Monster Energy Team Challenge, presented by U.S. Border Patrol. Wright went 3-for-16 at the METC before Team Las Vegas was eliminated from the tournament in the semifinals.
In the days leading up to the METC, Wright told PBR.com that Murray, who was Team Las Vegas’s general manager, was one of his childhood heroes growing up.
“I looked up to him ever since I was a little kid,” Wright said. “I have read his book (“King of the Cowboys”), watched him on YouTube. I watched him a little bit growing up, when he was still rodeoing, because my dad was still going. He has been like a superhero to me growing up. I have looked up to him and it is going to be awesome.”
Wright went 6-for-10 at the NFR this year, finishing second in the event average and winning four of the 10 rounds. The second-year pro held off fellow METC participant Ty Wallace by $11,341.32 to win the 2020 PRCA bull riding gold buckle. Wright finished the 2020 PRCA season with $267,940.53 in the bull riding, and $337,725.22 in the all-around. He went 7-for-10 in the saddle bronc riding at the NFR, placing seventh in the average and finishing No. 7 in the world standings.
Murray has been impressed with how poised Wright has been throughout his young career, especially on some of the biggest stages in Western sports.
“He seems to have not just a great awareness of the mechanics of riding, but he has a brain type that is able to stay focused and fluid through all of the situations,” Murray said. “That is really what you have to be able to have. You have to make constant split-second positions whether you are aware of it or not. That is what has to take place. He seems very good at doing that.
“There is no such thing as pressure. Pressure is man-made and self-inflicted, and he seems very good about that as well. Being able to thrive when the chips are down, and to be an even better competitor when it counts. I have seen a lot of really talented guys that couldn’t deal with that part of the equation and it stifled them. That is not the case with Stetson.”
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Colten Fritzlan went 7-for-10 to win the event average in the bull riding and the PRCA’s Rookie of the Year honors.
Six-time PRCA champion Sage Kimzey won the final round of the NFR with a 92-point ride on Safety Meeting, but it was not enough to help him continue his dominance atop the PRCA bull riding standings. Kimzey finished fifth in the final world standings after going 5-for-10 for sixth place in the event average.
Meanwhile, it was a tough 10 days for 2020 PBR World Finals event winner Boudreaux Campbell. The 22-year-old went 1-for-10 at Globe Life Field.
Campbell will begin the 2021 Unleash The Beast: American Roots Edition on Jan. 9-10 when the PBR’s top tour begins its new season in Tucson, Arizona, at the Tucson Rodeo Fairgrounds.
Team Australia PBR Global Cup rider Ky Hamilton finished fourth in the average, as well as fourth in the world standings.
“It was crazy. Ty Wallace, Colten Fritzlan and Ky Hamilton all rode phenomenally,” Wright said. “Every guy did this week, but it came down to us four in the last round, and it was crazy to come out on top. This is what I live for, the stories when it comes down to the last ride.”
Follow Justin Felisko on Twitter @jfelisko
Photo courtesy of Andy Watson/Bull Stock Media
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