Joselito was admitted to be very good in the press, but it was pointed out that he was only able to place banderillas on one side, the right (the bulls of course were very small), he insisted on that; that he killed holding the sword so high that some said he pulled it out of his hat and others that he merely used it as a prolongation of his nose and, this is Christ’s truth: he was hooted, whistled at and had cushions thrown at him the last day he fought in Madrid, the 15th of May, 1920, while he was working his second bull, after having cut the ear of his first, and was hit in the face by a cushion while the crowd shouted “que se vaya! que se vaya!” which can be translated “May he get the hell out of here and stay!”
The next day, the 16th of May, he was killed in Talavera de la Reina, gored through the lower abdomen so his intestines came out (and he was unable to hold them in with both hands, but died of traumatic shock from the force of the cornada while the doctors were working on the wound, and his face composed very peacefully on the operating table after he was dead, with his brother-in-law having his picture taken holding a handkerchief to his eyes and a crowd of wailing gypsies outside with more coming and Gallo wandering around outside very pitiful, afraid to go in to see his brother dead, and Alamendro the banderillero saying, “If they can kill this man I tell you none of us is safe! None of us!”) and at once became, in the press, and remains, the greatest bullfighter of all time; greater than Guerrita, Frascuelo, Lagartijo according to the same men who, while he lived, attacked him.
Belmonte retired and became greater than José even, returned after Maera died, and was discovered to be an exploiter of a formerly great name avid for money (he did have his bulls selected that year), fought one more year, I swear this was the best he ever had, he fought all bulls, made no specifications on size and triumphed along the whole line including killing, which he had never truly mastered before, and was attacked the whole season in the press.
He retired again after a nearly mortal horn wound and all contemporary accounts agree he is the greatest living bullfighter. So there you have it, and I will not know how Pedro Romero was until I shall have read the contemporary accounts before, during and after, and I doubt very much if enough of these exist, even in letters, to enable a true judgment to be formed.
From all the different sources I have read and all contemporary accounts the epoch of biggest bulls and true golden age in Madrid was that of Lagartijo and Frascuelo who were the greatest bullfighters of the last sixty years until Joselito and Belmonte. Guerrita’s was no golden age and he was responsible for introducing younger and smaller bulls (I’ve looked up the weights and the photographs), and in the twelve years that he fought he had only one truly great year as a fighter, that of 1894.
Big bulls were brought back during the epoch of Macha-quito, Bombita, Pastor and Gallo and the size of the bulls was sensibly decreased during the golden age of Joselito and Belmonte although they fought the biggest kind of bulls many times. At present the bulls are big and old for the matadors without influence and small and young whenever the bullfighter is powerful enough to have any hand or influence in their selection. Bulls are always as big as they can be bred at Bilbao in spite of the matadors and usually the Andalucian breeders send their biggest and finest bulls to the July fair at Valencia. I have seen Belmonte and Marcial Lalanda triumph in Valencia with bulls as large as any ever fought in the history of that ring.
This historical summary started with regrets for the disappearance of the killing of the bulls recibiendo, which, to recapitulate, disappeared because it is not taught nor practised, since the public does not demand it, and since it is a difficult thing which must be practised, understood and dominated and is much too dangerous to be improvised. If it were practised it could be performed readily enough if the bulls were allowed to reach the end of the fight in proper condition for it. But any suerte which can be approximated in bullfighting by another almost equal in public appeal and with less chance of death if its execution goes wrong, will surely die out in bullfighting unless the public demands that fighters perform it.
The volapié to be properly executed demands that the bull be heavy on his feet and that he have his two front feet on a line and together. If he has one foot farther forward than the other the top of one shoulder blade will be moved forward and the opening through which the sword must go, and which is shaped rather like that between the palm of your hands if you place them with finger tips touching and wrists a little way apart, will be closed just as that between your hands will close if you bring the wrist of one hand forward.
If the bull’s feet are spread wide this opening is narrowed by the shoulder blades being forced together and if the feet are not together it is closed entirely. It is through this opening that the point of the sword must enter to penetrate into the body cavity, and it will only continue on in if it does not strike a rib or the spine. In order to make it have a better chance of going in and taking a downward course in the direction of the aorta the tip of the sword is curved so that it dips down. If the man goes in to kill the bull from in front with his left shoulder forward, if he puts the sword in between the shoulder blades he will automatically come within reach of the bull’s horns; in fact his body must pass over the horn, at the moment of putting in the sword.
If his left hand, crossed in front of him and holding the muleta almost to the ground, does not keep the bull’s head down until the man has passed over the horn and come out along the bull’s flank, the man will be gored. To avoid this moment of very great danger to which the man exposes himself each time he kills a bull according to the rules bullfighters who wish to kill without exposition profile at a considerable distance from the bull so that the bull, seeing the man coming in, will be in motion himself and the man running across the line of the bull’s charge with his right arm forward rather than his left shoulder tries to drive the sword in without ever letting his body come within range of the horn.
The way that I have just described is the most flagrant form of bad killing. The farther forward in the bull’s neck the sword is put in and the lower down at the side the less the man exposes himself and the surer he is of killing the bull since the sword is driven into the chest cavity, the lungs, or cuts the jugular or other veins, or the carotid or other arteries of the neck all of which can be reached by the point of the sword without the man exposing himself to the slightest danger.
It is for this reason that a killing is judged by the place in which the sword is put in and by the manner in which the man goes in to kill rather than by the immediate results. To kill the bull with a single sword thrust is of no merit at all unless the sword is placed high between the bull’s shoulders and unless the man passed over and had his body within reach of the horn at the moment he went in.
Many times in Southern France and occasionally in provinces in Spain where they have few bullfights I have seen a matador applauded enthusiastically because he killed his bull with a single entry when the killing was no more than a risk-less assassination; the man having never exposed himself at all, but merely slipped the sword into an unprotected and vulnerable spot. The reason the man is required to kill the bull high up between the shoulders is because the bull is able to defend that place and will only uncover it and make it vulnerable if the man brings his body within range of the horn provided he enters according to the rules. To kill a bull in his neck or his flank, which he cannot defend, is assassination.
To kill him high up between the shoulders demands risk by the man and studied ability if great danger is to be avoided. If the man uses this ability to make the proper execution of the entry with the sword as secure as possible, exposing his body but protecting it through his skill with his left hand, then he is a good killer. If he uses his ability merely to trick the killing so that he gets enough of the sword into the correct place to kill without ever exposing his body then he is an able remover of bulls but, no matter how quickly or securely
