CHEYENNE, Wyo. — As a two-time Professional Bull Riders World Champion and one of only two repeat champs in the league’s existence, Jose Vitor Leme is used to making history.
However, even for him and the 39 other cowboys that competed during the opening night of the league’s Team Series event Monday at Frontier Park Arena, this was truly a new era.
The world’s top bull riding competition picked Cheyenne as the location to debut the inaugural regular season of its Team Series, with eight squads of five riders squaring off across four head-to-head matchups in front of a spirited crowd attending as part of the festivities of Cheyenne Frontier Days.
With teams organized through both a draft earlier this year and free agency signings afterward, Monday marked a significant departure from the way that the league has operated throughout its entire history, as a prior emphasis on individual scores gave way to a need for complete team performances.
For instance, Leme — a 25-year-old rider from Ribas do Rio Pardo, Brazil — completed the full eight-second ride for 89 points on his bull, The Right Stuff, during his run Monday. But because he was the only man to secure a qualified ride for his team, the Austin Gamblers, it meant little in terms of their direct matchup with the Arizona Ridge Riders, who managed two qualified rides to win the night’s bout.
The new format is certainly unique, but for Leme, the 2020 and 2021 world champion, the goal remains the same no matter how things change: win.
“That was a great atmosphere, and being in this new competition with this new format in teams, you know, I think everybody was excited to start this deal,” Leme said. “That was no different with me, and I was so glad to be here. … That was a great start, and I think it’s going to be great for the rest of the season.”
Cheyenne is one of two neutral-site events on the Team Series’s 10-event regular-season calendar, which includes home meets for each team in the competition culminating in the year’s finale — the Team Series Championship — in Las Vegas in November. Teams with the highest aggregate score from each head-to-head game win, and the team with the most game wins in a single event is declared its champion. (Cheyenne’s event winner will be decided at the end of the second night of play Tuesday.)
Someone had to have the honor of scoring the official first-ever qualified ride in the Team Series, and that distinction went to the Missouri Thunder’s Adriano Salgado, who scored an 89.25 on American Gangster (the night’s highest individual score, too) to make history.
And because Missouri’s opponent, the Texas Rattlers, couldn’t manage to answer with a score right back, the Brazilian’s ride was enough to give the Thunder the Team Series’s first-ever game victory as well.
“We thought that bull would really fit Adriano so good; that’s why we put it on him,” Thunder coach Luke Snyder said. “He had some success on that bull earlier in the year, so that was part of our decision-making. But there’s so much history in this arena, and to do it at Cheyenne Frontier Days with all the history behind it, it just makes the win even sweeter.”
Though the game between the Oklahoma Freedom and the Kansas City Outlaws made for a bit of a dud — neither team was able to record a qualified ride among their five riders, resulting in a draw — the matchup between the Carolina Cowboys and Nashville Stampede saw the most tension as the two teams combined to score on seven out of 10 bulls.
Nashville emerged victorious with a 337.5 score off of four qualified rides to Carolina’s 257.25 score off of three qualified rides, with an 86.5-point ride on bull Mr. Winston from 2018 world champion Kaique Pacheco leading the way for the Stampede.
Pacheco, along with Leme and defending world champion Daylon Swearingen, made for a trio of former top dogs in the Team Series field, showing a clear indication from the league that it doesn’t intend for the Team Series to be a second-rate tournament. Swearingen, who competed for Carolina on Monday, certainly didn’t see it as such.
“It was definitely way different than anything we’ve ever experienced,” the 23-year-old New Yorker said. “It’s not all on you, it’s on everybody else, and I think the Carolina Cowboys, we work really hard. … I think everybody on our team really tried their a– off tonight and I look forward to tomorrow.”
The second night of Cheyenne’s Team Series event begins at 7:45 p.m. Tuesday at Frontier Park Arena.
