LAS VEGAS – SweetPro’s Bruiser has made a career out of rewarding bull riders with 90-point rides and massive paydays, but this week Bruiser was the one walking away with the cash and historic bragging rights during the 2017 PBR Built Ford Tough World Finals
Bruiser used a 47-point bull score and a 46-point score with two buckoffs of Emilio Resende and Ryan Dirteater to propel himself to the YETI World Champion Bull title and 2017 Bull of the Finals championship over runner-up inside T-Mobile Arena.
“This is what I do for a living,” stock contractor H.D. Page said. “I’ve seen a lot of good bulls, but I’ve never come across one as good as this one. We’ve had some bulls be crowned World Champion Bull before, but this bull is just so cool and so ready to work and just a great athlete. It’s more special.”
Bruiser won $100,000 for the world title and an additional $25,000 for being named Bull of the Finals.
The defending World Champion Bull is the fourth bovine superstar in PBR history to win back-to-back titles and joins 1995 World Champion Bodacious as the only bulls to win both the PBR championship and PRCA Bull of the Year honors.
“We’ll never, ever see another Bruiser,” PBR Director of Livestock Cody Lambert said. “We’re among greatness right now, and we better enjoy it and appreciate it because it won’t last long.”
Bruiser was outstanding in 2017, upping his performance from a year ago.
He concludes the season with a 12-4 record and a career-high 46.02 average bull score. Bruiser was marked 45 points or higher in all 16 of his outs, including a career-high 47.25-point score for bucking off 2017 World Champion Jess Lockwood in Austin, Texas.
Bruiser won the 2017 championship with a World Champion Bull average – a bull’s top-8 regular scores plus two outs at the World Finals – of 46.02 points.
Pearl Harbor finished second after being ridden by Dener Barbosa for 89.5 points during the championship round on Sunday and was marked 45.75 points.
Rounding out the Top 5 in the final World Champion Bull standings was Bad Beagle, Jack Shot and Cochise.
Bruiser joins three-time World Champion Bull Bushwacker (2013 & 2014), three-time World Champion Little Yellow Jacket (2002, 2003 & 2004) and Dillinger (2000 & 2001) to successfully repeat.
Julio Moreno, the owner of Bushwacker, said Bruiser is rightfully in the conversation as one of the greatest bucking bulls in PBR history.
Moreno admitted he got chills watching Page flanking Bruiser on Thursday night inside T-Mobile Arena.
The California native could see the same nervous, but confident look that he used to have whenever he would run the most-famous bull of all time into the Thomas & Mack Center.
“It’s the greatest feeling,” Moreno said. “I watched H.D. the day he bucked in the second round and was so tickled and happy. It just gave me goosebumps to see that because I know I went through that andit’s great. I’m for the bull, and it’s great to have a bull come back-to-back, or even if you make it every other year.”
On Sunday, Bruiser needed 7.19 seconds to buckoff Dirteater and almost got tripped up leaving the bucking chutes. Once he regained his step, he went to work with his traditional power and showy explosiveness that propelled him to a second consecutive championship.
Bruiser leapt so high that he was almost leaping completely above the arena signage.
The out came two days after Bruiser destroyed Resende in 1.91 seconds with one fierce jump out of the bucking chute.
“Well he had such a good day the first day,” stock contractor H.D. Page said. “I just needed him to have a consistent day today. The first jump out of there (Sunday) I thought he was going to fall. He had a terrible jump.
“It’s been a tough year and tough competition, but Bruiser has been a great bull all year.”