John Crimber’s World Finals Redemption Ends With Gold Buckle and $1 Million

After a disastrous start, the 20-year-old phenom answered the pressure and shut down the critics – fulfilling the dream his father, former PBR star Paulo Crimber, never got to finish.

John Crimber | PBR

If the PBR World Finals were baseball’s World Series, you could say John Crimber started as Marv Throneberry and walked out Reggie Jackson.

On Sunday, with his back against the wall, Crimber knocked two rides out of the park to become the 23rd rider in PBR history to take home the champion’s gold buckle and $1 million bonus check.

Asked if he had to choose one, Crimber said it would be the Montana Silversmiths bejeweled gold buckle, hands down.

For the rest of his life, looking down at that glittering piece of hardware, he’ll see the image of a 20-year-old kid shutting down the doubters and haters by answering the bell when the pressure was most suffocating – banishing heavy expectations following him since his teens and magnified this week by seemingly every envious moron with a cell phone signal. 

This was God’s plan. He just had to shut everything else out and believe. 

John Crimber | PBR

At PBR’s 33rd World Finals, Crimber certainly cut a dramatic path to the championship. 

With a tour-high eight round wins in 2026 along with event wins in Sacramento and Sioux Falls, Crimber, a Bible Bro who hangs with Marco Rizzo, an effervescent 2026 Rookie of the Year from Georgia, and Clay Guiton, a tall, fair-haired Georgian sidelined with an injury, entered the first of eight days of World Finals competition first in the world, 169.5 points ahead of the lanky, smooth-riding Australian Brady Fielder. 

With 443 points separating the Top 5 at an event with 1,031 points for the taking, a handful of riders had legitimate designs on the world championship. At the top, ride your bulls, and you have a shot at the title. 

Crimber had been second in the world in 2024. He relished the front position, the entire pack chasing him. Whether he was trying too hard or internalizing the garbage on social media, Crimber was awful at Cowtown Coliseum. 

He didn’t come close to registering a qualified ride on Wreck It Ralph, King Tut, Hoobastank, or Moolah – three of the four buck-offs in under four seconds. Crimber was out of sorts, unsure of himself, and growing more frustrated with each trip to the dirt. 

The unfolding nightmare of squandering a World Championship continued across town at Dickies Arena on Thursday. Still snakebitten, Crimber fell hard off Walk Hard at 5.14 seconds. Meantime, No. 2 Brady Fielder stayed on Mr. Demon to finish eighth in the round, trimming Crimber’s lead to 118.5 points. 

In Round 6, he finally broke the ice with 89.40 points on July. If there were a celebration dance called Triumphant Relief, picture those moves. 

The next day, he recorded a respectable 84.95 points on Icky Thump. Certainly not a big enough strike to win the seventh round, but in solving two bulls in a row, Crimber was wearing the look of a man prematurely freed from prison, even with unabating pressure heading into the final day of the season.  

With points available for the aggregate and round win, enough mathematical scenarios for the Championship were being discussed in and outside the riders’ locker room to confuse Einstein. The simple fact was that to have a shot at keeping his No. 1 ranking – and win the title – Crimber needed to get into the Championship round. To do that, he had to make the eight seconds on his first bull, What’s Poppin. 

John Crimber | PBR

It was put-up-or-shut-up. Crimber recorded a rank, round-winning 91.35-point score. Any social media dragging was drowned out by the jet engine roar of approval from the Fort Worth crowd. If there was trolling, Crimber was rolling. He rose to No. 9 in the event, well within the 15th-place cut-off for the Championship Round. 

Crimber then scored his biggest ride of World Finals – a Reggie Jackson-like moonshot into the Bronx air. On Tigger, another round-winning 92.90-point ride clinched the World title. 

“This is what I’ve dreamed of since I was a little kid playing in the living room pretending I was a bull rider. This is what we live for – to become a World Champion and the best bull rider in the world – and I couldn’t do it without my Lord and savior, Jesus Christ,” Crimber said on the Paramount+ telecast.

“This world title, it’s not just for myself. This is for my dad, too. He’s the one who brought me here and made me who I am. His career was cut short, so this one’s for him, not me.”

Crimber’s father, Paolo | Bull Stock Media

Paulo Crimber didn’t see either of his son's big rides on Sunday. He wasn’t looking at the bucking chute. His eyes were closed. He was praying. 

Paulo Crimber grew up in Olimpia, SP, five hours outside São Paulo, surrounded by horses and cattle, a Western on television. He was awestruck by the strong, honorable cowboys and the land they roamed. 

At seven years old, Paulo attended his first rodeo – an experience that would shape the course of his life. Back home, while milking cows, he practiced riding calves through the pasture. By 14, he was competing in amateur rodeos, and at 16, he was already winning prize money.

At 18, Paulo captured the opening round of the legendary Festa do Peão de Barretos, earning his place on an even bigger stage: the PBR World Finals, then held in Las Vegas. The youngest Brazilian to ever qualify for World Finals, he would go on to compete at the sport’s premier event ten times.

During his PBR career, Paulo recorded rides on more than half the bulls he faced, finishing 283-for-554 (51%) and winning five events. His bull riding career ended prematurely at 28, after breaking his C1 twice in one season.

He had been World No. 1 early in 2008 and would sit for five months after the first time he landed on his head. His return to riding was disastrous, ending up underneath a bull called Rough Neck, again breaking his C1 along with his collarbone and sternum.  Doctors removed bone from his hip to fuse two vertebrae. He slept in a recliner for 6 months. His riding career was over. 

John Crimber has been banged up in his young career, which includes back-to-back MVP honors in the PBR Teams league on the Florida Freedom, coached by Paulo. But his injuries have been nothing like what his dad suffered. 

Paulo admires his son’s physical toughness but points to the mental fortitude of an athlete who the limelight has always found, creating a growing specter of outsized expectations.  

Since winning the Mini Bull Riders World Championship when he was 12 years old, Crimber, now 20, has been the world’s best bull rider in his age group every year.  

Two PBR Teams MVPs. Now an individual World title. The hype is justified. 

“Going off what happened the first weekend at Cowtown, to finish like he did, that shows how great a champion John is,” Paulo said. “He’s a 20-year-old kid that went through a lot this year. He’s a wonderful young man – any father would be proud to have. I'm the proudest father in the world.”