PBR's Jess Lockwood & Matt West | This Past Weekend #261
Jess Lockwood
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I am so grateful that you're here and I'm very excited about today's guests.
First, I'm going to let you know that I will be coming to Oroville Casino this coming Saturday, February 15th.
It's sold out.
Toronto, Ontario, February 20th through the 22nd.
There are still tickets available for the 20th.
February 27th in Red Bank, New Jersey.
The 28th in Oxen Hill, Maryland.
February 29th at the Newport News Ferguson Center for the Arts in Virginia.
And now March 7th in Maui, Hawaii at the Castle Theater.
Those tickets will go on sale on Tuesday of this week.
I'm so excited about today's guests.
One is the 2017 and 2019 Professional Bull Riding World Champion.
He's on the circuit right now defending his title.
He's 22 years old, Mr. Jess Lockwood.
And also joining us is the host of the Matt West Now podcast.
He is the voice of professional bull riding, PBR announcer Matt West.
And you can see professional bull riding this coming weekend at AT ⁇ T Stadium in Dallas for the Global Cup.
And you can also find it on CBS and CBS Sports Network.
Very happy to be here today with Mr. Jess Lockwood and Mr. Matt West.
I know, right?
Cowboy hat, you think?
Seafood.
Yeah, yeah.
I love Pencil.
They like a chi-bone shrimp, bro.
I can see having a big shit.
Yeah, man.
The biggest shrimp ever.
Medium weight.
I like my shrimp.
I like my shrimp.
Medium well.
Dude, they got some big shrimp in the Gulf of Mexico, though.
Those dudes get big, man.
You'll see one with like a coffee cup in his hand.
Smoking a cigarette in the morning.
This thing's been up all day.
He's got a rock star ball cap with a mullet in the back.
It's awesome.
You'll see one with like a security vest on, like he's been working.
Working at Hooters.
Saw it.
Yeah.
I need to go to Pensacola Beach, man.
I ain't been there in a minute.
Dude, Hooters used to be the place, man.
Used to be.
Used to be.
You want to know.
How old are you, Jess?
22. Oh, yeah, you don't know.
Man, that's disgusting.
Yeah, that's disgusting, bro.
I'll drink your blood, bro.
Back in college, in college, Hooters was, man, it was a shit.
It was a place you would go wife hunting, dude.
I'd get just like a light strawberry or something, go down each side, and I'd go to Hooters, bro.
I would get an appetizer, yeah, and just stare straight into the eyes of every woman until they asked me to leave.
That's a good play, dude.
I never could make eye contact.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, I was really shy.
Oh, wow.
I got really nervous.
So I just sat there until I fell off the stool, and then security would ask me.
Oh, that's the same thing.
Kind of, yeah.
See if one of them.
Just to get their attention.
That's why I did it.
Yeah.
Makes sense.
That's right.
You know, then they're like, oh, we got to check on him.
Yeah.
It's like the kid that pretended to be drowning.
So the lifeguard would come down and give him mouth to mouth in that movie.
Sandlock.
Sandlot.
What?
Sandlot.
Yes.
I think so.
That was a good movie, man.
It's a good movie.
So let's get you guys' jobs clear.
So you're a rider.
Yep, I'm a rider.
One of the best riders.
Yep, in the 2017 and 2019, I won it world title.
And who won 2018?
Kaiki Pacheco.
Oh, God.
It wasn't my year.
It wasn't.
No, I got my ass kicked.
Really?
Yeah.
And do you credit anything to like what cost you it, or do you think it was just a bad bull?
What was the cause?
Shoot, they talk about it all the time.
World champion hangover.
Kind of just.
I didn't go into the season as pinpointed as I should have.
And then second half of it.
You were partying in the offseason.
We were riding other animals.
I didn't ride no other animals, but I did go partying.
Yeah.
You got to.
I was celebrated.
I was a 20-year-old kid.
Went and hung out at my buddy's college for a bit and hung out and had fun.
Pre-marriage.
Yeah, this was pre-marriage.
Okay.
So, yeah, but I can talk about this.
And it's having Christian fun.
He's talking water slides.
He's talking, yeah, balloons.
Yeah, yeah.
Drugsplash, roller coasters.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Movies, just, you know, good kids.
It's sad, but that's actually kind of true.
Yeah.
He's not much of a partier.
No, I'm not too hard.
So 2019, was that like a comeback time for you?
Did you feel like?
Yeah, after that 2018 season, I was pretty pissed off and I had a chip on my shoulder going in the new season and had to prove something.
So it was a good season.
Jess, thanks for being here today.
Your job with...
I just talk for a living.
Yeah.
It's not hard.
So how does it go when you get to the arena, when you get to the actual event?
So, I mean, it's just like anything else.
Like, like when you start putting your stand-up together, like we'll start putting notes together about these guys.
I'll talk about, you know, if he broke his collarbone or whatever, storylines, statistics.
We've got to know the bulls, got to know all the guys and be able to kind of tell that story to somebody that's never seen it before.
Yeah.
And find a way to make it interesting to them.
Like that's, I put pressure on myself to bring in brand new fans that have no idea what the hell is going on and make them leave going, holy shit, I'm invested in this guy or this bull or I just love the sport.
It's one of the fastest growing sports in America.
Yeah.
Why is that, you think?
Man, I think it's like, I think the intensity of it, like, and the respect for what these guys do, because it's literally the only sport in the world that a guy can lose his life practicing.
I mean, because they practice on real-life bulls.
And when you're putting that much on the line every single time, like, it's not like you show up and half-ass a game.
Like, these guys got to show up and give it 1,000% every time.
So how could you not be invested in something like that?
Yeah.
Yeah.
You can't get up.
You can't spray paint a sheep and lie to the audience and get out there and take it easy one ride.
If you don't stay on, you don't get paid.
That's another thing.
A lot of guys have contracts, salaries.
You buck off and you go on a streak where you fall off a lot.
You're probably either getting kicked off the tour and not paid or you're losing sponsors, all sorts of stuff.
Nobody's sitting in a control room, punching a button, telling them that, hey, this bull's going to turn left, giving them the old Astros turn to the left or anything like that.
Yeah, you don't get to Omaha when you're up on the phone.
No, right.
There's no timeout.
Hey, stop.
This ain't comfortable.
When you're going, you're in for it.
So the size of these bulls, what is it?
Like, what are we talking?
I'd say an average one's 160, 1,700, but shit, there will be ones up to 2,200 pounds.
There are some big bastards out there.
And you don't get to meet them before.
You don't get to say anything to them.
Hey, buddy.
I mean, you can, but most of the time, they don't care about your opinion.
They want to get in there, buck you off, go back to their feeding their cows.
And why do they hate having something on their back?
They just don't like it?
It's just that it's bred into them at this point.
You know, back in the day, it was kind of hit and miss.
Bulls would buck hard, bulls wouldn't.
But nowadays, they're bred to do this, and they know their job.
So it's to get you off as soon as they can and go back to the back pens.
And as if you're like, so the different rounds, you guys get into a bull riding event, right?
So you start, there's how many competitors are going to be in an event?
How does the event go throughout the evening?
So it's like it starts with 35. Every weekend, the best 35 guys in the world show up.
And typically on like a two-day weekend, all 35 will get on two bulls.
They'll get on a bull like Friday night and then another bull on Saturday night.
And then the top 15 guys after those two rounds will get on a third bull.
They're like the best bulls in the world.
So, you know, it's like you're playing in the major leagues and then you got to step it up a notch in that final 15. And those are the guys that really get paid.
That's how you win.
So that's when you get that money round is Sunday.
Oh, yeah.
That's championship round.
You go in leading that sucker, pick a good bull, do your job.
You're most likely going to win it.
And did you ever bull rod?
Man, I tried it one time.
Wow.
And it was the dumbest thing I've ever done.
And I enrolled in the same college three times.
That's no bullshit.
I've done some stupid stuff, but I tried it, man.
Because I was so invested in what the guys were doing.
And I was friends with all of them.
I had so much respect for them.
I was like, I can't get up there and talk about it and not know what it feels like.
And I still don't know what it feels like because it knocked me smooth the hell out.
I had no idea what happened.
Really?
Yeah, it was dumb.
It was so dumb.
And I got on a bull that legit couldn't have jumped over that cup.
It was so bad, man.
That was the worst bull attempter ever.
Wow.
It sucked.
And so you get into the event, you get on top of the bull.
