LAS VEGAS – Team Brazil coach Guilherme Marchi was sitting inside the locker room Friday afternoon and looked across the room to see 2017 World Champion Jess Lockwood preparing his bull rope.

“He looks better than I did,” Marchi said, pointing in Lockwood’s direction. “They are different years, but he is on fire like I was in 2008.”

Marchi put forth one of the greatest seasons of all time 11 years ago when he finally ended a streak of three consecutive runner-up finishes to win the 2008 World Championship.

The 15-time World Finals qualifier rode a remarkable 72.55% of his bulls (74-for-102) that year, winning five events and posting 13 90-point rides on his way to the World Championship.

Lockwood – the No. 2-ranked bull rider in the world today – raised his riding percentage to 67.77% Friday night when he won Round 3 of the PBR World Finals with a 92-point ride – his 12^th 90 of the season – on Biker Bob. The 22-year-old is 42-for-62 with four event wins in 18 Unleash The Beast events.

“He is doing so good this year,” Marchi said. “I think he is going to cover all of his bulls this week. He has been great so far. He has been very focused for this Finals.”

If Lockwood did not miss nine UTB events because of a broken collarbone sustained at the 2019 Winstar World Casino and Resort Global Cup USA, presented by Monster Energy, he could have roughly 63 qualified rides this season.

Lockwood also may have already clinched a second world title if not for the injury.

World leader Jose Vitor Leme picked up 2,456.66 points during Lockwood’s injury absence – 34.8% of his total world points this year, as CBS Sports Network play-by-play commentator Craig Hummer noted.

“Shoot, with situations like that, I just always think everything happens for a reason," Lockwood said. "If I didn’t break my collarbone, I could have gotten my leg stepped on at the next event. But yeah, missing nine events and still being this close, it can make you wonder. But then again, if I would have stayed on my bull at the Velocity Finals, maybe I would have won that. You can always have the what ifs, but that shit don’t matter a lot.”

Marchi said when he arrived at the 2008 PBR World Finals, he knew deep down he already had the championship essentially locked up. Lockwood is in a much different scenario than Marchi was, seeing as he begins Round 4 Saturday night still 407.49 points behind Leme.

Lockwood, though, is 92.5 points ahead of Leme in the event average race , where he is leading the World Finals overall, and is the projected World Champion if things ended on Friday night.

Marchi explained that Lockwood has the confidence of a man who believes he is the No. 1 bull rider in the world.

“When you walk into the Finals and you believe in yourself, you are humble and you fight for the end, you are going to have a great result,” Marchi said.

The Volborg, Montana, bull rider attended the 2019 PBR Heroes & Legends ceremony on Tuesday when Marchi was inducted into the Ring of Honor.

Lockwood said it is an honor to receive high praise from Marchi.

“He is one of the greats,” Lockwood said. “He just got inducted into the Ring of Honor. It means a lot coming from him.”

The only other rider since Marchi to even get close to a 70% riding percentage was three-time World Champion Silvano Alves. The 2011 World Champion went 69-for-101 (68.42%) during his first gold-buckle season with three wins and three 90-point rides.

Lockwood, though, is hitting consistent home runs vs. stretch singles.

“That’s a bull that, going into that draft round, there’s I don’t think one rider in there that didn’t want that bull,” Lockwood said about Biker Bob. “You know what he’s going to do. He’s going to come out of there, he’s going to be 100 miles per hour right there to the left, and he was just that tonight and nice enough to let me stay on top of him."

Lockwood is riding with a full heart this week at the PBR Finals as well.

"One of my cousins back home is kind of in rough shape right now," Lockwood said. "We are all thinking about him and love him."

He now has another chance at a big score Saturday night against The Right Stuff (5-0, UTB).

Fans can watch Round 4 live on CBS Sports Network at 10 p.m. ET and on RidePass at 9:40 p.m. ET.

Marchi knows Lockwood is firing on all cylinders, but he also knows you cannot count out Leme, one of the three riders Marchi selected to his Global Cup squad on Thursday night.

“I think (Leme) still wants to kick his butt,” Marchi said. “He will not give up. He is very focused. We saw that yesterday. He slapped his bull but still finished his ride away from his hand. He was pretty mad about that, but that is part of the game. He knows the Finals is not over until that last bull.”

Follow Justin Felisko on Twitter @jfelisko