From the War Zone to the Bull Chute, Mike Tobin is Always in the Eye of the Storm

Mike Tobin joined the excitement and chaos of the PBR, adding just one more notch in an event-filled resume.

Mike Tobin | Mike Tobin

Chaos breaks out across the globe, televisions go on, and chances are, Mike Tobin is in the middle of it, often in flak jacket and helmet, giving it to us straight.

When a different kind of chaos broke out Friday night in New York, Mike Tobin was in the bucking chutes at UBS Arena as the New York Mavericks’ honorary coach, leading the bull riders onto the dirt and amping them up, though these cowboys don’t need much encouragement.

Guys mounting an 1,800-pound creature that’s part rollercoaster ride, part roadside bomb don’t require smelling salts to get their heads into the play.

Mike Tobin | Andrew Giangola

That play in PBR Teams starts with a bull exploding from the chutes, and Tobin was right there, fitting in seamlessly among bad-ass young men playing David to the Goliath-like bulls in this unpredictable display of near-insanity.

(Score a touchdown in the NFL, and an 1,800-pound snot-slinger with horns the size of two Louisville Sluggers won’t try to chase you down with the intention of prohibiting you from further propagating the human species.)

As seen Friday night exclusively on FOX Nation, each of the Mavericks five outs – each rider trying to stay on 8 seconds – produced for the soon-to-be-60-year-old TV journalist an all-natural biological high he’s craved throughout reporting stints that took a self-described “proper TV gypsy” from college in Arizona to small markets in West Virginia and Maryland to big-city gigs in Dallas and Miami before becoming a globe-trotting Senior News Correspondent for Fox News Channel. 

Just as the Mavericks 20-year-old superstar Marco Rizzo relishes big-ride chances from his bottom-of-the-fifth closing spot (days before the bull riding, telling kids at Northwell Children’s Hospital that winning the previous week’s game with a walk-off ride in Greensboro was like a little kid realizing his dream of a Super Bowl-winning catch), Tobin wants the hot spot.

He’s the Scud Stud of this generation, whose muscular, no-nonsense authenticity starkly contrasts those relying on blow driers and clothespins to cinch their jackets for that buff look at the raging wild-fire.

Tobin expects to be the go-to guy when the riot breaks out, the invasion starts, the rockets rain down, the floods are biblical, the earthquake wipes out the town, the abandoned police station burns, and the end looms nearer.

“It’s a profile, a brand I’ve built over time,” Tobin said. “That’s what I’m shooting for. What the viewers get from me is that I show up, I’m not in anyone’s camp. I love the thrill of reporting. I love doing it. I have the honor of serving in this job.” 

Abby Hornacek | Andrew Giangola

According to Fox Nation host Abby Hornacek, Tobin’s preparation and respect for the audience makes him great.

“When Mike comes on, you know he’ll present the entire story and can trust he did a deep dive into all aspects of this subject to give the viewers what they deserve – the full picture,” Hornacek said.

Bull riders like Rizzo say it’s hard to put into words an 8-second bull ride, a short span of time that’s taken a long list of lives. Tobin jokes he’s the size of a bull rider. (He was a college gymnast, sharing that sport with legendary bull rider Ty Murray). Probably would have been a decent rider had he chosen that career path.

He has the compact centeredness of Jose Vitor Leme, the grit of Daniel Keeping, the toughness of Andrew Alvidrez, the big-moment desire of John Crimber, and the fearless, dragon-slaying, push-all-chips-into-the-center mentality of J.B. Mauney.

Tobin’s affection for professional bull riding is simple.

“I like hanging out with tough guys,” he said. “Now I don’t know that hanging around tough guys makes you tougher. But hanging around wimps makes you weaker.”

Tobin learned to ride his sisters’ horses growing up in Illinois, triggering an affinity for Western sports that grew when he witnessed cowboy sports live.

“Who wasn’t fascinated the first time you saw a rodeo?” he asks.

An experience in Spain put him on a course for discovering PBR. He ran for his life next to “just as magnificent a bull as you can imagine, proud and snorting.” The ever-curious journalist wanted to learn about pro bull riding in the U.S. He befriended legendary stock contractor Chad Berger and partnered with Cord McCoy to purchase a few bulls. 

After attending other events, he returned to be part of PBR Teams: Maverick Days because of the men surrounding him.

