"The Thunder from Down Under," was originally from Kilkivan, Queensland Australia. Following his father Bob who had fought bulls in the 1970s, Darrell fought his first bull at the age of seventeen.
He first came to America in 1994 to pursue his passion to fight bulls both as a cowboy protector and as a freestyle bullfighter. While he worked the circuit and won several freestyle titles, he called Oklahoma home before he returned to Australia. Later that year the menace of injury was realized when he broke three vertebrae in his back at a Queensland rodeo. He recovered over the next eighteen months and underwent three major surgeries. Despite his wounds Darrell fortified himself for his next foray into the sport. "I made a promise to myself that I would always give everything, that I would do my very best." He would win two Australian Bull Fighting titles before he decided to make a return crossing of the Pacific.
In 1998, Darrell returned to the U.S. aiming to become a member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association and pursued the chance to fight bulls in every major rodeo in the United States, including Cheyenne Frontier Days™. His efforts hit the mark and Darrell first stepped into the CFD arena as a PRCA bullfighter in 2004. Known for daring saves he would sometimes throw in a bit of humor, and skill, when he would ride a bull backwards with his feet hooked around the bull's horns. While he didn't appear in CFD in 2005, he returned in 2006 and stayed until his last appearance in 2015.
In his time here at CFD, he fought beside other bullfighting greats like Jeremy Sparks, Mike Matt and Dusty Tuckness. The fighting he did at Cheyenne earned him many accolades, especially the coveted honor of being selected by the bullriders to protect them at the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo between 2001 and 2012. He was named PRCA Bullfighter of the year in 2008.
It didn't come without a price, however. In a 2015 interview with Wyoming Public Television, he revisited his injuries: "Broke my neck, broke my back twice, had to have a shoulder reconstructed, knee surgeries, this is my third eye socket in my right eye, ribs." So why did he keep coming back? "I take a hooking for the bull rider, so he can get up without being touched. That's why I love fighting bulls."
He fought with Dusty Tuckness in his final year at CFD and in an article for the New Yorker magazine he was talking about his family and thought his two-year-old son might one day get into rodeo.
Tuckness said, “I can see it now. Your boy and I will be in this locker room, fighting together in my retirement year. That would be pretty sweet.”
“That would be cool,” said Diefenbach. “But that might suck for you. Because that would be in about eighteen years.”
Darrell currently lives in Hermiston, OR, with his wife, Lacy, and three children and runs a construction and excavation company.