PUEBLO, Colo. – World leader Jose Vitor Leme had just walked off the dirt inside Chesapeake Energy Arena when he posed an interesting question after being congratulated on his second consecutive victory.
“Who has won the most consecutive events?” Leme asked with the help of Paulo Crimber.
The answer?
Two-time World Champion J.B. Mauney, with five.
Mauney ended his 2013 World Championship season by winning three regular-season premier series events. He then went on to win the 2013 PBR World Finals event average to cap off his historic comeback against three-time World Champion Silvano Alves and win his first world title.
Mauney stretched his winning streak to five when he began the 2014 season with a flawless 4-for-4 victory inside Madison Square Garden.
“Five would be good for some breathing room,” Leme said before laughing.
The 2017 PBR World Finals event winner won the Express Ranches Invitational this past weekend with a 3-for-3 performance, highlighted by 92 points on Bullseye in the championship round, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Leme has now won back-to-back events, and five of the past eight rounds of competition on the Unleash The Beast, and sits 81 points ahead of No. 2 Jess Lockwood in the world standings.
“Expect this for the entire season,” two-time World Champion Justin McBride said of Leme and Lockwood on CBS Sports Network. “You got to see it last season, and you are going to see it again this year. This weekend, it was all Leme. He takes a really good bull in the championship round and turns in a great score of 92 points.”
The only other rider with even three consecutive event wins on the premier series is two-time World Champion Chris Shivers, who won three in a row during his 2000 title season.
Leme knows that pulling off five consecutive victories would be a tall task, but instead of reveling in his victories, he is always looking at the next bull, the next event and the next challenge.
Winning is enjoyable, but winning also puts more gasoline on the fire of his motivation. Every taste of success pushes him to want more.
He is never satisfied, which makes sense seeing as he has finished runner-up in the last two world title races.
However, Leme says his desire to continue to push forward has less to do with his failures, but rather his successes.
Leme said that in Brazil he was always this way. Whenever he won a bull riding, he would rip off another win the next week, and so forth.
In fact, Leme won his first two PBR Brazil events in 2017. After he won the 2017 PBR World Finals event average with his historic 6-for-6 effort, he then turned right back around to win the Kearney, Nebraska, Touring Pro Division in his first event of the 2018 season.
“It goes back to Brazil,” Leme said. “Every time I win an event, it would put me on a roll to win another and another. I have always been like that.
“It seems like I win one, I just get on a roll.”
This coming weekend will be a harder test for Leme than the last two.
The Unleash The Beast is set for its second PBR Major of the season with Iron Cowboy, presented by Ariat, set to get underway Friday night at STAPLES Center in downtown Los Angeles.
One rider can earn a maximum of 300 points toward the world standings in the progressive-elimination style event.
Forty riders will begin in Round 1 with the Top 25 scores advancing to Round 2. The Top 8 riders via aggregate score following the second round will then advance to Round 3. Next, Round 4 will then consist of the Top 4 riders in the aggregate based upon the previous three rounds.
Essentially, the first four rounds will be cut down from 40 riders to 25 to 8 to 4.
Round 5 will feature every rider that posted a qualified ride in Round 4. A minimum of two riders will compete in Round 5. If only one rider covers in Round 4, then the PBR will bring back one rider (based on aggregate scores following the completion of Round 4).
The rider with the highest score in Round 5 will win the title of Iron Cowboy. If all riders buck off in Round 5, then the Iron Cowboy crown will go to the rider with the highest aggregate score among those that attempted a bull in Round 5.
Leme has never won a PBR Major in his career. He was eliminated last year in Round 3 of Iron Cowboy in the old format of the event. At Last Cowboy Standing, which is now the same format as Iron Cowboy, Leme failed to advance beyond Round 4. He then made it only to Round 3 of the Music City Knockout.
There may be no better time than the present for Leme to win his first PBR Major. He has ridden six consecutive bulls, and he is 15-for-19 through the first five events. The 15 rides is tops in the PBR.
“I don’t know if I would call it an advantage, but I am probably one of the most motivated guys to win that event coming in,” Leme said. “Based on what I have done the last two weeks, I am pumped up. My adrenaline is going good. I am going to be the most motivated guy there.
“I am motivated and pumped to try and win my first Major of the season, and ever. But it is hard to say I am going to be the winner because the format is harder than different events. There is more to it. Maybe that is the reason I never won one or something.”
Follow Justin Felisko on Twitter @jfelisko