You're in the, it's a pen.
What do they call it?
Buck and chute.
A buck and chute.
In the chute.
Okay.
Now, once you sit on it, do they let, like, how long do you get to be on it before that gate opens?
So you're, you just kind of go through the motions, your routine.
But once the judge, they got a judge sitting up on top of there.
And once he feels like you're taking too long, he'll put you on a clock and you got 30 seconds.
And regardless if that bull's going crazy in there, you got 30 seconds.
So it's best to get in there and go as fast as you possibly can, which we want to, because it's sometimes more dangerous in that steel metal chute than it is out in the arena.
So do you make that call when you're in there?
Do you say, hey, I'm ready now?
Do you have a coach that's right there that says, hey, look, the time is right now.
Let's open the gate now.
How does that work?
Nope, you kind of, like I said, go through your routine and then once you're ready, you slide up on him and you nod your head or you can just tell him like, okay, open the gate.
But most of us nod our head like that whenever you feel you're ready.
And is there, can you, because the only thing I could equate it to is being, you know, a non-rider.
I mean, I have a Jeep Grand Cherokee, but that's about as wild as I get.
So the only thing I could equate it to is being on like a, I would think being on like a thing at an amusement park or something.
Does it have that kind of feel like when you're getting to the top and you're about to go?
It drops out from underneath you.
Oh yeah.
It's when that roller coaster is climbing and you can feel your body kind of start to get that adrenaline going.
It's like, oh shit, it's coming.
It's coming.
That's what it's like when you're in the shoot doing your routine.
And then when you get up and nod, it's kind of after when you nod, it's like when that roller coaster drop, it just goes black.
You know what you're doing, but it's all reaction.
You don't have time to think.
You don't have time to do anything.
It's just hold on for dear life.
Is there a place where your head goes?
I can imagine if you start to get too mental about it, then you're probably going to, it's going to be a loss.
Like I can imagine you have to stay in like a flow almost.
Oh, yeah.
If you're in the shoot and you're thinking, all right, I know this bull, he's going to turn out of here and go left.
If you start thinking that when you're in the chute, you screwed yourself because that bull has a mind of its own.
You make a move right out of there to go left, he's going to go straight or he's going to go the opposite way just to dump you.
Damn.
Is there a feeling you get sometimes when you're on it like, man, this thing is not a good day for this when it's that time of the month for this?
Is there anything you get?
This one's had a tough week or something?
Do you get any of that?
Is there any vibe coming up for the bull or not really?
Not really.
When he rolls into that shoot, usually you can tell kind of, you can get a little vibe off of him, not by feel, just by looking at him.
If he's kind of droopy eared or if he looks real skinny, the normal, you can kind of tell, well, he doesn't look like he's going to have his day.
But then they can surprise you and they can fuck your ass off quick.
Damn.
That's what's funny about it because you see guys that like me, I always try to match them up and I'm like, okay, he's definitely going to ride that one.
He's definitely going to ride that one.
That one's going to be tough for him.
And you see somebody get on one that should be a quote-unquote gimme and they slam their ass in like less than a second.
And it's unreal, man.
Have you ever seen one?
Yeah, you've been watching.
I've watched a bunch.
I've watched them.
I've never been.
I might go Saturday.
Sweet.
Yeah, so I'm going to get you.
I'm really looking forward to going with Saturday.
I'll be in the middle of the day.
So much different in person.
So much different, man.
I want to get that ambiance.
We got you.
I have a brother-in-law that did a lot of the road Broncos for a while.
Yeah.
Or rode the horses, right?
Oh, yeah, bucking horses.
And did you start with that?
So we grew up on a ranch, and that's kind of the first thing you get on as a kid is horses, because we have cattle.
Cattle need to be worked, moved to different pastures.
So I started out on a little tiny mini pony.
And dad would, I wouldn't have my own reins, how you control them.
Dad would just take them and tie them to his saddle and away we'd go.
I'd just hold on when I was two, three years old.
Damn.
A lot of guys start on sheep.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Believe it or not.
A lot of guys will start on sheep.
It sounds like it, right?
But like little kids riding sheep, you know?
Dude, I'd pay $70 to watch a beautiful game on a hardcore sheep.
$70?
$65?
I mean, yeah, I go $60.
Yeah, I go $80, man, if it's Sunday.
Only if it's Sunday.
It makes sense.
If it's the final fix, it's Lord's Day, bro.
Yeah, we have a question that came in right here from somebody.
Let's get to it here.
Hey, Jess, Atheo.
Drew from Central Indiana here.
I grew up idolizing bull riders in the early and mid-90s.
Guys like Tough Edeman, Cody Lambert, Lane Frost, Ty Murray, you know, all the guys from the 8th Seconds movie.
Questions for you, Jess.
I got a three-parter here.
Bodacious is obviously one of the most famous bulls ever on the circuit.
Just curious if there's a bull today that you think compares to him.
Secondly, follow-up with that is, is there a favorite bull name that you have that you've come across over the years?
And thirdly, my question is, does stature become a factor in bull riding?
Or is it just the size of the cohones that you have?
Good luck this year on the circuit, man.
Defend that strap.
Go get him.
Gang, gang.
Gang, bro.
That's a good question.
That's a good question, man.
Yeah, that guy nailed it.
Yeah, he's into it, man.
That's beautiful.
Yeah, Ty Murray, is that the guy?
Yep.
Yeah, that's the only bull rider that I'd ever heard of.
And I think I heard him in country songs, actually.
I heard him reference in a couple of songs.
See, that's like me.
I grew up idolizing those guys and knew I didn't have the cojones to be one of them.
So it's like, how do I stay involved?
I talk about them.
But that's great, though.
And I love the way you say you want to introduce people to it because, yeah, if I'm for the first time, it's almost like even on this podcast, I want our listeners to know what it's like and what's going on.
What do you think about his question there?
They were good.
What did he ask about Bodacius right at first?
A bull company?
Like a bull like right now, yeah.
Shoot, smooth operator and heartbreak kid.
Those are the top two bulls in the world right now.
But a bull that kind of reminds me of Bodacius is a bull called High Chaparral.
And that's a bull that nobody wants to get on.
Like Bodacius back in the day, he was notorious for hitting guys in the face.
And I can't imagine when you drew him, you were happy about it.
It's kind of like this bull.
He's just kind of gross.
He's huge.
He's about 2,100 pounds.
And he's just, when you see your name by him or you see a guy, you're just like, fuck me.
That's a big, scary monster.
He's a bad boy, huh?
Yeah.
And do they breed him?
Like, do you know who their parents are?
Do you get the lineage on them or anything like that?
Yeah, they have a, I guess, a website and paperwork on them and all sorts of things.
You can see their granddaddy, their great-great-gandardams.
They blood test them.
They DNA test these bulls to make sure.
She calls high chaparral.
If somebody's trying to sell you a son of Odacious, you want to be able to DNA test it and make sure that you can go back and actually confirm that that really is a son of that bull or whatever.
Look at that thing, man.
And that's.
He's miserable.
Look at the thighs on that thing.
It reminds me of this girl I went to school with, actually.
Yeah.
Dude, yeah, this girl named Jessica.
She brought a lasso to school every day.
Really?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And Sadie Hawkins.
Like, what grade was this?
Broke somebody up, dude.
If it was time for a dance, bro, you didn't have a chance.
That's right.
You wasn't asking her.
It's a country girl.
Oh, she'd bring you right in, and that was it, dude.
Sometimes it's got to be that way, though.
Oh, yeah.
Because I was shy.
Like, I looked for girls like that.
Like, I'd be in the corner, like, at the wall while everybody else was dancing, like, just open she would show up.
Because I'm the only guy here by myself.
So why not?
Oh, dude, you're talking to a guy.
I used to go eight seconds on the chaperone, man, if I didn't have, if no girls asked me.
Hey, girl, how you doing?
Oh, sorry.
So are there rumors of bulls that are out there that are coming up that you're like, oh, man, that's the next big, you know?
Yeah, they have a competition for little bulls.
They put a dummy on them.
It's like a 30-pound dummy, and they can click it off with a button, and they let those bulls buck, and they mark them, and they have their own competitions.
So you see a lot coming up from there.
And those are bucking dudes, man.
When they're that young, that little, and have that much athletic ability to them, they're freaking incredible.
So it sounds like there's a lot of respect for the animal, huh?
Oh, yeah.
