Alvidrez continues hot stretch with career-high 94 points on Man Hater
With an event win and a second-place finish in the last three events, Andrew Alvidrez is up to No. 6 in the UTB standings.
By Darci Miller
FORT WORTH, Texas – They say to be the man, you have to beat the man.
In the PBR world, the man in question would be Man Hater, reigning YETI World Champion bull and current world No. 1 with a World Champion bull score of 47.88 – nearly two full points ahead of his nearest competitor.
But last weekend at the PBR Milwaukee, Andrew Alvidrez was the man.
The two faced off in the championship round, and Alvidrez walked away with a 94-point ride – the highest-scoring ride of his career.
It’s also the highest-scoring ride on the Unleash The Beast so far this season, leaving Alvidrez in the lead for the 2025 Mason Lowe Award, given to the rider with the highest-scoring ride in the regular season.
This was the fifth time Alvidrez and Man Hater had been matched up and Alvidrez’s first qualified ride on the powerful bovine.
“Man, this is what you live for, you know?” an exuberant Alvidrez told sideline reporter Matt West after the ride. “I just thank God for this opportunity, the Missouri Thunder, PBR, my buddies back here pulling me down. This is what you live for. Praise God.”
Of the five qualified rides Man Hater has surrendered in his PBR career, just one has been below 93.25 points.
“This could be a game-changer for Andrew Alvidrez right here,” 2016 World Champion Cooper Davis said on the PBR’s YouTube channel broadcast. “Just rode the World Champion bucking bull. You know he feels like the man right now, and that’s big-time stuff from Andrew Alvidrez.
“Awesome, awesome bull ride right there by Andrew. Really gritted that one out. You want to talk about a guy that should be on top of the world right now? That’s Andrew Alvidrez.”
In Davis’s estimation, the ride was as good as they come.
“You can’t expect any more out of a bull,” Davis said. “Kicking, changing direction up here at the end, and Andrew Alvidrez has an answer for every single move this bull had. Sometimes it just takes trying one out several times to figure him out, but Andrew did just that.”
Alvidrez might not be quite on top of the world, but he’s getting close. He fell just 0.25 points short of the victory in Milwaukee, securing second place. Just two weeks earlier, he notched the event win at the Ariat PBR Indianapolis, presented by Cooper Tires, for his first UTB event win since December of 2022.
Thanks to this red-hot stretch in which he’s 6 for his last 8, Alvidrez is ranked No. 6 in the Unleash The Beast standings, 279.75 points behind No. 1 Brady Fielder.
Aside from December 2022, when he earned back-to-back event wins, this is the best stretch of Alvidrez’s career.
“Man, this sport – it’s crazy, y’all,” Alvidrez told Kate Harrison after his win in Indianapolis. “It’s just like life. One moment, you’re on top of the world. The next moment, you’re back in the trenches and just grinding away.”
Unleash The Beast Standings 1. Brady Fielder (720.5 points) 2. Sage Steele Kimzey (-127.25 points) 3. John Crimber (-176.5) 4. Luciano De Castro (-214.67) 5. Dalton Kasel (-218.5) 6. Andrew Alvidrez (-279.75)
It’s an excellent time for Alvidrez – or any rider – to be heating up as the 2025 PBR World Finals: Unleash The Beast is just over two months away.
Alvidrez heads into this weekend’s PBR Little Rock with all the momentum in the world as he prepares to take on Interstate Dream in Round 1 (9 p.m. ET on RidePass and the PBR’s YouTube channel, X account and app).
That out will also be a part of the Monster Energy Team Challenge, presented by Camping World, in which Alvidrez and the Missouri Thunder take on the Kansas City Outlaws in the second installment of the Show-Me State Showdown.
The Thunder won the previous matchup, 348.75-169, in Indianapolis, with Alvidrez contributing an 87.5-point ride en route to his event victory as well.
Alvidrez could be doing a lot more winning these next few months, and one thing is for sure: he has the mindset of a champion.
“Resist comfort,” he told Harrison. “Comfort kills. You constantly have to be comfortable being uncomfortable. If you’re comfortable on the back of a bull, you’re probably not doing it right. That’s what it is. This is my life. Every single day, I’m trying to get better, whether it’s bull riding, being a better man, and more importantly, being a cowboy.”
