'Crazy can't do this. Crazy will get hurt'

For the last 15 years, Kenny Petet, 43, has been making a living as a rodeo clown. But "bullfighter" might be a better way to describe his profession, which requires that he regularly put his body in between 2,000-pound bulls and fallen bull riders.

While the rodeo ring isn’t necessarily where the Idaho native dreamed his life would take him, it is where he found his greatest adrenaline fix. Coming from a family where his dad was a bush pilot in Northern Idaho and his brother flies an attack helicopter for the U.S. Army, bullfighter probably makes sense.

 

Metromix talked to Petet—who now travels as part of the “World’s Toughest Rodeo Presents Toughest Cowboy” tour, which comes to Columbus on Jan. 17 at the Nationwide Arena—about his crazy job, why he has remained pretty much injury-free and whether or not bullfighters have groupies.

 

(Laughs) Yeah, I guess that’s true, sure. “World famous” always cracks me up.

 

(Laughs) No. 2—losing a bet. That’s kind of how it started. I didn’t grow up a cowboy. I had gone to Boise State and got a degree in bank business management. I was working for a bank in Idaho repossessing cars. I was riding a Harley and had long hair, and I met some rodeo cowboys and we got to arguing about who is tougher, cowboys or bikers. So they took me to a little practice pen and put me on a little practice bucking horse that drilled my head to the ground. And they all laughed at me. That’s kind of where it started.

 

I rode bareback horses and broncs for a while. One time I was at a small rodeo, and the clown didn’t show up, so I had to fill his shoes. I was like, ‘I can do that.’ That’s where that started and then I found out when you’re in the riding events, you have to win your money. Bullfighter pays you just to show up, so I thought that might be a little better deal there. I’m a good bullfighter and just a fair bronc rider, so it worked out better for me.

 

There’s been a few, but the only thing I can think of is I’m missing a little bit of the top of my left ear from having my head stepped on by a bull. Some guys have this litany of injuries. I’ve been as mauled and hooked as you can be, but I have never broken a bone. I attribute most of that to martial arts training. I’ve been trained in taekwondo for 20 years, and I really think that’s helped me to learn to take a hit.

No, I’m really not. There’s a large amount of training. Crazy can’t do this. Crazy will get hurt. There’s a large amount of training, paying attention and being in the right spot at the right time. Those cowboys depend on that.

 

This rodeo is different from most in that we just have the three events in it. It’s the bareback bronc riding, the saddle bronc riding and the bull riding. We have the same 12 guys come to every event we have. It’s on Spike TV and it’s produced by Mark Burnett, who produces “Survivor.” And there’s some of the same elements there in that every tour stop we go to, the guys are required to get on to all three of those animals the same night. Their scores are put together and the lowest two (point total) riders have to get on another bull for a ride-off, and the loser gets kicked off the island. So every week we have the tour one of the cowboys gets kicked off. It’ll accumulate in Chicago with the top four guys who will have to ride seven animals in the rodeo that night. Most of the time guys just ride one. That’ll determine who the world’s toughest cowboy is.

Oh, the bull riders by far. They’re a lot more handsome than us bullfighers. Also, I have an attractive wife that is mean as hell, so I go hide in the hotel.

The “World’s Toughest Rodeo Presents Toughest Cowboy” takes place at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 17 at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus. Tickets are $20 to $77, and are now on sale at all Ticketmaster locations.