If we didn't have those bulls, we wouldn't have a job.
Yeah.
But would we ride sheep on Sundays?
Yeah, that'd be a little bit, I mean, I'd watch it, but, you know, gosh, 80 bucks.
Dude, imagine the big sheep people start grooving up.
Sheep breeding would be a big deal nowadays if that was the case.
Pooking horns on them, putting Viking helmets, tying them to their heads.
You got to paint them different colors, put numbers on them like race cars.
Why wouldn't you?
Oh, that Tony Stewart sheep.
That thing's dangerous.
Smoke.
Smoke has got kind of a gray color to it.
That thing will kill you, bro.
That's a bad ram.
That's a bad ram right there.
Bad ram.
So you're in there.
Now, what do you do with your hand?
A lot of time I see the guys have tied.
Do you tie your hand in or what goes on there?
Yeah, it's a rope, and it's pretty much tree sap we put on the rope to help us hang on to them.
Okay, so you're not tied, really?
Yeah, we're tied in there.
And it's, I mean, that's the scariest thing is that you are tied in there and you are in there for the long haul.
It's a rope.
It just goes around kind of their brisket area and you put it across your hand and then you wrap it around your hand so you're like locked in there.
And your legs are what?
They're in.
They're in shaps, but those shaps really do nothing for you.
They might protect you from a little skiff, but they're just there for show, really.
They're loose.
They're not strapped to anything.
Okay, they're loose so that they can move at the level.
They've got to be able to move their legs.
The only thing you're tied in with is your hand.
So the rest of your body is free to move.
And that's when you see guys, they're hanging by their hand once they get bucked off is a hang-up, we call it.
Oh, and that's bad news, baby.
Yeah, that ain't good at all.
And is there a type of body type?
Sometimes I look at these guys' body types when they're on the bull, and it's like, okay, that guy looks like, you know, everything, like he's his height.
Is there a body type that does best in the sport?
Yeah, shorter yards, a little better.
You want to be skinny, but you want to be as strong possible as you can be.
And then that's pretty much it, really.
You don't want to be overweight and you don't want to be too tall.
Makes it tougher.
Yeah.
See, I couldn't do it.
I'm overweight.
I can't do it.
I waited out of the deal.
That was my problem.
So when a guy like, say, Jess gets on a bull, what are some things that you're talking about from the announcement?
Honestly, like for him, it's pretty simple.
You know, here's a two-time world champ like last year when he came back because that's what people don't realize: is like this is a guy that missed what nine events last year, nine out of our 26, 27 events that we have.
So he misses essentially, you know, a big chunk of the season, broke his collarbone.
When he comes back, you know, he's got to fight his way back up.
So he's climbing the ranks.
And it's like, okay, this guy won two events.
He's now won three events.
You know, he missed all this season.
So when we got to the World Finals in Vegas, man, it was the best race ever because it was him and a Brazilian kid, Jose.
And it literally came down to the last day.
It came down to Sunday, which, you know, a lot of sports will fabricate that, you know, oh, it's going to be tough.
It's going to come down to the final shot.
And we know it's not because somebody's going to pull away.
That didn't happen last year.
So it was such a fun story to tell.
But like we talk about some of the injuries that they've dealt with, you know, how good they've done.
Everybody's got a different story.
You know, like if a guy just had a baby two weeks ago, he's had to leave home.
Right.
You know, he's had to leave that baby at home, get on the road, go put his life on the line to buy diapers for that baby.
There's no guaranteed contracts in this sport.
It's so different than everything else, man, because these guys, they have to be successful.
They have to ride.
They have to win to make any money.
It's so different than every other sport in the world.
So there's no like, oh, we're going to pay you for this whole season no matter what?
Nope.
If you do good enough, you'll get sponsors that'll pay you.
But that contract's based on your performance at the events and how many you go to.
So if you get hurt the first event of the year and you're out for the year, there's in the contract, there's a little money you'll get, but you're not getting paid.
You got to show up.
That's why like when you see a guy and he's riding with a broken leg, you know, or he's got a broken collarbone and just going to throw some tape on that shit and go try it again.
Like they do it because that's the only way they get paid.
Wow.
They're the toughest in the world, man.
And a collarbone sounds like, is that one of the premier injuries?
Is that something you really don't want to get?
Like, what are some of the injuries that you'll face and what are some that can really take you out?
You know, of course, broken bones, but groins a lot of the time.
Old bull riders and bull riders nowadays, it's so common.
Torn groins, torn knees, stuff like that really sucks because you can't just go in and with a broken leg, you could plate it and you could probably ride in two weeks.
But torn groin, I've sat out three months before with the torn groin, just waiting on it to heal because you can't squeeze your bull if you don't got a torn groin and that's your bread and butter right there.
So that's what you're doing.
So when you're on there, you're squeezing your legs in.
Oh, yeah.
You're trying to stay on.
You've got your hand locked in down tight into your crotch?
It's, yeah, you slide up so it's right there.
You're kind of up on your legs right there.
Yeah.
Damn.
Crazy.
We got a question that came in right here.
Let's get to this one right here.
He actually answered it.
It was what was his worst injury?
So it was the groin.
Yep.
Oh, no.
That's probably about the longest I've stayed out, but in 2017 at New York, I got stepped on.
I broke four ribs, collapsed my lung, and lacerated my liver.
And it was about three weeks out from World Finals, so I had to ride at the World Finals that year with broke ribs and that stuff.
You know what I just taped on this?
Like both of your world title seasons were like when you got really, really hurt?
No, knock on wood.
This is in all my life.
I've done it.
I'm nice.
I love this place.
In my four years of the PBR, I've never won a full season healthy, which is expected as a bull rider, but there's guys that'll go to, they might miss one event a year, but over the course of four years, one of the other broadcasters on CBS that does PBR, he totaled it up, and I've missed a total of one year.
I've sat out three months my first year, three, four months my next year, three months in 2018 and three months last year.
All sorts of.
So is it pretty common that somebody doesn't make it through the entire season, doesn't make every race?
Man, you're hard pressed to find somebody that's going to stay healthy and make it to every single event because the little things, like he was talking about in a shoot, you're surrounded by solid steel and you're getting banged around.
ACLs, MCLs are pretty common.
Groins are pretty common.
And when you're doing this three, four, five times a weekend, every single weekend, even when the televised tour is not on, like when they're not going to a place like LA or Anaheim, they're going somewhere and they're getting on practice bulls.
You get hurt in a practice band too.
So I don't know.
I think it's impossible for a guy to stay 100% healthy all year long.
Is there a practice that they've made, like a mechanical practice that's actually helpful, that works?
Yeah, there's mechanical barrels that go up and down, kind of give you the feeling of one.
There's mechanical bulls that spin, all that sorts of stuff.
I don't usually ride the mechanical ones.
There's a barrel made that's on springs that goes up and down to kind of give you the rhythm feeling.
I got one of those at both my places, and I'll get on that a couple times during the week just to give myself the feel and kind of do that.
And we got a question that came right here.
Let's get to this one right here.
Jess, what up, Theo?
My question for Jess is, what kind of training regimen do you have to follow to be a bull rider?
Are you out at bars riding mechanical bulls or are you lifting weights every day?
Gang, gang.
Gang hair.
Good question.
Gray hair.
Yeah, that is a good hair.
You have to have your sweatshirt on, too.
What is it, man?
What do you do?
I just kind of work out.
There's guys that can drink beer during the week and not work out at all, and it works for them.
So many guys, different things work for them, but what works for me is I got a little sweatshop.
It's a 12 by 20 building.
I got one in Montana, one in Texas at our places.
And I get in there, crank that sucker up to 110 degrees, get in there and lift weights, work out.
So I'm grinding all week long to come here.
There's one guy that that works for.
It don't work for anybody else.
When you think about it, there's one guy that can get away with drinking and not working out.
Like everybody else is pretty regimented right now.
Two all together.
Okay, yeah, maybe two, two all time.
And has it changed a lot?
Because in stand-up comedy, like it used to be that you had to be out doing drugs, you had to be partying.
There was a lifestyle that kind of went associated with getting up on the stage at night.
And now it's changed.
Like a lot of the comedians now are sober.
A lot of them.
I mean, Joe Rogan is a fitness guru.
I mean, he's shredded.
Yeah, he's shredded.
See him with his shirt off the other day?
Dude, I'd love to see you do four seconds on Joe Rogan.
