Iron Cowboy
By Barbara Pinnella
Photos by Andrea Kaus/ChaosGraphics
Melancon Reigned Supreme to Become This Year’s Iron Cowboy For the second year in a row, the Staples Center in Los Angeles, CA was the site of Iron Cowboy, and what a great event this was. It took place over the course of two nights. The fans were amazing, and there were good crowds for both performances. But it was not only the fans who were great; both the bull riders and their bovine partners also shined under the lights of L.A.
Right behind Jesus with a score of 88.25 was Eduardo Aparecido. He mastered Money, owned by Culp Bucking Bulls/Zapata/Mendes. In third place was Matt Triplett, while Brock Radford and Luciano de Castro split fourth and fifth. Since the rules state that there will be 25 moving into the second round, 10 others joined those 15 original qualifiers,
When the dust cleared, the one who sparkled the brightest was Cole Melancon. He survived five tough rounds to be crowned the 2020 PBR Iron Cowboy! He took home a cool $100,000 check and a custom belt buckle. To add even more icing to this cake, he became only the second rookie to ever win a PBR Major. This was his first Unleash The Beast tour win, and with that victory Cole moved up into sixth place in the World Standings! The first night there were 40 cowboys who tried their hand at riding their bulls with the hopes of moving on to the second round. Only 15 men were successful in that quest, and the best of those was young Cody Jesus. He covered the Dakota Rodeo/ Julie Rosen/Clay Struve/Chad Berger bull Gambini for a score of 88.5. Humps-Horns.com · 31 · March 2020
