By Chad Smith
Here’s the best way to describe just what Bullfighters Only is:
It’s the kind of thing most people will only see in a nightmare. It’s the center of a rodeo ring and there’s just you and an angry 1,500-pound animal running directly at you with malicious intent. The only job you have then is to stay out of its way for a predetermined length of time. That’s the kind of thing that Mabel, Minnesota native Justin Ward does for a living. The 23-year-old has gotten quite good at it and was named the Bullfighter’s Only Rookie of the Year Award Winner.
NFL of Bull Fighting
Ward describes Bullfighters Only as the “NFL of freestyle bullfighting.” The contestant has to “fight” a Mexican fighting bull for a minute. And by fight, Ward says that means don’t let him kill you. As a bullfighter, Ward says he’s running around the ring “trying to do cool stuff for 40 seconds” and then really tries to up the score with one final trick in the last 20 seconds. The goal is to get the highest possible score between 0-100.
“While this animal is trying to kill you, some guys will do front flips, some do backflips, and some even get on their knees and try to juke out the animal,” Ward said. “The first 40 seconds is basically to prove that the animal can’t catch you. My big trick is leaping over the top of the charging bull from a flat-footed position, all the way from his nose to his tail.”
Ward said being off on a trick like that, even by a millisecond, gets painful in a hurry. He said a trick like that in Las Vegas “didn’t end up so well.” It’s tough to practice something like that leap every day. Ward says he just goes out and does it. But that’s not the only kind of bullfighting he does.
“I also do the rodeo protection bullfighting,” Ward said. “I had actually done that for quite a while. One of the guys that trained me to do that said I was pretty athletic and should go try out a Bullfighters Only competition. I went to California for a developmental camp, which is similar to an NFL Combine. I got an opportunity in my first Bullfighters Only event and placed in the top five.”
It didn’t stop there. At his very next event, Ward took home a $10,000 paycheck. It’s a giant step up from where he was the first time he stepped into a ring one-on-one with an angry bull.
The First Try
“The first time I stepped into the ring by myself, it was terrible,” he recalled. “I literally got knocked around for 30 of the required 40 seconds. I climbed out of that ring and never wanted to do that again. Then, they announced that I’d won my round and had to do it again after all. My first thought at the time was ‘are you kidding me?’”
Ward’s experience with bullfighting, as well as rodeo in general, goes back a long way. He and a partner were competing in a team-roping competition, as well as steer wrestling, at a rodeo in southern Wisconsin. One of the bullfighters didn’t show up so a rodeo committee member offered 50 dollars to anyone who would fill in.
With a laugh, Ward said, “I was 17 years old and dumb enough to take him up on it. My first bullfight that day was terrifying. I got wrecked up pretty good. However, it didn’t hurt as bad as I thought it would, I lived through it, and they paid me. I thought to myself ‘I can do this!’”
It’s important to remind people that he’s not out there completely unprotected. A collision with an angry bull is quite similar to getting hit by a car, but the bullfighters still have a full-sized plastic chest plate. So, they absorb the full force of the collision, but a lot of pain is kept at bay. Ward said it knocked the wind out of him, but it did the job of “keeping me alive.”
Practicing
Ward and his fellow bullfighters have come up with an unusual way to hone their skills. They take the front wheel of a bicycle and weld some handles to it. Then, they’ll attach a fake bull head to the machine. One bullfighter will operate the machinery as if it’s an actual bull while the other one works on his skills.
“I tell those guys that if I slip up, they need to whack me with it,” Ward said. “I need to learn that if I fall right here, it’s going to suck.”
Ward said he hits the gym regularly, doing HIT (High Intensity) workouts three days a week and works on cardio five days a week. He’s in the gym at least twice a day. It’s all about avoiding collisions like the one he referenced in Vegas and still remembers to this day.
Injuries Happen
“I did my big move and tried to jump over the top of the bull,” he said. “He hit me on the way by and when I fell to the ground, he just smoked me up against a panel three or four times and dislocated my shoulder. He actually hit me in the stomach hard enough that the doctor thought I might be bleeding internally. It was rough.
“I didn’t have long to recover,” he recalled. “I had another bullfight the following week, so I had to tough it out and compete injured.”
Not all bullfights are equally as challenging. A lot of the difficulty actually depends on the animal’s temperament. It all depends on what each bullfighter draws for a matchup.
“You can tell ahead of time if they’re going to be easy to perform with,” Ward said. “Then it’s a lot of fun knowing that you can pick on them a little and they can’t catch you. However, there have been other bulls that there was almost no getting away from. We’re talking pure adrenaline and pure fear with bulls like that.”
Most of the Mexican fighting bulls weigh between 1,200-1,500 pounds. You won’t see the giant 2,000-pound monster bulls because Ward said, “they’re not very quick.” However, the smaller Mexican fighting bulls are lightning quick.
A lot of miles
It’s a busy life of travel as a bullfighter. The first show Ward ever did was in Ada, Oklahoma, and his next show the following week in Washington state. He had a show earlier this year in Scottsdale, Arizona, followed by another one in Atlanta, Georgia. If someone from his area is competing at the same show, Ward said they’ll team up and drive there. If he’s traveling solo to a show, Ward said it’s easier to fly. He estimates putting on 50-60,000 miles in the last year alone. Ward said finding out he won the Rookie of the Year Award made it all worth the effort.
“I didn’t even know it had happened,” Ward recalled. “I was doing an interview just like we’re doing now, and someone asked me how it felt to be the Rookie of the Year. My first response was ‘I’m rookie of the year?’ He was a little surprised no one had told me yet.”
So, is this something that Ward is planning on doing for a while? “This is a long-term occupation for me,” Ward said with a smile that was almost visible in spite of talking on the phone.