UFC's Dana White Owns a Top PBR Bull, and He is Rank
Word is if a stranger ambles too close to Dana White’s new bucking bull, he may just smoke you.
Bulls are like people with their own unique personalities. This muscular bovine happens to be friendly with his handlers but will display a large chip on his horn to the unfamiliar.
White, a spectacularly successful promoter known to appreciate stand-out athletes with a flair for the dramatic, has a growing affinity for the marvelous animal athletes who put up half the score for every PBR ride, and he has acquired several bucking bulls in recent years. He’s very proud of White Thunder,
Sour Diesel, and F Bomb, who have competed in PBR, though not at the Big Show – the premier-level pro bull riding events broadcast on CBS.
That changed with White’s recent purchase of Twisted Steel from Bryce Cooper, adding to his pen an elite bull set to compete at the upcoming PBR Camping World Team Series Championship October 20-22 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Every bull ride is scored to a maximum of 50 points for the rider and 50 for the bull. Twisted Steel will help decide which of the eight teams playing five-on-five bull riding games wins the league’s annual title, taken by the Nashville Stampede in the inaugural 2022 season.
White’s bull is best described as rank.
He’s not easy to manage for the required 8 seconds – bucking off 94% (29 of 31) of the riders who have attempted him. He averages 43 bull points; any rider who can hang on without letting go of the bull
rope, hitting the ground, or touching him will likely generate a very good score for their team over the course of the three-day Championship.
Dana White’s Twisted Steel is hauled by Dennis Davis, who met White in 2016 when he was traveling the country to discover new MMA fighters for his reality show, Dana White: Lookin’ for a Fight.
Wherever the show set up to recruit fighters, it followed a prevailing local theme. In Houston, the motif was rodeo and bull riding.
Okay, predictable, but Dana White knows Show Biz. His mastery of marketing and promotion is one reason UFC has more than a quarter billion fans worldwide.
How could White not showcase someone from his crew who was damn-the torpedoes courageous, maybe a little bit crazy, getting on a bucking bull?
How could that person not be him?
Still, let alone his own family, Dana White had an organization and an entire sport relying on him going back to his hotel in one piece.
The risk was real and considerable. But White is not a back-out-of-an-audacious-challenge kind of guy, and recognizing a dramatic hook for his show, decided to attempt a bull for the cameras.
“I always thought bull riding was absolutely insane,” he said at the time. “And it’s literally the most dangerous sport in the world. I’m not really afraid of anything, including death. That was the first time I felt legit fear. I was scared.”
UFC’s wild-man boss hung on for 3.07 seconds. He skidded across the dirt and the bull came within inches of seriously stomping him. He called it “the fastest, scariest, craziest three seconds you will ever have in your life.”
In learning about the bucking bull business during the filming (the YouTube video of the episode has nearly 2 million views), White decided to purchase a bull. And then he would buy another. And another. Davis, a former bull rider who went into the bull business after retiring and is now known as a bull whisperer of sorts, has trained and hauled them.
Twisted Steel lives on Davis’ ranch in Wallis, Texas with 35 other bulls, receiving the best food (a special blend of high-protein feed Davis travels four hours to get), exercise and care.
By virtue of competing in PBR, Twisted Steel has basically won the animal lottery. He’s five now; if not bucking, he’d have been hamburger three years ago. He’ll compete another 3-4 years then go to stud, eventually getting a tombstone on the ranch instead of accompanying a baked potato on someone’s dinner plate.
