FORT WORTH, Texas — Hayden Welsh looked like somebody who had been waiting a long time to walk back through a PBR Teams locker-room door.

You could feel it almost the second he stepped inside Dickies Arena Friday.

He was smiling, saying hello to everybody he passed, bouncing around the building and soaking up being back with the Kansas City Outlaws after his run on the PRCA trail.

Then he made the whistle.

“The ginga ninja is back in his prime colors, come on now,” Welsh said after the ride.

That was pretty much the mood.

Welsh brought the same energy back into the locker room, where he appears to operate under the firm belief that there is absolutely no language barrier between himself and Kansas City’s entirely Brazilian starting lineup.

He talks to everybody exactly as if they understand every word.

He keeps the conversation moving.

He keeps beat-bopping around the room.

And he lovingly refers to assistant coach Guilherme Marchi as “Gil Mary.”

Some things probably do not translate perfectly.

Winning does.

Welsh’s 86.10-point ride aboard XIT Socks In A Box put a bow on Kansas City’s 264.55-172.95 victory over the New York Mavericks Friday night and helped push the Outlaws into eighth place.

He barely made the whistle.

But eight was all the Ginga Ninja needed.

And Welsh was hardly the only familiar face back in PBR colors.

As the PRCA regular season wrapped, several PBR Teams riders who spent the summer chasing rodeos began filtering back into their respective locker rooms for the stretch run toward Las Vegas.

Five of them — John Crimber, Hayden Welsh, Qynn Andersen, Hudson Bolton and Josh Frost — finished inside the Top 15 of the PRCA bull riding standings and qualified for the National Finals Rodeo.

Crimber finished No. 6 in the PRCA bull riding standings, followed by Welsh at No. 7, Andersen at No. 8, Bolton at No. 9 and Frost at No. 14.

All five are Vegas-bound for the NFR.

First, though, there is PBR Teams business to finish.

Across the chutes from Welsh, Hudson Bolton was making his own return — just by a very different path.

Bolton’s PRCA run came to a sudden halt Aug. 23 when a bull caught him just beneath the face mask and broke his jaw.

He had been hit harder in the face before.

This shot simply landed in exactly the wrong place.

The fracture was high on the jaw, just below his ear. The bone broke clean but, fortunately, did not badly displace, and his bite stayed relatively aligned.

Still, it meant emergency jaw surgery.

And an entirely new dental experience.

Bolton had never worn braces growing up.

Now he has them.

Wires were wrapped around his teeth and into his gums to create hooks for rubber bands that held his jaw in place while it healed.

Doctors told him wiring the jaw completely shut was the old-school method.

“They said we’re not gonna do that,” Bolton said, clearly relieved after hearing plenty of horror stories about having a jaw wired shut.

The rubber bands may have been the better option.

That did not make the first week much easier.

His teeth hurt. Eating hurt.

Chewing was difficult enough that he was largely living on liquids and smoothies.

“The first week sucked,” Bolton said. “I lost a bunch of weight. I was just eating liquid.”

The hardware created its own headaches, too.

“Everything I eat gets stuck in it,” Bolton said.

Having skipped the braces saga many of his high school peers endured, Bolton is now getting the full experience a few years late.

For somebody who spent weeks dealing with a broken jaw, weight loss and a mostly liquid diet, Bolton did not exactly ease himself back into competition.

Before returning to New York, he tested himself at rodeos in Tyler, Texas, and Stephenville.

He won both.

Then he went to a bull team event that Sunday and rode another.

Three bulls.

Three qualified rides.

“I haven’t bucked off,” Bolton said before Fort Worth.

Then he climbed aboard Cowboy Playboy Friday night.

Make it four.

Bolton covered him for 86.75 points in his first PBR ride back, giving New York its second score of the game and extending his comeback streak to a perfect 4-for-4.

The score itself was impressive.

The save in the middle of it may have been better.

Bolton was pulled dramatically out of position, his hips drifting away from the center of the bull while his upper body hung far enough off the side that the ride looked finished.

Then he snapped back.

Almost instantly.

Bolton fired through his core and ripped himself back toward the middle, high-tracked again in a second like somebody had hit rewind.

One moment, he looked gone.

The next, he was sitting square.

For a cowboy coming off a broken jaw, emergency surgery, rubber bands, braces and enough weight loss to leave him feeling weak, the movement made it look like he had spent his recovery doing nothing but core work.

He looked strong.

And he looked comfortable.

Bolton’s return also came in familiar surroundings.

Dickies Arena was the site of one of the defining stretches of his PBR individual season earlier in the year, and now it became the arena where he logged his first qualified ride back with New York.

With Marco Rizzo away Friday on wedding duty, Bolton also stepped directly into an important spot in the Mavericks lineup.

Pressure has never seemed to bother him much.

Cowboy Playboy was no walk in the park, either.

Bolton knew the bull could offer big points.

“Good,” he said.

That tells you about all you need to know.

Saturday, Bolton gets another test with The HONDO as he tries to make it five straight since returning to competition.

In a matchup against the reigning PBR Teams Champion Carolina Cowboys, Welsh will try to keep his own return rolling against Aggie Pete.

The home team Texas Rattlers, meanwhile, welcomed two NFR-bound cowboys of their own back from the rodeo trail in Qynn Andersen and Josh Frost. Neither converted Friday, but Texas still secured its 12th homestand win in franchise history behind the lone monster score from Daniel Keeping.

Based on Saturday’s bull pen, only Andersen will remain in the lineup, drawing Frankenstomp as the PRCA returners get another night to trade rodeo rigs for team jerseys.

However, not every PRCA returner is back in the chute yet.

John Crimber is back with his Florida Freedom family, even if a groin injury has temporarily taken the reigning World Champion out of the lineup. Crimber shared on Instagram that he tore the tendon off his groin and is dealing with other issues of that nature, with the hope of returning before Las Vegas.

For now, he is finding other ways to contribute.

Friday night, that meant standing behind the chutes holding newcomer Murilo Henrique de Oliveira’s vest as he prepared to ride.

Bolton and The HONDO.

Welsh and Aggie Pete.

Andersen and Frankenstomp.

Crimber screaming from the chutes.

Night 2 of Rattler Days gives the returning cowboys another chance to make their presence felt when the action continues Saturday at Dickies Arena at 7pm CT.

Photo courtesy of Bull Stock Media