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Despite rodeo being a leading strain in his DNA, Rocker Steiner has taken a curious route to cowboy stardom.
In his youth, rodeo was the furthest thing from this 21-year-old from Weatherford. In fact, it was wakeboarding this kid raised in Austin enjoyed most, dude. And wakeboarding was something, by the way, he excelled at — a seeming prodigy, this wave innovator, on his way to landing a 1080, as they say (I think). His look, too, resembles a surfer bro — long blonde locks and a lid all janky on his dome.
Your head needs to be on a swivel because he’ll also drop an occasional F-bomb on you. He is a lightning rod for fans, who either love him or hate him, partly because, by all appearances, that enduring and endearing cowboy charm of humility is nowhere to be found. Brash is the word I’m looking for.
“Somebody’s got to be the superstar,” he says. “It might as well be me, huh?”
Still, to read only the cover is to overlook the essence of the man. Steiner has a certain wisdom to him that impresses me.
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“He is kind of an old soul,” says his dad, former PRCA Steer Wrestling World Champion Sid Steiner. “He’s just a fun guy to be around, man. He’s got a contagious personality, and everybody around him loves him. I don’t have social media, but I hear about the negative comments. It’s just funny to me to hear the things people say about him. Well, they obviously have never met him.”
Would-be enemies and fans alike are going to get an up-close-and-personal view of Rocker Steiner as he chases National Finals Rodeo fame as a bareback rider.
“Hell on Wheels” is the highly anticipated, unfiltered docuseries produced by Teton Ridge. A private screening was hosted by Koe Wetsel’s Riot Room last month. You can catch the series on the Cowboy Channel.
“I knew how big of a deal this was going to be, and I knew how important it was to me and my family and the whole sport,” Steiner says. “I think to make it as good as possible, I had to be as real as possible and pretty much just be exactly who I am. I wanted this to be a game-changer for the sport of rodeo and for me and my family.”
In 2025, Steiner, now a four-time NFR qualifier, became only the third rodeo competitor to win more than $300,000 in a season. He heads to the NFR in December seeking to join a rich family tradition that now spans five generations.
And, yes, that family tradition includes showmanship.
His father’s PRCA Hall of Fame bio speaks prominently of his stage presence as a steer wrestler, even taking the nickname “Sid Rock.” That moniker played a part, his father says, in Rocker Steiner’s given name. Steiner’s grandfather, Bobby, competed as a bull rider and bareback rider from 1968-73. Bobby, also a hall of famer, made three trips to the NFR and was a world champion bull rider in 1973. Sid won a world championship in steer wrestling in 2002. The legacy extends to Steiner’s great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather, Tommy and Buck Steiner, founders of the Steiner Rodeo Company.
Rocker Steiner appears primed to take this to a completely different level of stardom. And rodeo needs that.
The idea of the docuseries, says Rocker, was one he pitched. The Cowboy Channel pounced.
“There are so many different personalities [in rodeo] and there are so many different people, but nobody ever gets to see that,” Steiner says. “It’s hard to be fans of somebody that you don’t know.”
