OLE! Wrangler Bullfights provided chance for bullfighters to showcase talents rom 1985 until 2000, few fans left the Thomas & Mack Center early. That’s because they would miss the human-animal collision that was the Wrangler Bull Fight Tour’s Finale. The challenge to score high was using a mix of both athleticism and risk to come as close to annihilation without suffering bodily harm. The sport of bullfighting dates back to the early 1700s in Spain, and its presence in the rodeo world can be traced to the early 1980s. Rodeo stock contractors have long raised fighting bulls to use as entertainment during breaks in rodeo performances. Smaller, leaner and more diabolically meaner than bigger rodeo bulls, fighting bulls generally had sharper horns, were quicker than their “cousins” and were raised to chase down anyone stepping foot in an arena. Bred to charge and hook more so than to buck, fighting bulls offer bullfighters a whole different set of challenges. The sport’s top bullfighters squared off against the nastiest and meanest fighting bulls at the Thomas & Mack Center on an annual basis. World champions were crowned each year, and fans were delighted to catch a glimpse of the style of bullfighting that has been wildly famous in Europe for centuries. ProRodeo Hall of Famer Rob “Kamikaze” Smets won the first two world championships in Las Vegas in 1985 and 1986. “It was a great opportunity, the fans loved it and I won four of my five world championships there, so Viva Las Vegas!” Smets said of the Wrangler Bullfights at the Thomas & Mack Center. “When you walk into that
building, the Thomas & Mack Center, and you walk down that hallway, the hair on the back of your neck is standing up because there’s 17,000 people that are loving it. It’s a feeling like no other.” The biggest wrecks of Smets’ illustrious career involved fighting bulls. He twice broke his neck at Wrangler Bull Fight Tour events and ended up wrapped around a television camera at the Thomas & Mack Center one year. “It was playing a game of tag with a heat-seeking missle,” said Smets, who also won world titles in 1983, 1988 (with Miles Hare) and 1994. “It’s playing for keeps.” One stock contractor’s rank bulls stands out in Smets’ memory. “Harry Vold’s pen of bulls – Crooked Nose, 141 and Black Panther – if it was that pen, there wasn’t a lot of joking around in the locker room that night,” he said. “You knew if you stubbed your toe, you were going down. It was that tough of a competition.” Smets and other bullfighting backers have since put on open bullfights across the country, but none resemble the battles from the Thomas & Mack Center. They may be a thing of the past now, but the Wrangler Bullfights have a long and storied history that will forever be a part of the Wrangler NFR’s tenure in Las Vegas.
“It was playing a game of tag with a heat-seeking missile. It’s playing for keeps.” –Rob Smets