Madrid’s Corrida in Memoriam de Yiyo

Andrés Roca Rey’s June 11 performance divided the critics, as well as the spectators in Las Ventas. Inés Montano’s report for El Imparcial (no irony intended) was headed ‘Roca Rey does not know how to torear’, while José Carlos Arévalo concluded the Peruvian was “la primera figura del toreo”. Arévalo, who has a history of 50 years’ taurine criticism behind him, later said Montano’s headline was the equivalent of claiming Lionel Messi had no idea of what a football was, and called the report “mental diarrhoea”.

In the plaza, things were more clearcut as some 23,000 spectators demanded the Puerta Grande for Roca Rey, while less than a thousand argued otherwise. But that minority were largely seated in Tendido 7, the traditional hotbed of ‘aficionados’ who (rightly) defend the bull of Madrid - although their rush to judgement on the qualities of animals that come into the ring can be mistaken - and (wrongly) foment a hostile atmosphere towards those toreros considered to be figuras.

Andrés Roca Rey had stepped into the bullring that afternoon, wearing a burgundy and azabache traje in homage to the departed Yiyo in whose name the corrida was taking place, determined to make a statement in the capital after his fruitless Feria de San Isidro. The commentary on mundotoro.tv - the video of the corrida remains available on the platform’s website - makes it clear that, in doing so, the young Peruvian (already carrying an internal cornada from a corrida a few days earlier) was prepared to risk his life. The right horn of his first bull very nearly caught him in his opening lance and again early in the faena. We’ve seen faenas de valor from Roca Rey before, but on this occasion he was determined to produce decent muletazos too, and this he did, initially on the animal’s left horn, but finally conquering that vicious right horn as well. The estocada led to a very deserved ear.

Roca Rey’s efforts were no less determined on his second wide-horned animal, which also nearly gored him in the chest in a nasty-looking cogida that saw the matador lifted and thrown to the ground. This came shortly after Andrés had turned towards complainants in Tendido 7 and asked them to be quiet, winning applause from the rest of the plaza. Returning to the fray, the Peruvian achieved series of naturales and derechazos, with one further near-goring, before again twice gesturing dismissively towards 7. Poor swordwork and the decision of the president cost him the Puerta Grande, for most in the crowd, chanting “Torero! Torero!”, petitioned for a further ear to be given before Roca Rey took a vuelta and left the plaza for the infirmary.

I was at Las Ventas in 1988 on the afternoon when El Fundi, taking a vuelta of the ring on the day of his confirmación, turned his back on 7 when he reached that part of the ruedo. It tooks years for that section of the plaza to forgive him. The same may well occur with Roca Rey, but his June 11 performance in Madrid was an exceptional showing on his part.

La Copa Chenel

It was a shame that this year’s version of the FTL’s and la Comunidad de Madrid’s competition for modestos and new matadors, which began so promisingly (see my February blog), should end so messily.

The three matadors that made it through to the first final of the certamen were the veteran Juan del Álamo, Borja Jiménez (who seems to have had a well-oiled publicity machine behind him this season) and the Mexican Isaac Fonseca in his first full season as a matador de toros. There was no doubting the winner of that corrida at Alalpardo on Saturday June 10 - Fonseca was carried out on shoulders with three ears to his name - but the margins were much closer between the other two participants despite Juan del Álamo being the only one to cut an ear.

Decisions as to who goes forward from one round to the next of la Copa Chenel are taken by a panel using a points system (there is also an online public vote that is taken into account in the overall scoring). Virtually all of the points are positive ones, but receipt of an aviso loses a matador half a point.

In announcing that Fonseca would be joined by Juan del Álamo in the mano a mano ‘gran final’ at Colmenar Viejo, the panel revealed that del Álamo had scored 10.54 points for his Alalpardo afternoon compared to Borja Jiménez’s 10.33. Then it was pointed out that, while Borja had been given an aviso 10 minutes and 53 seconds after the final tercio began to his second bull (the Madrid regulations stipulate an aviso should sound after 10 minutes), Juan del Álamo’s second faena that day had lasted 13 minutes and eight seconds - worthy of two avisos - without the president signalling that the trumpet should sound at all, apparently due to forgetfulness on the president’s part. With these two overlooked avisos taken into account, Borja Jiménez should have been the matador accompanying Fonseca at Colmenar Viejo rather than Juan del Álamo.

To his credit, with the error made public on the Tuesday after the Alalpardo corrida, Borja Jiménez handled the situation well. He thanked the organisers of the competition for giving him the opportunity to torear, congratulated his 10 June companions, but said that the certamen should take place in a spirit of truth and honesty and, consequently, he should be admitted to the final event on June 18. Three days later, after having received no apology from the corrida’s president, nor any communication from the Copa Chenel organisers, he offered to torear the two Palha bulls appearing in the ‘gran final’, leaving Fonseca and del Álamo to sortear the remaining bulls of Montealto and Zacarías Moreno.

This move finally prompted the organisers to issue a statement, apologising to Borja Jiménez for the mistake that had been made, but saying that it had been decided when the Copa was first established that there would be no post-event revisiting of any decisions or scoring - “Our duty is to support the presidents and juries [in addition to the novilleros and matadors involved in such competitions], who carry out a difficult and thankless task that is always subject to errors and criticism.”

The good news in these circumstances is that Isaac Fonseca, having been the triunfador of the Alalpardo corrida, also emerged as the worthy winner of Colmenar Viejo’s ‘gran final’. Juan del Álamo was badly gored during capework to his first bull, leaving the young Mexican to conduct all six faenas. Fonseca, who received a cut in the face from that same animal, and then an 18cm cornada grave in his right leg from the third, nevertheless remained in the ruedo for all six bulls, winning single ears from his second, fifth and sixth opponents. His reward for winning the competition will be an appearance in Las Ventas on el día de Hispanidad, October 12.

The organisers of Copa Chenel have promised to look at some kind of independent arbitration for disputes in future editions - it was certainly ridiculous not to correct things before this year’s finale given the clear-cut nature of the mistake. Perhaps more to the point would be to do away with any scoring in relation to first or second avisos. In these days of strong bulls and lengthy faenas, avisos are precisely that - ‘warnings’ - and are not necessarily negative comments on a matador’s performance. Also, this year’s ‘gran final’ illustrated the shortcomings of a mano a mano conclusion when one of the two participants can be knocked out of contention early on in the proceedings - far better to have a closing corrida with three matadors taking part.

On recent controversies

“A complete disaster”

Toreo by the rulebook