TUCSON, Ariz. – The 2023 Unleash The Beast season is underway, and the PBR already has a new face in the early-season world title race with Brady Oleson.
Oleson’s 3-for-3 victory at the Monster Energy Invitational vaulted him atop the Unleash The Beast standings on a weekend in Tucson, Arizona, where the bull riders showed up ready to ride.
The new No. 1 ranked rider in the world will take a 32.5-point lead atop the UTB standings into next weekend’s PBR St. Louis Invitational, presented by Cooper Tires, over No. 2 Thiago Salgado.
Before shifting gears to St. Louis, here are some noteworthy numbers from Tucson.
4: Oleson only went 4-for-9 for the Texas Rattlers during the PBR Team Series as a left knee injury and back/neck injury limited him to only nine games. However, the coaching Oleson received from Texas coach Cody Lambert away from the dirt may be starting to pay off for Oleson as he went 3-for-3 for the first time in 23 career UTB events.
91.5: Salgado earned his first career round win Sunday when he capped his second-place finish in Tucson with a career-high 91.5 points on Razzmatazz. Salgado’s 3-for-3 performance was the first for him as well on the Unleash The Beast, and it was an OK consolation prize after being unable to attend his brother, Adriano’s, wedding in Brazil because of visa issues. Tucson was a great turnaround for Thiago after the 20-year-old went a disappointing 8-for-25 for the 2022 PBR Team Series Champion Nashville Stampede during the PBR Team Series.
1,117: It had been 1,117 days, or 3 years and 21 days, since Chase Outlaw last won a round on the Unleash The Beast. Outlaw’s previous round win was on November 6, 2019, when he won Round 5 of the PBR World Finals with a 91.5-point ride on Big Black until he won Round 2 Sunday (90 points on Smooth Over It) in Tucson.
45.75: Hundred Bad Days earned the highest bull score in Tucson when he absolutely slammed Boudreaux Campbell, crushing Campbell’s goal of winning the event title, in 1.29 seconds for a career-best 45.75 points. Campbell was assisted to the PBR Sports Medicine room as he thought he may have broken his right arm after being stepped on. However, Campbell told PBR.com Sunday evening he doesn’t believe to have a fracture and should be OK.
17: Daniel Keeping’s slow trajectory continues to be pointing upward. Keeping sure looked at home on the Unleash The Beast this weekend, building off his breakout Teams performance with Texas this summer, and went 2-for-3 for a ninth-place finish. Keeping tied with Oleson and Cooper Davis for the Round 1 win on Saturday night with his 89.75 points on Sky Walker. He then put himself in a position for the event win Sunday via an 86.25-point effort on Crazy Love. Keeping, however, would buck off July in 4.44 seconds in the championship round. Prior to this summer, Keeping had begun his PBR career with never posting back-to-back qualified rides in 17 straight events.
38: There were 38 qualified rides during the two-day bull riding, which is the most at a two-day, UTB event since last season’s Monster Energy Buck Off at the Garden in New York City.
62.16%: 23 of the 37 riders in the Tucson field registered at least one qualified ride – 62.16% of the entire draw was able to reach the 8-second mark.
3: The Carolina Cowboys led all PBR Teams with three of its riders from its 2022 roster finishing inside the Top 10 in Tucson – Campbell (fifth), 2016 World Champion Cooper Davis (sixth) and Mason Taylor (10th).
Follow Justin Felisko on Twitter @jfelisko
Photo courtesy of Andy Watson/Bull Stock Media