Travis Pastrana and Brian Deegan, if you believe the lore, as well as what your own eyes saw at the time, heated rivals. No, not the hockey show everyone's crazy about. But real, embittered, punch each other in the face sort of rivals. The sort that made excellent television in the late '90s and early aughts.
The freestyle motocross legends routinely were pitted against each other, with Deegan taking on the scumbag, heavily tattooed, punk-rock persona, and Pastrana the good-boy, wholesome stalwart. At least, that's how they were portrayed, and how they both played it up for the cameras, each understand the business side of things far better than either let on.
For what it's worth, I identified way more with Deegan's "Metal Mulisha" crew than Pastrana's more straight-edge identity, though again, both were playing parts, something I see more with clear eyes 20 years on—God, we're all old.
Reality being what it is, however, the two never seemed to actually hate each other. In fact, there's a lot of mutal respect, as they've both shown over the years, talking each other up. But this sit-down between the two of them really lays it all out, as they swap war stories of the old days, and more.
"I was just this dork who wanted to ride my motorcycle," says Travis to Brian, "And you guys found a way that, all of a sudden, NBC and ESPN in the heyday of X Games and FMX and this whole culture and Crusty Demons of Dirt, but before YouTube, and people watched the video parts. It wasn't good vs. evil, you know..."
"But that's how it was portrayed," interjects Deegan. "And people chose sides. It wasn't fake," says Pastrana, adding, "It wasn't fake like the WWE. But people remembered the characters."
If you're a fan of either rider or both, as I am, this talk is well-worth your time. It's an honest chat amongst two supposed rivals and how they both played off each other, both in terms of going for bigger, badder, and gnarlier stunts, and how they played off each other's business accumen. Because, honestly, I don't think we'd have either's staying power without the other. I mean, we're now 20 years down the road, and we're still covering both.
So check it out above, and let me know what y'all think of their candor.
