Not Just a Ball-Buster

While some players fear him for a variety of reasons, from his break to his imposing presence, Bryant swears he's not afraid of a living soul, either off the table or on. It's the way his father raised him. "And them boys know it," he says without a hint of reservation. "I know I play as well as anybody. And I know my time's coming. My game, my fundamentals, are as solid as anyone out there, and I know, especially with my break, I intimidate guys. A lot of players have a little bit more finesse than I do sometimes, because they've been out there longer, but I make up for it with all my power. I'm already a force to be reckoned with. If I get up there and play like I'm supposed to, they can't win."

So cocksure of himself, he was heard muttering to himself after a loss to Archer at the 2004 Big Apple 9-Ball Challenge, in which Bryant placed an impressive fifth by defeating, among others, Mika Immonen and Max Eberle: "Man, I should've tortured him." Should've tortured the greatest 9-ball player of his generation? Wow! Now, that's confidence. "No disrespect to Johnny, he's a great player," Hillbilly explains to me later, "but I just fell dead on him, stone-cold dead, made too many silly mistakes. It's not nervousness. It's just me being too hard on myself. The toughest person on me is…me. I sometimes analyze too much. I don't get up there and just let it happen. That's hurt me a lot. Once I get rid of that, there ain't no tellin' what I might do."

For players outside of the South and Southwest, Bryant, who is given to wearing exotically designed red-and-black silk shirts, has magically popped up out of nowhere. "There are a lot of pro players out there who still don't know my game," he says. But around Houston, where he's lived for the last five years, he's anything but unknown. He's been a holy Hillbilly terror, in fact. Playing in Texas' biggest events, he's twice snapped off three consecutive tournaments, and in April 2004 won the Houston Open for the second time, beating no less a champion than Jeremy Jones in the finals. In fact, he and Jones are the only ones to ever win that event twice.

"He's aggressive, powerful, just a solid all-around player," says Double J, who knows Hillbilly's game better than almost anyone. "For a while, to be honest, I couldn't beat him. He really had my number. Beat me something like five times in a row. Once he gets a little more seasoning in these big events, he's going to be tough to deal with, for sure. The guys who don't know him are learning that they can't expect Hillbilly to give away games. You have to tear it away from him." He pauses before adding "And, man, that break. He breaks 'em hard. Sounds like something between a gunshot and a car crash. He breaks 'em well even when he has to break from the box in the middle of the table. He has perfect timing and a strong snap like [Francisco] Bustamante. When you're playing Hillbilly, you can't help but always have that break in the back of your mind. You know at some point during the match it's going to come into play."

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