“I keep coming back because I like the athletes – a bunch of good guys, proper cowboys, gentlemen who treat my wife like the Queen of England,” he said.  (Tobin met his lovely wife Julie at a fundraiser in Chicago. “I hit on her, the old-fashioned way,” he explains. The couple married in 2022.)

Before riding, two of the good guys on the New York Mavericks, Mason Taylor and Marco Rizzo, showed up at Northwell Children’s in New Hyde Park, Long Island to visit hospitalized children and appear on the Ryan Seacrest network, their interview beamed to the rooms of kids too sick to come downstairs.  

The morning show host took patient suggestions for bull names. The first wanted a bull “Charlie” for Charlie Kirk, who had been a frequent face on Tobin’s network before being killed by an assassin’s bullet in broad daylight on a college campus, once a bastion for the free exchange of ideas.

News of that political killing still dominated the news cycle when Tobin came to Belmont Park nine days after the shooting. A news crew canceled their PBR coverage; another cut a segment to devote more time to Kirk’s life and message of dialogue and open exchange.

That message is unfortunately lost to many. Across the powder-keg world Tobin covers, the long hand on the Doomsday clock is running out of space before the final stroke of midnight. 

Primed to head for the next flash point, Tobin is a natural for his Death Zone reporting persona – as if born for it. It’s hard to believe he nearly veered toward a career as a radio DJ to follow the paths of irreverent Chicago idols like Steve Dahl and Gary Meyer.

But then, Mike Tobin took a leak next to Walter Cronkite, and a career path was forged.

Seriously, that’s the way it was, to paraphrase the Dean of American Journalism, when Tobin was fluctuating between radio and TV, needing to make a decision.

“I’m not going to pass myself off as someone particularly religious, but I said a prayer and asked for a sign,” Tobin recounted. “The next day, I’m in the bathroom at Arizona State University and a guy walks up to the porcelain next to me.”

One quick zip and a look to his right. Walter Cronkite.

Tobin had his sign.

Mike Tobin

He fell into TV, or better yet, charged towards it, thriving on pressure and pace, meeting pulse-pounding deadlines. He was cool under fire and projected breaking-news urgency, reliably covering major events of the day: Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Russian invasion of Ukraine. War in Gaza. Hurricane Katrina. The Sandy Hook school shooting. The Joplin tornado. The Texas Floods. The Boston Marathon bombing. The George Floyd riots. January 6.

He has seen the depths of horrors to which people are capable, his decency evident in highlighting the humanitarian crises spawned regardless of the colors of the flag stenciled on the bombs dropped. He’s haunted by the image of a bewildered young girl caught in a bus bombing half-body broadsided by shrapnel. He’ll never forget two media colleagues lost in Ukraine. He can describe tear gas like a connoisseur waxing on wines. (Israeli has the strongest vintage tear gas.)

It’s no surprise that a persistent thrill seeker discovered mountaineering as a hobby. Tobin summited many of the world’s highest peaks then turned his attention to Mount Everest. (There were no taller mountains available). 

Tobin on Mt. Everest | Mike Tobin

In late May 2025, his expedition team waited at camp for a break in the weather. They took the northeastern route on the Chinese side, the same step-for-step route attempted by George Mallory, the pioneering climber who perished in 1924. Tobin made it to the top of the world and promptly dropped to do 22 pushups in recognition of the number of veterans estimated to take their lives every day.

“Guys out there who maybe saw more than they can handle, or the human mind should handle, are still carrying that around with them,” Tobin said. “If there were an enemy weapon killing guys as efficiently as suicide is, we’d do something about it.”

He admits it was a stunt. But what an effective one for drawing attention to this continuing tragedy.

There are hundreds of bodies frozen on the surface of Mount Everest. Near the summit, it’s just too high, too dangerous to retrieve climbers who succumbed to oxygen starvation. It is not the best idea to drop for push-ups in thin air at 29,000 feet. 

“When you go to a severe altitude a different kind of fatigue sets in,” Tobin said. His arms became burning caldrons. He got down, bore down, and made 22.

“If you look close, it wasn’t the best push-ups anyone ever did,” he said.

Mike Tobin, the intrepid reporter who recently crossed over into Gaza amid the fighting to help expose secret Hamas tunnels under a UN Facility and children’s school, always wants to get it right. It’s his life’s mission. A proud mantra.

But he blew it this time. Mike is dead wrong. 

Looking close, those were the best freaking push-ups in the history of pushing up.