The rancher Javier Núñez himself warned him in the previous ones, that the bar for 2022 had been set too high -Feria del Toro prize-, that the effort would become very difficult, a mountain pass like Alpe d’Huez, tremendous to attack it, In addition, with the first bullfight at La Palmosilla this season. And what was feared happened not by default but fundamentally by excess: the tremendous preparation of the bulls -serious and from Pamplona ahead, all of them, different types- of Tarifa gave a bullfight in which the physical background prevailed over the authentic background of bravery. That was missed, because it also entails delivery. That humiliation, the style, the qualities and the wickers that came to claim fifth and sixth without finishing off. A global spectacle that brought the group closer to the athletic bullfight of 2019 than to the excellent one of 22. I explain it bull by bull, qualifying especially for the latter, so that they do not choke at once. The bullfighters who came out on their shoulders last year, the three, Rafaelillo, Manuel Escribano and Valadez, marched on their own feet, losing effort and results with the sword. It would have given polish to La Palmosilla, which will continue, for sure, in the heart of Pamplona.
The bullfight was inaugurated by a brazen chestnut bull that slipped from behind, wearing the cloth on its tremendous horn. He hardly humiliated even in the long knee changes with which Rafaelillo received him, letting go of his face as a pattern of his onslaught. He marked it on the horse making a sound in the stirrup, protesting, and continued in that tonic. The Murcian veteran played with inertia, in the middle distance, to take advantage of that mobility without drive or malice. Without them, without the inertia, I mean, he did not get out of the crutch, always by the toothpick. Nothing happened to majors, resolved the match with an effective sword blow.
That very prepared bull thing in the field was also brought out by the forward and loose second, both on the outside and, above all, on the inside. A physical fund that replaced the true fund of the bull, which is the brave fund. He did not stop throughout the fight, with his leash. Without ever finishing picking up and, therefore, without delivery. Manuel Escribano, who went to porta gayola, did everything for him in all the tercios -also in banderillas- with commendable and seasoned professionalism. He even got to entangle him in the crutch. I want to say that in other hands another bull would have been seen, more difficult, that way of replacing by making thread. He didn’t kill him, or he killed him last, and the effort, also very physical, as well as mental, faded.
The common denominator of the bullfight was that, its excessive preparation, more to run than to charge, a show of tremendous mobility. And the third, who harmonized face to face, herded an outrage with whiplash and edges of genius. Quite for Pamplona but even in Pamplona delivery is needed. Leo Valadez entered an open grave, with all his heart, in the give and take, conceding stratospheric headbutts at the beginning of the game. His interventions with the cape – already in the Escribano bull for Navarrese and now for zapopinas – drew attention. The battle of the Mexican -pim, pam, pum- ended by ballet flats on his knees. And a downer that did not pass the filter even because of its effectiveness.
Rafaelillo went unnoticed despite all his winks with the imposing body of the fourth, the snack bull, which closed the turn of cinqueños (2nd, 3rd and 4th). He aimed more than he developed, but a turn for the better began over him among so much mobility. In the mode of placing the face even if he did not finish leaving. That, the way to pick up, was marked more clearly by the fifth. That he had two first batches of remarkable travel, falling asleep afterwards. Manuel Escribano, again at the gayola port, again at the top, very brave but uneven with the sticks, long in the footage, despaired with his sword. That he pushed him to the cliff of warnings and not of triumph.