PUEBLO, Colo. – Three-time World Champion Silvano Alves let out a chuckle over the phone on Wednesday morning when asked what was harder, winning back-to-back world titles or riding his last 13 bulls of the 2014 season to rally for a record-tying third World Championship seven years ago.
“They were both pretty difficult,” Alves said before laughing.
Alves was in New York City this week with 2018 World Champion Kaique Pacheco, the No. 2-ranked bull rider in the world, doing a series of media appearances in advance of next season’s PBR Monster Energy Buck Off at the Garden (Jan. 7-9).
Pacheco is attempting to pull off a similar rally of his own, like Alves and other recent World Champions J.B. Mauney (2013) and Jess Lockwood (2019), with only two regular-season Unleash The Beast events remaining before the 2021 PBR World Finals begin on Nov. 3 in Las Vegas.
On Friday night, the 2018 World Champion took another small chunk out of his mountainous deficit behind injured world No. 1 Jose Vitor Leme (core muscle injury) by winning Round 1 of the PBR Monster Energy with a 91-point ride on Dirty Sancho.
“Each person is different,” Pacheco said when asked about previous World Champions who have rallied for the PBR’s illustrious gold buckle. “I just try to focus on one bull at a time, like I say all the time, and I will try to ride every bull.”
It was an important ride for Pacheco as the 2021 world title contender entered Manchester having bucked off five consecutive bulls.
Alves ended the 2014 season with 13 consecutive qualified rides.
He rode his final seven regular-season bulls before going 6-for-6 in Las Vegas to win the PBR World Finals and World Championship. Alves, who entered the Finals No. 3 in the world standings and 511 points behind No. 1 Joao Ricardo Vieira in a previous points system, cemented his remarkable come-from-behind surge by riding his nemesis Asteroid for 87.25 points to end the 2012 World Champion Bull’s streak of 30 consecutive buckoffs.
Alves’s streak began at the second-to-last regular-season event in 2013. He finished in third place in Biloxi, Mississippi, and fifth in Allentown, Pennsylvania, before a fourth-place finish in the 15/15 Bucking Battle in Huntington Beach, California.
“It was hard, but I didn’t think too much about it in the moment,” Alves recalled. “I was just riding each bull. I rode bulls for high scores, low scores. I didn’t care. I just wanted to ride my bulls. I didn’t care if I finished No. 1 or No. 2 or third or fourth. I just wanted to ride and keep my place. In my opinion, he needs to ride each bull no matter what the score. If he can take a re-ride, he can. But he don’t need to. He just needs to ride his bulls and keep on going. This is my opinion, my strategy, but every guy has his own.”
Alves averaged only 81.34 points during his streak, including low scores of 60.75, 80.5 and 69 points. He said the goal was to just keep inching closer and closer to his challengers in the world standings with the belief he could then be perfect at the World Finals, where there were so many more points available.
The 2021 points system is also different from 2013, where a rider’s ride score counted directly to the world standings. Riders now receive only bonus points (9, 8, and 7) for qualified rides, and winning rounds, such as Pacheco did on Friday night, are weighted much more heavily.
Pacheco is also attempting to catch a rider many believe has the potential to go down in history as one of the sport’s greatest of all time.
It may take Pacheco a comeback more akin to Mauney’s 2013 run when he finished the season with 11 consecutive rides and four event wins to end Alves’s reign atop the PBR standings.
Pacheco has five more regular-season ride attempts on the Unleash The Beast before the World Finals.
The one similarity between Alves, Mauney and Lockwood’s 2019 comebacks is that all three won the PBR World Finals event average, which is almost certainly a must for Pacheco to catch Leme.
Leme has already stated that he will be ready for the World Finals despite his injury.
Winning the World Finals event average is worth 560 world points this season. A rider could earn a maximum of 1,094 world points at the World Finals in Las Vegas.
Pacheco may also consider competing at the 2021 Pendleton Whisky Velocity Tour Finals before the World Finals and attempt to earn another 100 world points.
Pacheco, though, is not going to focus on history or look too far ahead. He is only going to remain focused on himself and his path, something Alves says both Leme and Pacheco need to do if either one is going to win the 2021 World Championship.
“Having a clear mind is very important,” Alves said.
Pacheco has quietly put together one of the best seasons of his career in the shadows of Leme’s history-making campaign.
The 27-year-old now has a career-high six 90-point rides on the Unleash The Beast this season to go along with his career-best five event wins.
Pacheco’s nine round wins is one short of his season-high of 10 (2018/2016) heading into Round 2 in Manchester on Saturday night.
The seven-year veteran has drawn Dr. Campbell (5-2, UTB) as he attempts to win a sixth event. If Pacheco is victorious, it would be the first time in PBR history two riders have won six or more events in the same season.
Fans can watch Round 2 Sunday at 8 p.m. ET on CBS Sports Network.
Pacheco has defeated Leme for the world title before, holding him off in 2018 despite having torn ligaments in his left knee, but the situation is certainly reversed this time around with Pacheco now the chaser and Leme being injured. (Leme was able to hold off Pacheco last year at the World Finals for the 2020 World Championship.)
“It is no different (being No. 1 or behind),” Pacheco said. “I just need to focus on my next bull.”
Follow Justin Felisko on Twitter @jfelisko
Photo courtesy of Andy Watson/Bull Stock Media