A great bullfight without a sword by Miguel Ángel Perera in Santander

A great bullfight without a sword by Miguel Ángel Perera A notable bull -the best- from La Quinta was not enough to save either the bullfight or a show that promised to be a happy one in the duel with another bullfighter in a state of grace: Daniel Luque. The Santacolomas, rather than war, gave work with their reluctance. And it is no consolation to think that Luque also lost another ear to the steel after his solvency: the boredom was colossal.

A minute of silence for Pepe Luis Vázquez Silva had honoured his memory. Certainly, it was not just one, but two minutes of mourning that were respected: before the parade – things you will see – and after the Anthem that is heard every evening in Cuatro Caminos, and that yesterday clumsily slipped into an inappropriate place, since before it should have been the minute for Pepe Luis and not the other way around. The important thing: the memory.

The first round Among the contenders, the wine was marked, or rather watered down, by the behaviour of the first two bulls from La Quinta, which showed little humiliation but measured effort. For a couple of guys who are considered powerful, the fact of using their bullfighting tricks to give the bull heat was relatively easy, but let’s say it was inconsequential. Perera and Luque agreed in finding the point of greatest brilliance with their respective left-handed swords of different styles. Daniel, by the way, silenced the band as if that gave more solemnity or importance to his bullfighting. The Extremaduran went too far with the sword -what an unfortunate afternoon- while the Sevillian buried it above. They reaped the same balance in the end. The most exciting moment, unfortunately, had happened when the banderillero Juan Contreras was caught at the exit of a pair. He escaped unscathed, only with his taleguilla torn. The bulls were dragged away without honour. The bullfight would grow in trapío.

Miguel Angel Perera revealed the mettle of his capeso well played with his arms and flown with the veronica. Both in the greeting and in the quite, Perera bullfought with rhythm and rhythm. Those brilliances did not pass to the muleta due to a formidable dullness of the Santacoloma. Offered to Bonifacio Movellán, owner of the famous restaurant La Bombi, his death acquired the same relevance as his charge: none. All of Perera’s eagerness to give it rhythm, zeal and life did not rise. The stab in the soft heels passed him by without any news of bravery.

That dying kindness The situation changed with the appearance of the well-rounded fourth, which hid a greater transmission and some hidden edges in its cellar. The technical prodigy that is Luque enhanced virtues and smoothed out defects. He was breaking it, passing it, doing it, as they say, without getting bored. Until he decided to pull the luquecinas out of the hat to seduce the public now more than the bull. A puncture reduced the reward to an ovation (after a warning).

Miguel Ángel Perera turned the situation and the mood around with the fifth, which came to fulfill the saying. You know: there is no bad fifth. His good pace at the start announced a certain class, the clarity of the humiliation and his way of giving himself, especially with his left hand. That was where Perera deepened his bullfighting in a growing, very rounded and not a little long faena, as his right worked in order to give the bull the final moments of the journey and the final zeal. The natives flowed categoricallyresounding -one at the end of the work, already drawing, superlative-. Everything had acquired the rhythm of triumph. And MAP wanted to secure it with some very tight bernadinas. It was already done. But the sword that is taking away so much from the extraordinary moment of these last two seasons failed him badly again. A misfortune as big as the door he lost.

The last bull was not liked, and was protested, just as the bullfight at La Quinta in general was not liked. A Biblical Boredom. Once again Daniel Luque was betting on soaking it, tying it, putting it in the muleta, with his timing and his waits. A bullfight in search of the breed that did not appear. A sword thrust and a farewell ovation.