Oh, my God, man.
That dude's a monster.
Yeah.
He's a beast.
I wonder if anybody would ever have a bull named Joe Rogan, bro.
That would be amazing.
We'll make it happen.
We'll make it happen.
Just J-O-R-O-G-A-N.
Tell me he's cool.
Oh, he's really cool, man.
He's just, he's also inspiring.
That's the thing.
Like, I think five years ago, people thought, a lot of people thought, oh, he's just this meathead guy who's just, you know, doing a podcast.
But he's such a good, he remembers everything and he's so curious, man.
Like, he always, he really wants to know.
Yeah.
And then he retains the information.
He's so intelligent.
And I love the fact that he does the podcast and he doesn't care who's on there.
He doesn't care if you're Democrat, Republican, where you come from.
He's invested.
Yeah, he is.
And he really is.
It's not like it's a joke with him.
He really is just trying to learn.
Genuine.
Yeah.
Genuine.
He's really trying to learn, which is cool.
I struggle with a lot of times.
I'll bring my own thoughts and perspectives into things, but he really does a good job of just staying, trying to learn.
Yeah, that's cool.
So is it different now, though?
Like where a lot of guys are working out more?
It's a lot more like, okay, we're in this.
This is a sport.
We're in this to make money.
This is my livelihood.
It's not like, you know, I'm drinking.
I'm sad at the bar.
Like, you know, the kind of the country song vibe that used to go along with it?
Yeah.
Today's Bull Riders are a lot of athletes.
Back in the day, PBR used to be sponsored by Bud Light, and they'd bring Bud Light in after the Bull Ridings, and everyone just kind of would drink and just hang out.
Not very many people worked out, and they loved going to the bars.
Not that we don't still, but back in the day, it was kind of just a routine and ritual.
After the Bull Riding, everyone goes to the bars.
We have fun.
Ride bulls the next day.
Dude, I've been around for like a dozen years or so.
And the two generations I've seen, it's night and day different.
When I first came in, it was like, man, how do you keep up with these guys?
Because it was the Wild West.
And those guys, they'll tell stories now.
And like you say, most of those guys are sober now.
And they're like, holy crap, how did we live through that?
Now it's like you see the guys and, you know, they're waking up in the morning, they're having breakfast, they're going to the gym, they're doing yoga and whatever they do during the day.
And then they're showing up and they're treating it like a sport because they've realized the Bulls are getting better.
The Bulls are getting better and better and more athletic.
And so they have to.
They have to step their game up.
Is it hard, though?
Because sometimes it's tough as a comedian to let go of that old lifestyle.
It's tough.
Like I'll feel like a wimp sometimes, you know, in like a psychological way sometimes.
Like, oh, I'm, you know, I'm so.
Because you're not hanging out with the guys afterwards.
Yeah, because I'm not staying up all night and smoking, see, just partying all night, you know?
Oh, yeah.
Like, I would love to just, I would love if I could be as successful as I am with not working out at all, drinking beer, just eating shit food.
Because I love candy and stuff, but I hold my backself back from eating it all because it ain't going to help with my riding stuff.
Eating everybody, though?
Like, everybody wants to be successful and not work.
I get a little bullet mouth full of nerds, bro.
I put two Starbucks on and get on that bastard, dude.
Gobstoppers.
Gobstoppers back in the day.
Gobstoppers is more of a bust.
You don't know about Gobstoppers, man.
Dude, when you got on a Gobstopper, dude, and you really went in on that bastard.
And the ones that changed flavor halfway through?
Yeah.
Good old days.
God damn, it was like a threesome for your tongue.
Oh, like everything.
It was.
How much money does a rider make?
You know, you don't have to exaggerate it.
I'm not trying to pick into your life.
Yeah.
No, it's just, it's so different.
Those lower-end riders, if you're at the bottom of the top 35, you're still making $100,000, $200,000 a year just because there's so much money in the PBR.
Whereas if you win the world title, it's a million-dollar bonus.
Wow.
And winning the world finals, it's a $300,000 bonus.
There's so many incentives with winning an event, winning the world finals, everything that if you have a really good year, you can make $1.8 million.
See, that's where I get mad because they start talking about, you know, the world champ gets a million dollar bonus.
There's a guy sitting on the bench for the Knicks that sucks that's making a million dollars.
And these guys are way tougher, way better.
You know, I think the sport's way more interesting.
You know, it's way more intense.
And like, that bothers me.
I want all these guys to make millions.
Is it growing, though?
More money's got to start coming into it.
It's all about getting new eyeballs.
More eyeballs.
Is there another country that's coming along with bull riding that's like that you don't you don't think about you know you think of it as I mean especially growing up in America you think of it as an American kind of sport is that true is that no shoot we got Canada Australia Brazil Mexico everyone has the PBR Association there and they ride in it But the toughest ones are the Brazilians.
They're unbelievable.
They have to, man.
It's their life.
Like they leave everything.
You know, you think about it, Brazil's not a really, they're not a really rich country.
You know, a lot of these guys have grown up with nothing and so they leave home.
They come over here and it's like this is all they do.
So you'll see a bunch of Brazilians living in the same little circle.
They get up, they work out, they practice, they eat together, they do everything together.
They don't have all the distractions of the rest of the world that, you know, like just seeing our families and everything that we do normally.
Oh, yeah.
They don't have it.
So they're laser focused.
They're so good, man.
There's something, there's a special value in having that struggle and having that extra chip that you can't imitate it.
Like even as I find as I get a little more comfortable, like started making some money this past year, it's hard to go back to the, it's hard to get that same mentality of when you have nothing, when everything is on the line, you know, when you have to stay.
Like it's like a chip inside of yourself that you can't, it's hard to replicate it.
Yeah.
You know, I think it's that way with anything though.
Like once you see a certain level, like even day to day, like if I have a really good Monday, I don't want Tuesday to suck, you know, because then I feel like the week's wasted.
So it's like you got to maintain this level.
That's why they always say like, you know, people that are superstars are usually the loneliest people because they push theirself to this level and it's so hard to come back down.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
And so I see that with these guys, like they're constantly pushing themselves.
And if they buck off one bull, it like ruins their week.
Damn.
And they got to forget about it and turn around because they got to do it again tomorrow.
If you have a shitty ride in the first ride, right?
So Friday, you don't have a good ride.
They call it a ride.
What do they call it?
Yep.
You have a tough ride at the first go.
Do you have a chance in that Saturday To make it back up and to get into Sunday?
Yep.
So this event's a little different from normal.
They take the top 25 into day two.
So if you're outside of the top 25 and you buck off, your weekend's done.
Whereas I'm second right now and I'm almost guaranteed to ride tomorrow.
But on a regular weekend, you're guaranteed to.
So if you suck Friday, you better forget that shit and just push it aside because you got another one Saturday and you got to make the most of it.
And what does it do to your mentality if you have a tough Friday?
Does it affect it or are you able to kind of scrap it and just get right in?
That's the thing.
It's 90% mental in bull riding.
You can put in all that work and it's not going to matter if you get to the bull ride and then you see your bull.
You're like, oh man, I don't like the looks of him.
Then you're screwed.
You just got to be positive about everything.
Even if you buck off, you got to be like, well, I got tomorrow.
I got a good bull.
Even if he's not good, I'm going to make him good and I'm going to stay on him.
Sorry to interrupt this episode.
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When they opened the gate, this Zen is hitting me, man.
Good stuff?
Yeah, dude.
I remember the first time I ever did chewing tobacco.
It was like Cherry Skull or something.
And I did like a half a can.
I was trying to show my buddy up, right?
And I didn't know anything about it, dude.
And I had like my whole mouth was full of it.
How old were you?
I was probably about 14. Really?
And my buddies took his mom's car.
We were going out.
We were partying.
You know, we weren't really, we were just driving around.
And I vomited out of the front window, out of the passenger side.
And he's like, dude, you can't sit up there anymore, bro.
You got to sit in the back.
I vomited out of both of the back windows.
Yeah.
And so on the side of the car, we went and we hung out at night and then we went and parked the car.
And in the morning, his mom thought he'd been partying with a whole group of people because he's vomited out of every window.
And they didn't believe.
No, it was just Theo, man.
He just, he wasn't doing real well.
I got my first tobacco.
But his mom still doesn't believe to this day.
She's like, there's no way one child vomited out of three windows.
My first tobacco, I was two.
My dad left it laying there.
