This time, he was a more mature rider. Rather than allowing Man Hater’s reputation or their previous meeting to consume him, Crimber approached the matchup like another assignment for the Florida Freedom.

“I think I matured a lot from the last time I got on him,” Crimber said. “I just went at it like it was another bull, another day. Of course, he’s a great bull, but you’ve got to go out like it’s just another day and another rodeo.”

Man Hater typically turned to the right, but had begun changing directions more frequently during his recent outs. Crimber hoped the bull would go left, toward what he considered his stronger side, but his confidence did not depend on the direction.

As soon as his father and Freedom Head Coach Paulo Crimber told him the team had drawn Man Hater, John wanted the matchup.

“I knew that I was capable of riding him,” Crimber said.

The location added another layer to the opportunity. Crimber had watched Jose Vitor Leme record his historic 98.75-point ride inside T-Mobile Arena. He had watched Jess Lockwood become a World Champion there, along with riders such as Cooper Davis whom he had studied growing up.

Standing in the same arena with Man Hater beneath him, Crimber believed it was his turn to create a moment.

“I was like, ‘You know what? Tomorrow is my day,’” Crimber said. “I knew in my heart that it was going to be something cool. I knew I just had to go do my job.”

Crimber stayed centered as Man Hater launched from the chute, riding through a trip he said required him to be more technically correct than during their first meeting. To him, that meant, “Bow the chest out big, toes east and west, pack your paw and call the law.”

He reached the whistle for 92 points.

Paulo marked his son even higher, giving the ride a 95 from his position behind the chutes — though John admitted his father might have been a little biased as a judge.

John was less concerned with the official number than with finally conquering the bull in front of the electric Las Vegas crowd.

“Honestly, I didn’t care what the score was,” Crimber said. “Just to go out there and do something like that here in this amazing crowd, that was all I needed.”

After the ride, Crimber praised God and celebrated the opportunity to be a bull rider. He later wrote that he felt blessed to score 92 points on Man Hater and thanked the Lord for giving him a career in a sport he loved.

At the time, he could not have known that it would be his final ride aboard Man Hater and the defining closing image of his 2025 Teams season.

It also capped a season in which Crimber won his second consecutive PBR Teams Regular-Season MVP award while helping the Florida Freedom finish as the league’s regular-season champions.

When Man Hater’s career later came to a tragic end, Crimber wrote with gut-wrenching candor, thanking the bull for giving him the best ride of his career to that point and the confidence to believe he could accomplish more than he had expected from himself.

“I’m very thankful that I got to put my rope on one that is the exact definition of what an animal athlete is supposed to be like. Yella bull you’ll be missed by many and were loved by many thank you ‘19H.’”

A great deal changed between Crimber’s final weekend of the 2025 Teams season and his first qualified ride of the 2026 campaign.

He entered the 2026 Unleash The Beast season already established as the No. 1 overall PBR Teams Draft pick, a two-time PBR Teams MVP and a PBR Teams Championship MVP. He then survived one of the tightest world-title races in recent history, surging on Championship Sunday inside Dickies Arena to become the 2026 PBR World Champion.

At 20 years old, Crimber became the second-youngest rider in PBR history to win the gold buckle. He dedicated the championship to Paulo, the PBR Hall of Famer, 10-time World Finals qualifier and longtime coach — and, above all else, his father, whose own riding career ended before he could capture a world title.

Crimber then turned his attention back to the Freedom and his first PBR Teams season as the reigning World Champion.

That return was complicated in June when he sustained a serious groin injury while competing at a PRCA rodeo. The injury put his availability for the start of the Teams season in question, but Crimber returned in time for Bulls & Beats at Canvas Stadium in Fort Collins, Colorado.

On July 12, he climbed into the chute for his first qualified ride of the 2026 PBR Teams season.

Still riding like a kid in love with the sport and still occupying the closing position in Florida’s lineup, Crimber matched up with Dirty Honey in the final frame. He delivered 91.9 points, giving the World Champion another 90-point ride in his first weekend back.

The conversion followed a 92.4-point ride from Austin Richardson aboard Stacked Deck in the opening frame, with a little help from Yan “the Man” Cunha, who added 89.2 points on The Gambler. Richardson’s leadoff score, Cunha’s conversion and Crimber’s closing ride powered Florida to its first victory of the season.

The performance also offered the first clear look at the Freedom’s reworked 2026 lineup.

Florida traded Thiago Salgado to the Carolina Cowboys during the offseason and acquired Richardson from the Nashville Stampede. The Freedom also added young gun Ethan Winckler from Carolina and Bruno Carvalho from the Arizona Ridge Riders, while selecting Florida native Caynyon Jolly in the draft. Jolly earned valuable bull time during opening weekend as well.

Richardson has stepped into the leadoff role, while Crimber remains the closer for the red, white and blue boys. Together, they produced two electrifying 90-point rides during opening weekend.

The reigning regular-season champion Freedom left Fort Collins with a 1-1 record, but the results showed both sides of their early-season outlook. The roster is still adjusting after significant personnel changes, yet Florida already has multiple riders capable of immediately swinging a game.

Between Crimber’s final 2025 Teams appearance and his first qualified ride of 2026 came a historic conversion on Man Hater, a World Championship and one minor interruption in the form of a groin injury. He closed one season with a defining ride in Las Vegas and opened the next the way he usually does — back in the lineup, tough as ever and delivering when Florida needed its closer.

Crimber and the Florida Freedom continue the 2026 PBR Teams season at Wildcatter Days, July 31-Aug. 2 at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City, opening against a Kansas City Outlaws squad with a World Champion of its own in Cassio Dias. With eight teams sitting at 1-1 and no easy nights anywhere on the schedule, the season is only two games old — and just getting started.

Photo courtesy of Bull Stock Media