PUEBLO, Colo. – It’s the PBR’s 30th anniversary season, and all year long, PBR.com has been celebrating the league’s history and the legends of the sport.
But a milestone year like this one wouldn’t be complete without a definitive ranking.
Who are the best bull riders in PBR history?
It’s a question PBR Top 30, presented by Pendleton Whisky, will officially answer. Each week this summer, head over to the PBR’s Facebook and YouTube pages to watch the latest episode and reminisce about the top riders and bulls the world has ever seen.
Last week, the bull countdown kicked things off, while this week, the riders are back in the spotlight with Nos. 22-16.
Among the group featured in this installment is Robson Palermo, the only rider in PBR history to win the World Finals three times (2008, 2011-12).
In a premier series career that spanned from 2006 to 2018, Palermo racked up a riding percentage of 45%, going 310-for-676 with 13 event wins. Incredibly, his World Finals wins make up 23.07% of the event wins in his career.
"He had such a great attitude, win, lose or draw," 2016 PBR World Champion Cooper Davis said. "You watch some people walk back to the locker room throwing stuff, and he wasn't that guy.
"He won the Finals three times. To me, Robson's the best guy to never win a world title."
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Today, PBR.com’s From the Vault series looks back on some of the biggest accomplishments of Palermo’s career.
FORT WORTH, Texas - What a week it was for Robson Palermo.
Just one day before leaving for Las Vegas he dislocated his left shoulder after hitting the ground awkwardly in the practice pen; just three rounds into the event he dislocated his left kneecap.
Those two injuries coupled, with the fact that finished the entire second half of the Built Ford Tough Series with a torn rotator cuff in his right shoulder, made Palermo a less-than-probable favorite to lead this year's World Finals event average.
Palermo believed otherwise.
He wound up covering five of six bulls and won the year-end event. In the process he became the first to do so in back-to-back season and the first to win the event, which pays $250,000 to the winner, three times in the past five years.
No words could explain how the 28-year-old - he turns 29 a week from today - felt afterward.
Palermo announces his retirement (2018)
PUEBLO, Colo. – Robson Palermo was staring at the snow-capped mountains this past weekend at the Eldora Mountain Resort in Nederland, Colorado, and the peaceful setting could not erase the tightness in the pit of his stomach and in his heart.
The uneasiness had nothing to do with the fact that this was his first snowboarding/skiing trip either.
Rather, the anxiousness inside him had been with him for almost a year, and it had only gotten worse in the last month or so with the 2019 PBR season close to beginning.
The 36-year-old knew what he had to do, especially after talking with his wife, Priscila, just after Thanksgiving, but he was still scared of admitting what he already knew to be true as he stood on that mountain.
“I did not want this hard feeling in my mind, heart and gut anymore,” Palermo told PBR.com on Thursday morning. “I wanted to spit it out and say yes, it is time to quit and retire.”
Palermo makes emotional return to World Finals as new U.S. citizen (2019)
LAS VEGAS – One of the most poignant moments of Round 1 of the 2019 PBR World Finals happened before a single bull was even attempted.
Three-time World Finals event winner Robson Palermo stood atop the Can-Am Cage holding the American flag, hat over his heart and emotion in his eyes.
Palermo, a native of Rio Branco, Brazil, is one of the greatest bull riders in history, with a PBR career spanning more than a decade, 310 qualified rides on the premier series and 10 PBR World Finals qualifications.
Now, he can boast of an even greater accomplishment: U.S. citizenship.
Palermo received his citizenship just one week ago, on Oct. 31, but it was a long time coming.
“I had a green card for about 10 years already, and I should have had my citizenship earlier,” Palermo said. “But the way it goes – family, kids, and then change. Buy ranch, and change ranch, and then buy a house, and this and that – life got in the way. This year, me and my wife said, ‘Okay, you retired, now you have time. Let’s go get our citizenship.’”
Palermo will remember his Ring of Honor induction for his entire life (2021)
LAS VEGAS – Robson Palermo was so proud to have moved to Texas in 2005 to begin his PBR career and chase his American dream with his future wife, Priscila, by his side.
The Palermos were going to be living in College Station, Texas, with Priscila enrolled at Texas A&M University.
Robson did not know any English when he first arrived in the United States, and translation apps were still years away. Therefore, Robson did a lot of his learning on the fly.
Palermo explained on Tuesday night during the PBR Heroes & Legends Celebration that one lesson he did not expect to learn early on in his career was the rivalry between Texas A&M and the University of Texas.
Palermo had returned home from a PBR event when he landed at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and saw a bright orange Texas Longhorns hat and t-shirt.
“To me, I was moving to Texas, and to see those big horns was great, so I bought me a Longhorn hat,” he said.
What Palermo did not know was that wearing Texas Longhorns gear was a big no-no in College Station. He was taking the trash out one day from his apartment when a series of people in the neighborhood began cussing him out.
However, Palermo did not understand any English, so he kept smiling and giving the thumbs-up sign and said ‘yes!’
“What are they saying?” Palermo recalled thinking to himself. “It was my first year riding a the PBR, and I said, ‘Well, they must have saw me on the TV,’ and I come back home I told my wife.”
Priscila quickly told Robson, “Oh my gosh. You can’t do that!”
Robson, though, was actually likely onto something 15 years ago.
Eventually, millions of people would know who Robson Palermo was – and not because of an accidental college football hat. Instead, Palermo became one of the PBR’s greatest bull riders of all time and a true fan favorite.
Photo courtesy of Andre Silva/Bull Stock Media