On July 7, 1922, the bullfighters Saleri II, Juan Luis de la Rosa and Marcial Lalanda inaugurated the Pamplona Bullring (a smaller replica of La Monumental de Sevilla, Gallito’s truncated dream) in a bullfight in which they fought bulls of Vicente Martínez.
Today, July 7, 2022, a century later, Pablo Hermoso de Mendoza on horseback and Morante de La Puebla, El Juli and Roca Rey -with bulls from Carmen Lorenzo, the one with rejones, and Núñez del Cuvillo- made the paseoillo in the which was announced as the Centennial Bullfight and which has also been the happy reunion with the hubbub, the colors – two, to be exact, the red and white of the clothing – of the overflowing lines (20,000 people after the extension of 1967 work of Rafael Moneo, present today in a mockery of the alley) and the hugs, the music, the songs, the snack… after that “poor me” of 2019 that nobody imagined would last three years.
To say San Fermín is to say party and it is to say bullfighting. The Festival of the Bull is announced, not only because the ranchers strive to bring cattle of imposing presence to Pamplona – this afternoon, not so much – but because, despite some, for a week everything revolves around the totemic animal, starting with the morning running of the bulls, which makes no sense if it is not to take the bulls that will be fought in the afternoon from the Corrales del Gas to the bullring.
The ephemeris was triumphant: The public, both the circumspect of those lying in the shade and the revelers of the sun, celebrated what the bullfighters did, they walked ears and Hermoso de Mendoza, El Juli and Roca Rey came out on the shoulders. It is fine and one would say that there were reasons for it, although with nuances, the main one of them precisely the one that has to do with the essential element, the bull, even more so in a square, a fair, which – we said – makes it a saint and sign.
And it is that the Cuvillo specimens (if we are talking about the fight on foot), unequal in their presentation -a hundred kilos difference between some of them- did not have the bravery as a flag (the best, the sixth) and the merit of the shortlist was to get enough out of them to ensure that the tasks maintained a level that even exceeded expectations once the first two thirds of the respective fights had been completed.
Morante, who wore an ad hoc suit (red and white jacket, white satchel) fought with fit and flavor to his first, one of those who disdained “the bull of Pamplona” and majestic, bullfighter and tasty to the other. It was the bull of the snack, the one in which the rocks are for something other than what happens in the ring and in which the genius of Puebla drew three delicatessen in the form of two speedwells and a half. Then the task had beauty- that low start-, link, meeting- that is, adjustment- and slowness. Series for the two pythons with temper and rest, chest passes full of bullfighting, adornments… He summoned to receive, he made luck with purity but alas! the sword fell low. It didn’t matter that the mayor of Pamplona acting as president looked more into the shade than into the sun, that they were going about their business, and heeded the ear request that Morante walked like a bullfight: slowly, slowly.
El Juli and Pamplona have lived a permanent and triumphant idyll since their already distant presentation (eleven outings on their shoulders contemplated it until today) and this afternoon was not going to be less. He cut off the ears of each one of his bulls and he did it by fighting with command in the ring, that is, getting out of them attacks that perhaps in other hands would not have been such. He series for the two pythons squeezed based on bond and firmness and a bullfighting intelligence beyond any doubt.
There is no doubt that Roca Rey has returned, precisely in Pamplona three years ago, due to an injury, he had to make a long break in his career from which it was difficult for him to find his place again. Overwhelming the Peruvian in his two bulls (two ears in one, another in the last). Three changed from behind and on his knees was his start of work at the first of his lot and from there a bullfighting crescendo, curdling a high-flying job. The sixth was a bull of great nobility that he would also have dislodged if he did not prick before the lunge because what he had done until then, concluded with knee crutches that raised passions, deserved it.
As Pablo Hermoso de Mendoza deserved the two ears that he cut off to the one who opened a place in a new demonstration of his teaching in bullfighting on horseback, because that is what he does, fight with his horses (in addition to sticking rejones and banderillas). He did it, by the way, to the sounds of “Bandiera Rossa”, the unofficial anthem of the Italian Communist Party, performed by one of the music bands from the clubs. Also, of course, from “El rey” and “La chica yé ye´”. The party has returned to Pamplona, ??the bulls have returned.
