2022 was a year Stetson Wright will never forget, but one he admitted he was not satisfied with. After Round 10 in Las Vegas, Wright was crowned the All-Around World Champion and the Bull Riding World Champion, the fifth and sixth Gold Buckles of his career. For Wright, however, it wasn’t good enough.
“When you keep repeating things you’ve done before and proving it’s not a fluke, it’s a good feeling,” Wright said. “Bronc riding humbled me this year, but I will be back next year, and I will walk out of the Thomas & Mack with three Gold Buckles.”
So how good was Wright throughout the 2022 season?
Let’s break it down.
Wright took the All-Around title at 28 different rodeos of the 67 rodeos he attended during the 2022 regular season. He was crowned the Saddle Bronc champion at 17 rodeos and the Bull Riding winner at 16 rodeos.
Digging a little deeper into Wright’s season numbers shows just how good he was in 2022.
In Saddle Bronc Riding Stetson averaged a career-best 85.47 points per qualified ride, just above the 85.44 average of 2021. Wright’s average score per ride was the best of any bronc rider at the NFR, with Sage Newman’s 85.03 points per ride in second. His riding only got better at the NFR where he averaged 86.83 on 9 rides to finish fourth in the average.
In Bull Riding, it was much of the same as Wright averaged a career mark of 86.52 points per qualified ride during the regular season, which was better than any Bull Rider at the NFR, and rode 58% of his bulls on the season.
In Las Vegas Wright placed in 15 of his 20 of his rounds and won four rounds between the two events. In total, he added $380,489 to his season earnings and became the first cowboy to win four All-Around titles in a row since Trevor Brazile did so from 2012-2015.
While Wright had a record-setting season, earning nearly $1 million total, it could have been even better. Wright missed a large portion of Cowboy Christmas to recover from a wrist injury.
When all was said and done, Wright’s 2022 season broke several records, including the single-season PRCA earnings record at $927,940, the All-Around record at $758,829, the Bull Riding single-season record at $592,144, and the Bull Riding earnings record at the NFR at $271,545.
Wright, who continues to be compared to the all-time greats appreciates the sentiment but has one goal for the remainder of his career.
“Trevor Brazile, when he stopped going, he was the king of the cowboys, just like Ty Murray,” he said. “A lot of people have said you’re the next Ty Murray or Trevor Brazile, that’s not what I’m out here doing, I’m out here to be the next Stetson Wright, I’ll never compare myself to one of them.”
