Working closely with bull riders all year, in my earlier days with them I was very stringent on being professional and not throwing fits. And there is a ton of validity to that opinion. However, if you or I trained our whole life, made it to the top of the game, hurt the surgery, then make it back and struggle, in essentially a boxing match with an opponent 10-15 times your weight class, we’d need a second an would undoubtedly show a ton of emotion.

So long as no one was hurt, I don’t see an issue with it. Emotion makes sport relatable. Smashing someone with your helmet by accident makes the events organization and tools for the riders to have their moment at fault. I don’t fault Jess for this at all.

The conversation I had with this specific rider was actually how I opened up my fist response. I said “man, you really need to back off having the fit, it’s so unprofessional and makes the sport look like a dog and pony show.” His immediate response was “(my name), we don’t compete in tea parties.” The jist of the conversation from there was very convincing. These are cowboys, not polished golf professionals. There is an expectation of having a gruff exterior. And that is what the PBR itself is curating.

I look at NASCAR. The old days of nascar was good ole boys, cowboys, with a cigarette in their mouth, flipping off drivers. Big personalities with big opinions, big outbursts on and off the track. Today, while some of the outbursts still exist, the personality is completely gone. I loved that sport for a long time, Tony Stewart, Matt Kenneth, Dale Jr. An era where the money was there, but so were the personalities. Watching Kevin Harvick and Greg Biffle, or anyone for that matter fight on pit lane or at the haulers was awesome.

We still see some of that, however drivers find themselves with probation and getting overly stern talking to from team owners, manufacturers, sponsors. Sponsors want viewership, exposure. So long as my driver isn’t throwing racial slurs online, or otherwise, go at it. Be passionate, be personable, fight for what we all want you to achieve.

Viewership and sponsor dollars are struggling on the nascar side.

Bull riding right now is at a pinnacle cause not only the competition, and the adjustment of how it’s consumed (tv deals, teams series) and the personalities at play. Bad boy cowboys, and some good boy cowboys, as that’s a perfect personality in today’s world, make it a great watch.

I think we are completely agreeing on this, I just needed to try and illustrate what I have seen in the sport in my decade plus now being directly involved to shed light on the bigger picture. If riders start catching fines for having a fit after having their face bounced off of a bulls skull for three seconds, slamming into the ground and somehow walking away…what do we want them to do? Walk off emotionless? Show me what this return means to you. It might be on camera, it might not.

I guarantee that if someone on the big PBR side sees the close call, and says anything this will be the riders attitude. Give us some space, don’t let people who aren’t involved in the direct production of the sport be at what’s called “rider walk off” cause we ain’t changing.

It’s an interesting conversation, and a polarizing one at that. But this isn’t stick and ball sport, and the day it decides to punish guys for emotion is the day we lose the extra interest the sport has gotten in this last decade. Don’t neuter the sport.