And I thought it would be a good idea to just put it in my mouth, take a drink, whatever it was.
Not a good idea.
Puked.
Came out both ends.
Dad took me outside, garden hosed me off.
Ran around naked the rest of the day.
It was a pretty successful day.
Mom still hates me.
It's fine.
Were you two or 22?
Yeah, let's be anyways.
Two seven, bro.
It was in college.
When you leave the shoot, right?
What do you look at?
What do you look at?
Are you looking like is your because sometimes they say like if you're in the gym you're doing squats they say look at the ceiling or something you know there's like a place for your focus what is it like you stare at their neck muscle that big hump they got on them you pretty much stare at that because their shoulders is what you follow if you look at their head they're some bulls sling their head everywhere so if you get too focused on that you're you're gonna go cross-eyed during the damn ride so if you look at their shoulders you and you don't even really go off of what you see it's all feel but that's the best focus point just
looking at their shoulders yeah stay right down in there yep it's pretty much just you don't even know what's going on but that's where you look and at a certain point can you hear the crowd can you hear when it's going good i just i don't hear much when i'm riding you know it's kind of and you want to say you hear the whistle but you dang near don't even hear that and it's just become routine that when it gets around to that eight second clock you know it's time to get off and at eight seconds uh what happens then a buzzer sounds a whistle what goes on buzzer sounds in the arena
and then uh then it's your job to get off them without getting killed so it uh it almost gets harder then that's crazy but usually you think like you just did your job and it's like okay good job nope you still got to get off get away not get hooked ran over the worst part of the job is before and after you get to work yeah for these guys but we're lucky like we've got bullfighters out there that are there to try to distract the bull make sure they get away but it's not always that easy what's the pop what's the way to dismount so what how do you do that what you pretty much if
you whatever hand you ride with you go away from it and uh well you go into it i guess you go towards it and uh you kind of wait for that bull to kick and you kind of lean back and throw your leg over his back at the same time and kind of let him throw you out there and ideally you land on your feet but it's kind of rare if you land on your feet really damn and the second you hit the ground you're scurrying off yeah a lot of times you see that just kind of rattling that's wild and so when the bull stepped on you got stepped on last year you said uh 2017
2017.
yeah i got stepped on and it i mean of course it took my breath away and it was like oh Did you know what had happened?
Oh, yeah, right when it happened, I was like, oh, fuck, I just broke everything in there.
And that's the scariest part getting stepped on.
Is you don't know if it just punctured something, what that's the scariest damn thing.
And I rolled over, and that bull was right there, and that bullfighter went in and took him away.
But then I had to get up and run out of the arena, essentially, with four broke ribs, collapsed lung, and lacerated liver.
Damn.
So if you lay in there, you're screwed.
If you got a broke leg, you got to get the hell out of there.
And is the most common thing when they step on you is it usually, I guess you don't know where they're going to step.
It's usually broke ribs.
Broke ribs, you can guarantee every time you get stepped on, pretty much.
Damn.
God dang.
That's wild.
I don't see NFL guys running around with busted spleens.
You don't see it anywhere else.
And I think that that's kind of the intrigue, like I say, that brings new people in.
That's why it's the fastest growing sport because you don't see that.
You don't see guys getting carted off in our arena.
Rarely do you see a stretcher because the guys want to walk out.
If they've got busted ribs, they've got a busted spleen, like they still want to walk out.
They don't want to help.
And I don't know if that's an old school kind of sign of weakness or if it's just hurry up because we got to keep the show going or what it is, but it's crazy.
I've seen guys get up and walk out with broken necks.
Insane, insane injuries.
And probably that adrenaline's rushing at you so much, too, still, huh?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
The only time I've been carted off, I got knocked out, actually.
And when I came to, I really didn't come to until I got me back to the sports med room.
But I guess I woke up out in the arena.
And when I hit the ground, he kind of, he bent me weird.
So I woke up out in the arena and I didn't know what the hell I was saying, but I was saying, oh, my fucking back hurts.
And they're like, what, where?
And I'm like, I don't know.
I was just, I didn't know what the hell I was saying because I was still knocked out essentially.
And they're like, oh, God, well, we got to cart him out.
His back might be broke.
And then they get me in the sports medroom and I really come to and I'm like, what the fuck am I doing on a stretcher?
They're like, well, you said your back hurt.
I was like, fuck, I don't know what I was saying.
I just now realize what's really going on.
So that's the only time I've been cart away because essentially I was just speaking mumbo jumbo because I was still out.
It's like being drunk, you can't hold me accountable.
Yeah.
You know, when you've been stepped on.
Yeah.
Do they have two riders on one bull at the same time?
Do they ever do that?
I've seen it before.
Not at our events, but when you're sticking around in the practice pen, anything goes.
So is that a sport you think that'll grow into something?
Like, is that a possible thing?
Man, I hope so.
Like a tag team kind of thing?
Can you imagine?
Like, you just start putting teams together?
Dude, my brother and I used to sit on the toilet at the same time.
We were kids sometimes.
Facing each other?
No, no.
Yeah, you couldn't.
You have to go back to back, right?
Come on, man.
Have some respect for you.
But like, where did it, like, toilet's not that big?
I know it's not that big, man.
You got to have good aim.
Dude, we used to go over to this kid Roy's house and he would play all these games.
He was kind of a...
Or he preferred men as lovers, you know.
But when we were kids, we didn't know.
And he would make us get in his bathtub and he would play battleship or whatever.
And he would get in his toilet and be like the captain from the hat and everything?
No.
He might have, I don't know if he had a captain's hat or something, but he would just get in there and bark orders at us.
What did you say his name was?
Roy.
Don't you think everybody has a Roy in their life at some time, though?
Like somehow, someway, somewhere?
Yeah, this dude, I mean, he, yeah, he would say, oh, the seas are getting high and stuff.
And like we'd have to turn on the water and make it all crazy.
It was just dumb.
You never had to stick your face in the water and like what bubbles, did you?
Like pretend you were out.
Like the motorboat.
No, it never got.
It never escalated.
Spartan.
Yeah, it never escalated, but he'd be in the toilet just yelling stuff at us, dude.
He was kind of a miscreant.
So it's like he was the captain.
You were the seaman.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, we were.
We were.
Bless his heart.
Yeah, bless something, dude.
He was a wildcat.
He ended up going into the military, dude.
Really?
Yeah, so he got in there, man.
That's good.
So now he's the legit captain.
Yeah, now he is, dude.
He wasn't joking.
He wasn't fucking around back in the day.
He had his mind set and he was going for it.
You were basically his little plastic green army man.
He was just practicing for the real thing.
You contributed.
Basically, you were in the service.
Yeah, dude.
You helped prep him for a career.
That's good shit, man.
Thank you for your service.
I never thought about it like that.
Because, yeah, he really went into military, man.
That's pretty shit.
He did it.
That's real good, man.
We got a question from a guy right here.
Here we go.
Yo, what up, Theo, Mr. Lockwood?
It's your boy Blake from Nebraska.
My question is, what's the craziest shit y'all ever rode?
Theo, you said you were from the Stray Animal Belt.
I'm just wondering if you ever wrote anything crazy, you know?
You know, not including big gals or anything like that, but gang, gang.
How high do you think that guy is right now?
He could be pretty high.
He's pretty high.
He could be pretty high.
Let me think.
What you got?
I mean, I guess it's a bull probably is the craziest thing.
No.
I got so at home during the winter when I was still living up at home, everyone around the place traps, you know, traps, animals, coyotes for fur, foxes.
Well, one day we go out in the pasture where we had a trap set, a foot trap, and an antelope was stuck in it.
We're like, oh, shit, now we got to get this thing out of there.
And so we get it out.
I'm like, fuck it.
Get your Snapchat out.
I'm going to ride it up.
So I let this antelope get up and I rode it off.
No way.
And did it have the same kind of feel?
Did it have the same kind of vibe or what was going on?
No, it was freaking the hell out.
I mean, kind of sort of the same thing, but a lot smaller than a bull.
It was fun.
Dude, we had a boy, I talked about this.
We had a kid with no legs on our basketball team one time.
So we had a big black guy named Terrence who was like our center on the team, and he had to carry him for like half the game.
And then we carry him around and try to get him to get buckets, you know?
So that's about the craziest riding I've ever seen because he would kind of wear him on his back a little bit.
Like a backpack.
