In 1983 José Cubero, El Yiyo, 19 years old and two alternates, fought -via substitution all of them- three afternoons at the San Isidro Fair and on June 1 Madrid surrendered to the bullfighter born in Bordeaux and raised in the capital, opening the Puerta Grande de Las Ventas.
Already on the way, despite his youth, to achieve the consideration of a bullfighting figure and with all the future ahead of him, on August 30, 1985, in Colmenar Viejo, a goring from the Burlero bull, from the Marcos Núñez ranch, broke him, literally, the heart. And El Yiyo became a legend.
A legend that in his tragic destiny shares with more than fifty names, from Pepe Hillo or El Espartero to, the last ones, VÃctor Barrio and Iván Fandiño, passing through Gallito, Granero, Sánchez MejÃas, Manolete, Paquirri, Montoliu… Also José Falcón, mortally wounded in La Monumental in Barcelona in 1974 and husband of Rosa Gil, La Nena del Leopoldo, title of the book by Arturo San AgustÃn, biography of a neighborhood -El Chino, now Raval- and of a restaurant that was a place of meeting and cultures, also bullfighting, and that Vázquez Montalbán elevated to literary heavens.
El Yiyo went to the skies of bullfighting so early and in his memory, forty years after that San Isidro of his consecration, this bullfight was organized -minute of silence in the paseÃllo- with three great figures on the poster, bulls of two branches of the same cattle tree (Victoriano del RÃo and Toros de Cortés) and, again, Las Ventas to overflowing.
Softness in the receiving verónicas of El Juli to whom he opened a place (serious in his morphology, as later, to a greater or lesser degree, would be that of the other five) and in the chicuelinas of Alejandro Talavante’s removal, after a third of rods also -let’s say- soft.
To the heaven of the bullfighters and in it to El Yiyo El Juli (also, in the fifth, Talavante) gave the chore, well structured and with the clairvoyance brand of the house, he alternated series by the two pythons tied and warm, but without raising passions, neither against. The rear lunge and fall, well that.
Despite the wind, El Juli did not hesitate to take the second of his batch to the media and develop the entire task there, which was a crescendo of crutch blows that culminated in separate rounds with his right hand, deep, long, collected. El Juli’s teaching, not endorsed with the steel but recognized with the final ovation.
Nothing lucid happened in the first thirds of the first bull of the Talavante lot. Semi-genuflexo, crutch on the left and below at the opening of the slaughter in which the bull already showed fair forces. Since the caste was not the right one either, what came later, bullfighting in the round and natural, was diluted from little to almost nothing.
The cloak slept in three sets to the verónica Alejandro Talavante in his greeting to the fifth, who, from the start, pointed out good things, not so much when it came to the picador’s turn. In the last third he endorsed the second impression.
Talavante wanted to start the task for statuary but the disorderly attacks tarnished the approach. And in this way they continued, taking the crutch without surrender while the man from Extremadura tried it for the two pitons, between his disappointment and that of the public.
The gale was blowing and Roca Rey went to the media to start the work from there to the third with two passes exchanged behind the back of chill, to warm the atmosphere. Brusque, rough bull, and maximum firmness in the Peruvian bullfighter, first natural and even more so in a round series that creaked the bull and, also, the laying.
He endured stops without blinking and led the attacks with as much truth as power. Tucked between the pitons he passed it in front, behind and bias. The lunge at the top required the use of pithing, a large part of the square asked for the ear and the usÃa did not take the opposite.
Many things are sung about Roca Rey bullfighting, but not so many about how he handles the cape, which is usually with a variety of luck and temperance. Such that in the veronicas feet together to the sixth.
With the large door of Ventana ajar, Roca Rey offered to the public and undaunted, in the third, three statuary and a pass from the firm that remained there.
Greedy bull and the bullfighter, giving him distance at the start of the series and, with his shoes off, command rounds in the arena. Roca was brazen with a discordant voice, the crutch on the left, the bull defeated him taking it ahead, passing it from one piton to another.
A shudder ran through the stands, the bullfighter got up without looking at himself and, back to the bull’s face, a round series and shouts of “bullfighter! Bullfighter!” What was going to be a great triumph was spoiled by the sword but even so the request for an ear was clamorous, majority, but the president -the sword, we said- passed it through the lining. What is indisputable is that the dimension of Roca Rey’s figure was, once again, demonstrated.
