https://www.gq.com/story/can-cowboy-fever-make-bull-riding-the-next-ufcBy Anika Jade LevyPhotography by Brian Finke
April 3, 2025
Image may contain Clothing Hat Wristwatch Adult Person Accessories Jewelry Ring Necklace and Cowboy Hat
John Crimber, 19, is the youngest bull rider to win $1 million in lifetime earnings.
The professional Bull Riders have been coming to New York’s Madison Square Garden since 2007, but, in the first week of this year, they arrive in a city that is saturated with cowboy fever at every level. The whole country, really, is in the throes of its latest fascination with the culture of the American West. It started with fashion and design a few years ago: Western influences were on mood boards and runways, and people showed up to their office jobs in cowboy boots. A line dancing class that kicked up in Los Angeles established outposts in San Francisco and Manhattan. Post Malone went country; Shaboozey spent a record-tying 19 weeks at the top of the charts; Yellowstone, America’s most watched show for stretches of its five seasons, spawned three spin-offs. As of this writing, three more are in development.
The trend isn’t novel—one might still have the boots from 2009, or 1991, or 1972—but the cowboy archetype has been coated with a dusting of transgression as it pertains to masculinity. After a brief renegotiation of gender relations in the workplace and a celebration of gender fluidity, it seems that a symbol of traditional manliness—the embodiment of the brutality of the American frontier—is suddenly back on the menu. Women are dressing up as ranchers’ wives on Instagram, and whether this is reference or regression is difficult to say. Cowboys just look good. Bella Hadid seemed to get it. In 2023, the model ditched her art-director boyfriend and started dating a decorated equestrian, soon relocating to Fort Worth, Texas, full-time. And, for the second year in a row, the Professional Bull Riders league—which hosted a record 1.4 million attendees in 2024 and is on track to do better in 2025—managed to sell out Madison Square Garden.
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