Yeah, like if he had to play defense, he would hold both of his arms down.
And then he would just play defense with the other arm, you know.
But the craziest thing I've ever been on probably a strong woman one time in Indiana.
Really?
Yeah.
Because it gets cold and they lift weights.
That kind of thing.
Some women had that.
They're kind of thick, but it's kind of like strong fat, kind of, you know?
Yeah.
Like the in-between, like power lifter strong.
Yeah, yeah.
Like they don't look like big veiny muscles, but like you can tell you don't want to fuck with them.
And the fat is kind of tight, you know?
So you get that tight fat, which I really like, man.
Because it's not really fat.
Yeah, it's not really fat.
It's not really muscle.
Yeah.
What is it?
It's like wagoo, I think.
Yeah.
Which is good.
Yeah, which is good.
There's a reason it's more expensive.
Yeah.
So you get it.
Yeah, this girl was really wagoo, man.
And I remember that being one kind of the largest thing that I've ever really kind of, I guess, ridden, really.
I got on a camel one time at a county fair.
No bullshit.
Because they started doing it for a photo shoot.
We were doing a rodeo and they were like, hey, we got to get a picture of you on this camel.
And I'm scared of heights.
And then the camel like started kind of just jumping.
And I've never been so scared in my life.
Never.
Like I flew on a, through a snowstorm on the way here and the plane started doing this.
Wasn't as scary as being on the back of a camel that just started like popping up and down.
Terrifying, man.
There's nowhere to go.
Can you imagine telling people you got bucked off a camel?
Like that's the worst thing you could ever do in your life.
I could imagine in some countries it's happening, man.
It's probably like a pride thing.
Yeah.
Like you're not somebody until you get bucked off a camel.
Yeah, until you get bucked off a camel.
Are there new animals that people are starting to ride besides bulls?
Is there anything else that's coming up like that you're seeing like in the in the world?
Not really.
You know, you just got your common bucking horses, bucking bulls, but that's that's it.
And is there a difference when you're on the horses, they call them broncos, is that right?
Yep.
So if you're on a bronco, is there a big difference between that kind of riding and the bull riding?
It's definitely different.
You don't hang on by a rope.
You kind of got a ring.
It's kind of connected to their face and it clips on.
It's like a holiday that goes around them.
And you hold on by that and then you're in a saddle instead of a rope around them.
And you got to keep yourself in that saddle.
So it's a lot different.
Is it tougher?
Is one tougher than the other?
I'd have to say bull riding just because you don't have a saddle that you can actually sit in and keep yourself in.
You're just hanging on by that rope.
So in the bull, you're sitting on their back.
You're really, it's not a saddle that you're sitting in.
Nope.
It's just a pretty much a twine rope just stuck around them and your hands in it.
And that's all you got to keep yourself on.
So you're not so.
Nope.
Just around their, around their back and their sides.
That's it.
Like there is nothing that is keeping you in there but your hand and your balance.
And do people, because you're a young guy, you're 22, you said 23?
Do people, do older guys, like, do they get upset?
Like, how does that kind of go that you're a is it a young guy's sport?
Yeah, 100%.
Like, you know, you've got to be able to not only bounce back from injury, but you've got to be so quick.
And like, you see guys that have been around for 10 years or so, they start to get, those injuries start to pile up and starts to slow them down, just like with anything else, you know, like you start to compound all those injuries and, you know, your body doesn't react the way it used to.
And so it's definitely a young guy's sport.
You know, you hit probably hit prime, what, like mid-20s?
Yep, 25, 26. If a guy's 30, he's an old man in this sport.
And we got some.
Like, we're lucky right now.
We've got a couple of guys that are like 36, 37. I don't know how they do it.
Brazilians.
Yeah.
Wow.
They're different.
They're different, man.
They're so tough, and they stay in such great shape.
It's different than any of us being 36, 37 riding bulls.
Is there a discrepancy between the American and the Brazilian riders?
Like, is there any country beef a little bit or not really?
No, we have one nicest guys ever.
We have one event.
It's called the Global Cup, and we do it at AT ⁇ T Stadium where the Cowboys play.
And there's, yeah, it's crazy, man.
Next weekend.
Think about that.
You're going to be there next weekend.
Yep.
Yep.
And you'll see it on the big screens when you're there and everything.
Damn.
They take the football field out.
They put arena down there.
And every country has a team.
And so that's the only time all year long that you'll see guys really raising that Brazilian flag or the USA flag.
It's pretty cool because I feel like everybody wants something to cheer for.
Yeah, it is.
It's our Olympics, you know, essentially.
Has it ever been an Olympic sport, Bull Roddy?
When was it?
Back early thousands, late 90s?
It hadn't been too terribly long ago.
They had it in Idaho or something.
They had an Olympic rodeo.
Yeah.
My dad told me all about it.
I just made that shit up.
No, dead serious.
Yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, they gave it away.
I do know that at one time they were testing it out and trying to make it.
I don't know, man.
Curling's an Olympic sport.
Why isn't bull riding?
I watched curling the other night for about an hour.
It's like hot chicken.
It's like Cornhole.
It's a people from Italia, Italy.
Really?
Yeah.
Oh, man.
They curl in Italian.
Really?
Yeah.
I thought it was all Canadian.
Dude, they might have been playing Canada, I think, at the time, but these girls, they were doing well.
Really?
I thought, I don't know what was going on, dude.
But it's exciting.
Late night.
I got to clear my throat.
I have so much fucking nicotine in my throat right now.
I was going to say, I'm feeling left out.
Like, I'm the only one not spitting here.
Maybe I'll just spit in the floor.
Damn, I just throw that six for about 35 minutes, man.
We got a guy right here in a photo lab who has a question.
What?
Hey, Theo and this bull rider.
How many times this man listened to that Tim McGraw hitter before he gets on that bull going 3.7 seconds?
Gang, gang.
You thought that last guy was high.
Man, I think you put him to shame.
This dude, yeah, he's high.
This dude's coming in red.
This dad's living in a fucking, yeah.
This dude's about to be developed.
Like, his eyes are so closed, he doesn't even know the camera's not on his face.
I'd like to see him go eight seconds with his eyes open.
I'd like to see him go to lunch, like outside of his apartment.
That's awesome.
Is that a nickelback record on the wall?
That explains so much.
Is there a song?
Is there hype music?
What are people listening to?
Travis Scott, what are you guys doing?
My song is Dire Straits, Money for Nothing.
Oh, wow.
That's what they play when I start going.
And so when do they start the intro music?
Is it like UFC?
They do it when they come out.
When we get in that buck and shoot, that's when they start it.
Okay.
Pretty much like that.
And does it play the whole time you're riding?
Yeah, they got a music mixer at the events each weekend, so they'll play that.
And then when I nod, he'll mix up something different, and it'll play a freaking jam-up song when I'm going.
You should switch it up and play Genuine My Pony.
Oh, that's not a bad idea.
That's a terrible idea.
They played Baby Shark before.
They have done that.
I introduced him last week after he rode his bull.
I introduced him as Mr. Haley Kinzel because his wife's a world champion barrel racer, too.
Wow.
And so we kind of changed up his name a little bit last week, too.
And did you meet her on the circuit?
Yeah, not on this, but we have a couple different events each year that kind of collide with PBR.
We get invited to some, and I met her at one of those.
Nice, man.
And did you know immediately, was there, did you, I mean, how did that break down with you and the lady?
It was good.
I knew I was going to marry her before I even met her.
Really?
So I'm doing interviews for like this little digital network we had here.
And I asked him, I said, describe the perfect woman.
Because he's, what, 19 at the time, something like that?
18, 19. Yeah, how can he know even?
And it's like, you know, all these teenage girls are flocking over these guys and like young cowboys.
Describe the perfect girl.
And he looks the camera dead in the eye and he goes, Haley Kinzel.
And gives it this wink.
And he had never even met her.
Never even met her.
There you go.
He met her right there, dude.
Put it out in the universe.
He got it up.
That happened.
Gang, man.
That's beautiful, dude.
Thank you.
And so her sport, when she does, it's barrel racing.
Yep.
And so that's on a horse.
Yep.
Clover leaf pattern, three barrels.
Okay, and so when you say that clover leaf pattern, what is that?
You just go around right-hand turn.
Okay, the barrels are set up in a triangle.
Yep.
And they start at one of the barrels?
Yep.
