Prieto de la Cal rancher of the bulls that Morante wants to fight: "He knows that if we continue giving more of the same to the fans, the bulls will end"
Antonio and Eduardo Miura "If some contagion had appeared in the bulls, the World Cup would have been organized"
Rivalry has always been an incentive, a warped mirror in which to prosper. They are born in a punctual way and the transcendental ones are scarce. The confrontations that draw the atlas of the evolution of bullfighting are punctual, the need for
"the two goals"
suggested by the critic
Gregorio Corrochano
. The one that
Joselito el Gallo
and
Juan Belmonte
starred in
is the X on the map where to locate the germ of stillness, bullfighting expressiveness, veronica and linked fighting and in the current round.
The canon now
. Produced by two guys who traveled together but got off in
different wagons to prime the binomial of a competing hobby
. Like
wrestling
wrestlers
that, on the ring, they break a chair on the head but then reserve a table to have lunch together.
Based on the joke of Seville
, the bar-counter gathering and the sentimental monopoly over a humble town, the struggle they maintained over the albero is exemplified by an anecdote: that of the
gallista priest
who, after
Belmonte's
first triumph
in Seville, He prevented his supporters from carrying the hero in the Virgin's litter, like an ugly, short and poorly made Puppy.
The motive of the minister of Christ was solid:
"If only it had been Joselito ..."
.
If
Belmonte
stands out for its expressiveness, the sketch of the current veronica and the stillness of the
subversive agitator of the rite
(marinated in literature); as of
Joselito
is the total bulls from the placenta, joy capotera in flags,
the missing link of the linked muletazo and round
. Two very different concepts that were competition but, above all,
complement
, expectation and a business well projected by Joselito - a prophet of the monumental bullrings and a precursor of image rights - to which Belmonte took a sidecar.
The
legend
that circulates about a first meeting between the two in 1909, adolescents, on a path through which a
briefcase
Belmonte
ends up being lifted onto the rump of a horse by the
toys
of a
Joselito
already with manners
sounds like a hoax
. More plausible is the one that Belmonte told the
ABC
critic
Giraldillo
: an encounter in 1911 during a cow trial in Hato Blanco,
Carlos Vázquez's
farm
, after some friends grabbed him by the bibs to take him to fight and stop collecting. oranges
What is certain is that the first time they alternated together - the only time as bullfighters - was in
Cádiz
, on August 22,
1912
, with
Miura
cattle
in a bullfight that
Belmonte
entered by way of substitution: his name it appeared on a sticker about
Francisco Posadas's
. Already as matadors, on May 2,
1914
in Madrid, in the Fuente del Berro bullring, they uncorked
a
business and public success
that took off very quickly: in
1915 they killed 85 bullfights
together. The same year that the
police
in
Córdoba
had to separate
the brave bars from one to the other.
More than 250 evenings documented until
Bailaor gutted half of Spain
on May 16, 1920, in Talavera de la Reina (Toledo).
Joselito died while Belmonte was playing poker with his gang
.
"Those who had disputed so bitterly over our rivalry did not know to what extent we were complete and we needed each other," the Triana bullfighter told
Chaves Nogales
.
Juan Belmonte, 'El pasmo de Triana', in front of a bull in the Maestranza de SevillaARJONA
Given Belmonte's inability to comply with
Valle-Inclán's
invitation
("for you, an exceptional bullfighter,
the only thing you need is to die in the ring
", "whatever can be done, Don Ramón") and draw his rival - to achieve immortality and the glory of the gods of Rome, as
Juncal
would say
-, the book by Chaves Nogales, his
Juan Belmonte, matador de toros: his life and his exploits
,
made the life of the bullfighter so popular that it eclipsed that of Gallito
. A classic book, a reference in bullfighting literature, capable of enthusing
Pep Guardiola himself
and that meant the unique legacy of the Sevillian journalist until the exhumation of his work. Together with Belmonte's friends, always close to intellectuals -
Pérez de Ayala
,
Julio Camba
,
Sebastián Miranda
,
Valle Inclán
-, the myth was consolidated.
But the debate is current, mythical, deep, alive and continues to awaken inclinations. You still have to take sides, choose a goal. And now Joselito is the one vindicated, the exhumed from a crypt in which
Morante
appeared
with
Zabala
and
Aymá
to say that he has not seen his thing in any other bullfighter, the definitive amalgam
"half flamenco and half gypsy" of Sevillian grace
. If some speak of
gallista revisionism
, the journalist
Paco Aguado
is one of the
Bernsteins
of this current who took minutes with
Joselito el Gallo, king of bullfighters
, the most complete biography of the bullfighter to date.
"
Belmonte is true that he is a
mess
of Triana, but Joselito has bullfighting in his veins since he was born
- Aguado tells LOC -, and there is, in addition, a desire for social revenge from Joselito to raise his family forward, to charge himself to the bullfighters who have harmed their brother
Rafael [the Rooster]
because they have also starved them ".
Joselito el Gallo, 'The king of the bullfighters', fighting in Madrid, in the old Plaza de Fuente del Berro ARCHIVE
Joselito's father,
Fernando el Gallo
, dies when he is three years old. Belmonte is the son of a
hardware store
. "The two come out from below. That of the family bullfighter is a lie.
They were stiff as rules,
" Aguado says, to whom the division of Belmonte as a bullfighter of the intellectuals and the people smells of cliché and Joselito as a favorite of the aristocracy , the bourgeoisie and the cattlemen. "In the end, El Gallo is more of the people than Belmonte.
The difference is that Belmonte ends up being an aristocrat
." It is a time when football did not exist, where "they capitalized everything," Aguado continues, "like
Messi
and
Cristiano
today."
On April 8, 1962, the circle was closed with the same noise they made in life.
It was the afternoon that after tempting, harassing and demolishing his farm,
Juan Belmonte glimpsed his moment.
He did not want to turn 70, impossible to tie José.
There are those who always heard that he did it because he no longer got on the horse.
Andrés Martínez de León, a friend, left his epitaph written in a letter: "Did he want the bull to kill him? At dusk, almost at two lights, at
'Belmonte time'
, he locked himself in his office, started the purr of the small motor that gives light to the farmhouse
and he shot himself
"
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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