PUEBLO, Colo. – Pistol Robinson recounting his gut-wrenching wreck at Madison Square Garden epitomizes why “I Got Wrecked,” a new, free-streaming Rated Red series that premiered on go90 earlier this year, is must-see viewing for sports fans.

Robinson had been trampled and gored by Carrillo Cartel at the 2012 PBR season opener. The fast and powerful bovine kept spinning with Robinson trapped underneath. Carrillo Cartel then splintered the cowboy’s spine, broke his right femur, and for good measure came down again to destroy Robinson’s left fibula and tibia.

Of course, on the ride to Bellevue Hospital, the ambulance hit every single pothole.

Most people are not carted into Bellevue with two broken legs.

Pistol is trying to convince the doctors he was hurt riding a bull.

The attending physicians don’t believe a word from this badly injured man dressed as a cowboy more than two months after Halloween. There’s no bull riding in New York City.

It’s the PBR, Robinson explains. Over at the Garden. 

The doctors aren’t buying it.

“They were thinking this dumb cowboy walking around New York City got hit by a cab,” Robinson recalled during one of the episodes. “I keep trying to explain it was a bull riding accident. Finally, I say, ‘Yeah, I got hit by a taxicab’.”

“I Got Wrecked” tells the stories of horrifying wrecks, and the subsequent recovery, with humor and good grace, and adds a dose of sports science lest anyone forget the fine line separating life and death in professional bull riding. 

The power of Carrillo Cartel coming down on Robinson’s legs was equal to the cowboy being hit by a taxicab traveling at 21 mph.

When Aaron Roy was annihilated by Locked & Loaded at the 2016 World Finals in a hard-to-watch 20-second beat down – audibly snapping his leg as if mic’d to the PA – it was the same as Roy being thrown from a fifth floor window.

Bonner Bolton, pile-driven into the ground in Chicago after an ill-timed dismount off Cowboy Up, would have fallen on his head from the third floor.  

The beating Chocolate Thunder laid on Tanner Byrne was the same as a NASCAR driver smashing into a wall dead-on at 150 mph.

Jerked down and knocked unconscious by Cajun Blast before hitting the ground, Stormy Wing took the equivalent of seven concurrent Mike Tyson knockout punches.

But that was child’s play compared to MoeBandy.com smacking McKennon Wimberly in the face: 7Gs and 11,000-pounds of force, or 17 Mike Tyson knockout punches wrapped into one major wallop.

It was one of the most devastating shots in PBR history. The bull jumped and twisted, knocking Wimberly’s helmet off, breaking his jaw in three places. He hit the ground, dislocating his shoulder and fracturing his shoulder blade.

“I was scared for his life,” said bull fighter Shorty Gorham.

Wimberly slipped into a deep coma. The doctors said 95 percent of the people in his state wouldn’t have woken up; the other five percent are never the same.

The Texas cowboy was told he’d never talk or walk again.

One year to the day after his wreck, Wimberly was back riding bulls at local rodeos. He is still trying to make it back to the PBR.

“All sports have the pressure of winning and losing,” said nine-time World Champion Ty Murray. “This sport has the pressure of living and dying every single time the gate opens.”

Or as Bolton put it, “You’re knocking at death’s door every time they open that gate.”

Beyond each injury, “I Got Wrecked” captures the difficult-to-fathom, hard-headed determination of bull riders trying to come back from physical devastation.

No professional athlete working his whole life to get to the top of his sport wants an injury to end his career. Each wants to return to action on his own terms.

That doesn’t appear to be an option for riders like Bolton, who made the 8 seconds at the 2016 season opener before meeting the ground in a way that “felt like being hit in the head with a baseball bat.”

“Bonner’s wreck in Chicago is the quintessential reminder how this sport’s pendulum can go from the great side to the catastrophic side,” said PBR on CBS play-by-play announcer Craig Hummer. “This is such an unforgiving sport.”

Every single out, riders are tempting fate. Especially stubborn cowboys like J.B. Mauney, who refuse to let go of the bull rope, putting themselves in compromising positions creating the conditions for injury.

As two-time World Champion Justin McBride said, “Something’s gotta give, and it’s not gonna be the bull.”

That riders like Mauney, Roy, Robinson, and Chris Shivers can come back from debilitating wrecks is a testament to a courage, grit and resolve that is uncommon to most human beings.

The relentless mauling Shivers suffered at the horns and hooves of Shorty, a mean Mexican bull who came back three times for Shivers was “one of the most gruesome things I’ve seen in my time in this sport,” Murray said.

Shivers noted, “It was probably the worst wreck that had ever been on live TV. It didn’t help that I looked like I was 13 years old at the time.”

Even the crowd gasped in horror.

Shivers had an IV placed in his arm right on the dirt.

He returned to competition three weeks later, and would put up 13 90-point rides that season. Shivers’ career total of 93 90-point rides is a PBR record.

Shivers was known for his impeccable form. But without the ability to blot out the specter of potential catastrophe looming over every ride, he wouldn’t have become a two-time World Champion and the first PBR rider to earn $1 million in a season.

“The question is, can you continue to do it after you’ve nearly died doing it,” Murray said. “Mentally speaking, Shivers was as good as anyone who’s ever played the game.”

“I Got Wrecked” also profiles several bulls with a reputation for creating carnage.

Pearl Harbor is, according to Stormy Wing, “a hurricane bottled up in a bull’s body.”

A wrecking machine like Pearl Harbor or Bushwacker, who snapped Nathan Schaper’s leg like a toothpick, can change a man’s life in an instant.

One moment a rider is dancing with the bull, matching him move for move. The next, he’s on the ground with a mouthful of dirt, darting eyes trying to find the rampaging bull and unable to move a limb.

“The power of these bulls is like a freight train beating through your chest when you feel that adrenaline hit your veins,” Bolton said.

It’s become a cliché to speak of uncommon courage in this sport. The go90 series, co-produced by IMG Original Content and PBR, conveys these athletes’ boundless passion and determination in an honest and poignant way.

Staring up at the glaring lights of “the world’s most famous arena,” broken legs feeling like two pools of Jell-O, all Robinson could think about was whether he’d ride again.

And then these athletes get patched up and do all they can to come back.

The perpetually injured have moms and dads, wives and children. In some cases, the young ones begin similarly compartmentalizing the ever-present danger of the sport with the intention of following their father’s calling.

“If I had a son or daughter who wanted to ride bulls, I’d encourage them to be the best bull rider they could be,” Robinson said. “But I’d also buy them a set of golf clubs.”