You start probably 100 feet out from the barrel, and then you run at the barrel, go around it, then go to the next one, go around it, go to the third one, go around it, and haul ass home.
That's crazy.
That's hope, man.
That's wild.
Yeah.
And did you have parents that rode?
Yep.
My mom competed in the barrel race, and then my dad rode the bucking horses.
So from the time I was little up until I think mom quit going when I was probably around six, seven, I was getting hauled to all those rodeos, and that's kind of how I took a liking to the bull ride.
And I would see those bulls go at the rodeos and big scary baseball bats on their heads.
And I just took a liking to them for some reason.
Now he's got a 19-year-old brother that's in the same league he is now that just got into the major leagues that's trying to beat that ass.
Damn, so people are, is that starting to become a thing?
Oh, yeah, they're loving it that me and him are on at the same time.
It's kind of cool that the Lockwood brothers are competing at this highest level of bull riding.
Dude, that's beautiful, man.
Oh, she wrote this back.
Is he single?
I'm 19. That's perfect.
For people just listening, there was someone sent in just a Snapchat photo, and it's a girl hitting on Jess's brother.
Oh, nice.
Get that tag.
I'll get it to him.
Yeah, there we go.
Love connection.
It starts here.
We'll be at the wedding.
It all starts on the internet these days, man.
You can officiate it, man.
Damn right I can.
Do people get you get asked to officiate a lot?
Man, we actually had a bull rider here a couple of years ago that asked me to, and I kind of laughed it off and didn't really think much about it.
But yeah, we've had some weird requests, like not Bruce Buffer making videos to walk people down the aisle with my voice kind of things.
But yeah, like I've been asked, I've done some funerals that weren't fun, obviously.
But it's part of life, you know?
Oh, yeah.
But I've never done one yet.
I want to do one.
I want to do the wildest wedding ever.
Yeah.
Just mess it up.
Yeah.
Make it something they can remember.
Make it fun.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's got to be.
Life's got to be fun, man.
I'm sure, man.
That's great.
I love that.
Nick, we had any other good questions that came in?
We had another one from the guy in the photo lab.
This ought to be interesting.
I got another one for you.
I mean, this man lost a tooth or something out of his pockets on that bull.
Let me know.
Gang, gang.
Gang, bro.
You ever lost your phone or anything?
Did you take your phone out every rock?
Hell no.
Did he say you lose a tooth out of your pocket?
Is that what he said?
This guy's on a whole nother planet.
That's going to have y'all methadone, man.
Where's this in your planet?
This guy, is he from Oklahoma?
Because I live next to a lot of people that act like that.
Yeah, this dude.
Have you ever lost a grill piece?
You lost something we don't know?
I haven't lost nothing really when I'm riding.
Maybe my necklace broke off once.
That's all I can think.
Do you wear a helmet?
Sometimes you see guys with a helmet on.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I've never lost that.
I'd keep that sucker strapped on tight.
That's my lifeline.
Does everybody wear that?
Is that mandatory?
It's mandatory now, you know, for the younger guys.
I think it's like 93 or 94 if you're born.
If you're born after 94, it's mandatory.
Man, it's so dangerous.
You have to protect the noggin.
We're finding out more and more, you know, in all major sports with so much CTE and so many head trauma, so much research, we're starting to learn that you've got to find a way to protect that dome.
And so all of our guys are wearing helmets now.
Is it harder to defend, do you find?
Because right now you're the champion.
Yep.
Is it harder to defend that, do you feel?
Or was it tougher in 2018 or in 2019 when you were making that comeback?
I think it was the first year it was harder to defend.
Whereas this year, I'm more experienced, got more bulls under my belt at the top level.
I just feel it's just normal now.
Everyone talks about, though, after you win your first world title, it's a world champion slump the next year.
And I felt it.
It was true, huh?
But yeah, you get put through so much media at that point.
Everyone wants to talk to you, use you for stuff.
But now I'm just, it's become normal to me.
And I just deal with it, and it doesn't affect my riding no more.
Did you notice, like, did your ego ever get involved?
Because ego is a dangerous thing.
Sometimes it's something we don't even control.
You know, it'll grow inside of us without us really wanting it to.
We don't realize it.
Yeah, we'll think we're the most humble guy, and you can have this, like, you know, the dark edge of you kind of growing up.
Did you notice any of that?
No, it never happened.
My parents raised me pretty good.
And if it ever got to that, they would whoop me when I was little.
So I knew when I got older, it wasn't going to happen.
But that ego thing comes on those championship Sundays, it comes into play there, I think, when you go up and you get to pick your bull in that top 15. Oh, really?
Yeah.
So sometimes you get up there and you feel that big energy.
You're like, fuck yeah, give me that one.
He's never been able to do it.
You want to go with the biggest batter.
Oh, yeah.
You're like, fuck it.
You know?
Let's run it.
I'm the man.
Let's try him out.
Damn.
So your ego is.
And that's got to mentally affect the other guys, too, where they're like, oh, shit, he's going big.
Yep, exactly.
Your ego gets a hold of you when you're picking them bulls and make them other guys take notice, I think.
It's cool when we see a guy that can have any bull he wants to, and he steps up and he picks the one that he knows is going to be the most difficult one.
And like he's done that a couple of times, you know, and it's cool.
Somebody will get it.
I'll clean up later.
Zen hit me that six, bro.
I should have started a three.
Like my childhood.
Dude, I can't feel my ears anymore.
We got a question from a white kid right here.
This guy looks a lot more domestic.
What is that in the background?
He does look more domestic.
Is that a gorilla in the background?
It probably is, dude.
Yeah.
Of course it is.
I was wondering what your thought process was going in to riding Heartbreak Kid.
Gang, bro.
Gang, bro.
See, he pays attention.
Yeah, that's that bull we were just talking about.
That ego got a hold of me.
I went into the event, and I'd ridden both my bulls, actually, but I was really low on my second one, score-wise.
And I was like fifth in the event or something.
And I was like, well, fuck.
I got to be a lot of points if I'm going to win it.
Fuck it.
Give me the hardest tried one.
He'd never been rode at that point.
He was the bull that got left at the end of the draft every weekend because everyone was so scared of him, didn't like him.
I was like, fuck it, give him to me.
And I rode him and broke his streak, and it was awesome.
And then he did it with you the next weekend.
Then the next weekend, I did it again.
And I was kind of behind in the event.
I'm like, fuck it.
I did it once.
Let's do it again.
And I got him rode again.
Really?
Oh, yeah.
And won both events?
No, I ended up second in both of them because he made up those points for me, but that guy went in leading it.
He just had so many points on me.
And so the judges, what are the judges for?
They're scoring the guys and they're scoring the animal.
So that's like the thing that a lot of people don't realize is like every one of these bulls is getting judged.
So that's why the guys want their, they want these animals to be as well taken care of, as athletic as they possibly can because they're watching to see how hard they kick, how difficult they are to ride, how quick they turn back.
And so they're marking them 1 to 50 and then they're marking these guys 1 to 50 on how easy they can make it look or how stylish they can be or if they're just floating by and just barely getting by.
So, you know, they're looking at the animal and the rider and putting the scores together.
And so when so when you go into the final event, when you go towards the end, you want to get, you're thinking, okay, I have this many points right now.
This bull is like, sometimes you have to pick the best.
Well, you have to really get out there on the best one.
You can kind of evaluate it.
Okay, I might be able to take a mid-range bull right now because I'm up by so much right now.
Yep, exactly.
A lot of guys will try that strategy.
And do you think style, when you're on the bullet, so then are you thinking style, like I'm trying to do this with a certain flair, or are you thinking I'm just trying to stay on this animal?
So most of the time you're just doing your job, doing whatever keeps you in the middle, staying on them.
But then if you're riding plum easy, you'll see guys lift their leg and it's actually spurring the bull and it's getting you extra points, essentially.
So it's showing you're in domination and you're controlling your ride and you're making that bowl just look easy.
So you're not just trying to stay on for eight seconds, you're also trying to impress the judges.
Exactly.
You're trying to get as much flair in your ride as you can to up your score.
There's a lot more to it.
Like you think about eight seconds.
Man, eight seconds goes by so fast when you think about it, but when you're watching so much happen so quick, there's a lot going on.
It's like watching Flint and when people start a fire, you know, it's like watching that exact process right there.
Yeah.
Just trying to pack it all in.
And do you go when, so say when it's your chance to go pick the bull, will you go look at them?
