PUEBLO, Colo. – Chiseled, Woopaa, Ridin Solo and two-time YETI World Champion Bull Smooth Operator are just four of the heavy hitters set to buck in the championship round of this weekend’s PBR Can-Am Invitational.
In fact, PBR Director of Livestock Cody Lambert compared this weekend’s championship-round pen to the same quality one could expect to see at the PBR World Finals.
“We have Smooth Operator, Chiseled, Woopaa, Ridin Solo all at the same event,” Lambert told PBR.com. “The first round is an ABBI Classic Round. The second round is packed with bulls normally in the short go, and the short go will be like the short go at the World Finals.
“It is going to be spectacular as far as the bulls go.”
Here is the full list of bulls slated to buck in Saturday night’s championship round at the Cowtown Coliseum in Fort Worth, Texas: Chiseled, Hocus Pocus, Woopaa, Oilfield Outlaw’s Yellow Feather, Red Clark, Marquis Metal Works Coriolis Effect, Smooth Operator, Ridin Solo, Copperpoint Swagger, Pookie Holler, WSM’s Jive Turkey, Boogie Bomb, The Right Stuff and Slingin Tears.
Round 2 and the championship round are slated to air Sunday on CBS Sports Network at 8 p.m. ET. RidePass will carry the action Saturday at 9 p.m. ET.
Chiseled will be attempting to build off an impressive 46.5-point outing in his season debut in Del Rio, Texas, for a 4.68-second buckoff of Mauricio Moreira.
Meanwhile, defending champion Smooth Operator is back in action after being ridden in his first two outs of the season for 93 (Ezekiel Mitchell) and 94 points (Marco Eguchi). Smooth Operator has not bucked since Eguchi’s ride, which came on Jan. 30 in Okeechobee, Florida.
“The Classic bulls were great in Del Rio,” Lambert said. “The bulls have been really good everywhere.”
FIRST PBR PREMIER SERIES EVENT WAS HELD INSIDE COWTOWN COLISEUM
Lambert, one of the PBR’s 20 co-founders, won the first PBR premier series event ever, which was held back in April 1993 at Cowtown Coliseum. Lambert and eventual PBR World Champion Troy Dunn were the only two riders to go a perfect 3-for-3.
Lambert and the other riders competing paid $1,000 entry fees, and Lambert walked away with close to $12,000 in winnings.
The PBR returned to Cowtown Coliseum at the end of December for the eventual 1994 season kickoff event. The ’94 Tuff Hedeman Challenge took place in December ’93, with Clint Branger claiming the event title.
“We sanctioned other events that others put on, like the Lazy E events before that. But the first actual one that was under the PBR brand was Tuff’s bull riding there in April ’93,” Lambert said. “Then New Year’s Eve weekend right before the end of the year, Bud Light was one of our first sponsors and put up $50,000 more in prize money for a year-end Finals, but we weren’t ready to have a Finals. We didn’t really have a tour. We just had a few events, so Tuff put on his second one - the ‘94 event. He moved it from April 94 to December ‘93.”
Cowtown Coliseum was built in 1908 for roughly $250,000. It was then the state-of-the-art, grand standard for an indoor exhibition center and rodeo venue. Presidents, kings, queens, legendary comedians, rock’n’roll stars, and the best amateur and professional rodeo athletes have passed through the doors of Cowtown throughout the years.
In today’s dollars, it would have cost an estimated $6.2 million to build the Cowtown Coliseum.
“You can’t walk into that building without thinking about different things,” Lambert said. “In that building, I think about what the cowboys thought about it over 100 years ago when they first had a rodeo in there. They had to think this was the biggest building there was ever going to be. They had to think, ‘Wow, look at the size of this place.’ Now we go in there and it’s tiny.
“It’s really old and tiny, but it is a cool place. Even if you walk in it and there is a rodeo going on, you can’t go in there without feeling some sense of who’s been there before. The guys that have boxed there or the guys that have rodeoed there. I’ve got so much personal history there, too. I went to junior rodeos there. The Texas Circuit Finals was there. I have been to lots of different levels of rodeos and bull ridings and benefits there. Things like that.”
The PBR eventually began hosting premier series events at Will Rogers Coliseum in Fort Worth from 1995-2004. The Unleash The Beast returned to Fort Worth last August with 2020 World Champion Jose Vitor Leme claiming the victory in the brand new Dickies Arena and 2016 World Champion Cooper Davis winning the 15/15 Bucking Battle.
Follow Justin Felisko on Twitter @jfelisko
Photo courtesy of Andy Watson/Bull Stock Media