Will you go down and spend time looking at them before that Sunday ride?
No, you pretty much, those top bulls, you know exactly.
You've seen them hundreds of times before that.
And then you get up on the cage out there and it's with him and they got a big screen of all the names.
And once you say that, they'll put your name beside them, mark them off.
And on the stuff you see on television, do you see them pick the bulls or it's just matched up once they show it up?
It depends.
It depends on where we're at.
And like, obviously, you know, TV produce and stuff.
Because a lot of times, you know, if he's got the number one pick and that heartbreak kid's in there, you know, our fans at home on TV, they want to see it.
If that's not a potential, if there's not something big right off the gate, then they might not show it on TV.
But in the arena, it's interesting because he has been getting up the last few weeks and he'll look at me and go, what do you think?
And I'm like, I ain't no bull rider.
Don't put that pressure on me.
I have a lot of opinions.
Yeah, no.
I'm an open-minded guy.
Yeah, you want to see it.
Whatever he thinks I can win on, I'll take.
Damn.
So I'm one of those guys, like, I want to see guys be as high as they can be every single time.
So that's always my advice.
What's like, what do you see kind of the future of bull riding?
Do you see it changing?
Do you see it?
Is it great as it is?
It's just going to get better.
Them bulls are, they're producing them and breeding them to just get better and better.
So if they don't keep doing that with the bull riders soon, there's not going to be a guy that rides all weekend because the bulls are just getting better.
And numbers have dropped in bull riders, I think.
The amount of actual riders?
Yeah.
Yeah, it's dropped over time.
And we need to breed some men back into this world and make some bull riders out of them.
Why do you think that is?
You know what's the truth?
I think because society is so scared of everything that we're not, you know, taking, what is it, the hot off-the-garden hose?
Oh, that hot hose hit.
That hot hose hit.
Yeah, people are.
We're keeping kids in a bubble all the time.
We're not letting them get life experiences.
We're not letting them get their arm broke on the playground.
We're so coddling that we don't let people have experiences.
And it's something that you definitely have to experience.
I mean, and we just don't have enough toughness in society.
You know what I mean?
Oh, yeah.
We lose it out here.
I mean, it's gone.
I mean, it's in the ocean.
Yeah, it's changed out here.
Do you think that there will be, like, do you think there will be a resurgence of more men wanting to ride?
Well, here's a better question.
What do you think it is that makes like if there's a young guy sitting out there who's like, I wonder if I could do this?
We got a question.
It's audio-related.
Okay, perfect.
It's audio-related.
What up, Theo?
What up, Jazz?
Just have a quick question.
I guess it's kind of a serious one.
You know, I've always wanted to learn how to ride bulls.
I come from a long history of cowboys.
However, when my family moved here to the U.S., we moved into the city.
You know, that kind of part of our, you know, my family's lifestyle was cut off, man.
But it's something that nags me all the time.
And it's just something that I want to do that calls me, man.
I want to learn how to write some fucking bulls, bro.
So I guess my question is, what tips do you have, man, for somebody that wants to get started and to just fucking do it?
Thank you, Theo.
Gang, gang, brother.
Gang, brother.
That's tough.
You know, when you get older, it just gets tougher to learn it if you don't start out real young.
I mean, it's not impossible, but it definitely makes it harder.
When you grow up wanting to do it, you take those steps like getting on sheep, then you work your way up to little calves and steers, you work your way up.
Whereas you're this age, you can't start out on that sheep.
You got to go straight into bulls.
It's just so hard when you get older.
But the younger kids that can start out like that and get in with the right people and make them take them stepping stones, really teach them correct and teach them right.
It's just so much easier than taking a full-grown man and putting them on a bull because there's not bulls easy enough nowadays that you can learn on, really.
Right.
There's not a lot of beginner bulls, really.
But I want to see kids like from the city.
I want to see kids that didn't grow up on a ranch because we've got a couple of buddies.
Like there's a guy, Sean Willingham, he grew up wakeboard, you know, just an extreme sport.
And it was that adrenaline rush that kind of sucked in.
And that's, you know, that's why I keep going back to the more eyeballs.
You know, I want kids to try it.
Like, because who knows?
You don't have to grow up on a ranch.
You don't have to grow up in a saddle to be a cowboy.
And we say that all the time at the PBR now.
It's like cowboy is such a broad spectrum term that if you've got those hardcore base values that cowboys have, come on.
Come be part of us.
Come be one of us.
Yeah, this guy, Ian Walsh, that I follow on Instagram, and he's like a big surfer, and he's big into X games and Red Bull type of stuff and all of that.
He's just an adrenaline junkie, you know.
And I would love to see him.
I would love to see some of these guys cross over.
You remember when the NFL went on strike here?
It's been like maybe back in the early 2000s, the NFL went on strike, whatever.
Chad Ochocenco saw a billboard that the PBR was coming to town, and he tweeted out that he was going to start bull riding.
And he came and tried.
He went to Ty Murray's house.
He started working on trying it.
And this is in Ocho Cinco's prime.
And he came to one of our events and he got on a bull.
And the direct quote, you can YouTube this and look it up.
It's him saying, I don't understand why these are not the highest paid athletes in the world.
I mean, that's a guy that, premier athlete, tried it and sucked at it.
Yeah.
Like, it was horrible.
But it's just, it's so, so tough.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The funniest part about this whole deal is they didn't just put him on like a, all right, bull, learner bull.
This is the fucking world champion bull that year.
This is the greatest bull in the world at this point.
Like, let that just sink in.
Oh, my God.
I would be so scared.
Look at him.
He looks scared.
He's terrified.
But, like, he admitted he's terrified, and he's like, okay, we good?
And that's not a knock on him at all.
Man, I think it takes.
Dude's got huge balls just to try it.
We're going to get you guys out of here in just a second, though.
You got to ride tonight, man.
I didn't know this.
Yeah, it's crazy.
All right, he says, let's do this.
Damn.
Ah, we, man.
He was out.
Wow, man.
Wow.
Good for him, bro.
Isn't that cool?
Imagine how great he feels right now that he just tried.
How much respect do you have for a guy that totally out of his element to do that?
I love him.
Change my whole perspective.
Yeah, right there in that moment.
Change my whole perspective.
Or just change some of our perspective of him.
Same.
Yeah.
Wow.
Same.
I have the utmost respect for that guy.
Yeah.
That's so wild.
Anybody that tries that.
He's a multi-million dollar athlete, and he's just like, I'm going to try bullratting just to see what's up.
Just to see if that's up.
He's got that million-dollar contract.
Like, screw it, you know?
I wouldn't risk it all.
Yeah.
That's beautiful, man.
Thank you guys so much for being here today, man.
I know you guys got to ride.
That's the only reason we're going to kind of step out, man.
But yeah, this has been so educational, and I'd love for you guys to come back sometime.
Shoot you, man.
Thanks for doing this.
Love to have you.
Awesome.
Love it.
Yeah, that Zen has hit me in the head.
Is it a Zen?
Is it?
Zen.
That six, bro.
Love it.
I just went about 48 minutes on that six, man.
Buzz in.
Yeah, dude.
Bro, yeah.
Yeah, I need more peace out.
Thank you guys so much.
Best of luck to both of you, man.
Gang, man.
Gang, bro.
We'll see you guys in the future.
Appreciate it.
Now, I'm just footing on the breeze.
And I feel I'm falling like these leaves.
I must be cornerstone.
Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this piece of mind.
I found I can feel it in my bones.
But it's gonna take a little time for me to slap that parking break and let myself all mine shine that light on me.
I'll sit and tell you my stories Shine on me And I will find a song.
I will sing it just for you.
*music*
And I will move away too fast.
On the runaway trend with the face of the world.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Jonathan Kite and welcome to Kite Club, a podcast where I'll be sharing thoughts on things like current events, stand-up stories, and seven ways to pleasure your partner.
The answer may shock you.
Sometimes I'll interview my friends.
Sometimes I won't.
And as always, I'll be joined by the voices in my head.
You have three new voice messages.
A lot of people are talking about Kite Club.
I've been talking about Kite Club for so long, longer than anybody else.
So great.
Aye, Suiar.
Easy deal.
Anyone who doesn't listen to Kite Club is a dodgy bloody wanker.
Jermaine.
Hi, I'll take a quarter pounder with cheese and a McFlurry.
Sorry, sir, but our ice cream machine is broken.
Oh, no!
*BEEP*
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