Regarding the clash between Morante and Roca Rey due to the inappropriateness of a pass: other fights, but for real, in the bullring

Fights in the ring are nothing new. There have been some, but genuine ones, not recriminations over the inappropriateness of a pass, over the years, in different eras. The case between Morante de la Puebla and Roca Rey in El Puerto is a schoolyard argument compared to the slaps exchanged between Paco Camino and Manuel Benítez "El Cordobés" in Aranjuez—on May 1, 1965—or José María Manzanares and El Soro in Valencia 20 years later—on May 12, 1965. And the whole thing was also about a pass. Without even looking at the rules, because that wasn't what it was about. It was about whether it suited the bull or not.

The scene between Camino and El Cordobés occurred when the maestro from Camas intervened as a counter to another of Palma del Río's Ciclón. The ABC report described it this way: "El Cordobés gives some brilliant passes. Paco Camino, making use of a statutory right, goes toward the bull, ready to perform his pass. The bull doesn't charge. Camino takes off his cap and throws it at the animal to excite it. And boy, does it excite itself. Off goes the bull, and Camino gives it four chicuelinas that bring the audience to its feet. An ovation of the kind often called delirious."

The action continued with congratulations for Camino, who performed the chicuelina like no one else, while Benítez continued with his own. The brawl didn't break out until the death of the bull. This was somewhat similar to what happened that night in El Puerto, with the difference that Morante was instrumental in the complexities of the process, achieving unanimous approval from everyone except the president: El Cordobés was heckled. "In this electric atmosphere, El Cordobés begins his faena with the muleta, which, to top it all off, doesn't please the audience, because the bull that seemed good doesn't live up to the predictions and goes downhill. El Cordobés kills. A brawl. As he retreats to the alley, he says a few words to Paco Camino. Those who were nearby assure him that he harshly reprimanded him. From words to actions, in spring, when nerves are not under control, there is only one step. Punches, intervention by those close to him, and the police." This is the story of the ABC piece. The people ultimately sided with Camino, even though they expressed their disapproval of the incident.

The case of Manzanares and El Soro was different. It happened in Valencia when the bullfighter from Foyos unexpectedly pricked his bull, and the Alicante native of infinite class participated in a caper. Soro dismounted, groups and families entered the fray, and the Valencia bullring erupted into a tumultuous brawl, a bar brawl. "Life brought us to blows, but bullfighting in that era was like that, more visceral, nothing was done. For the sake of competition, for a caper, we were capable of anything," El Soro would recall. It was May 12, 1985.

Forty years later, a verbal clash erupted between Morante and Roca Rey over the bullfighting of a difficult bull: "That's done another time, after the second lance, not the fourth. It's not the rule here." To which the Peruvian haughtily replied: "Maestro, smoke a cigar slowly." The fact is that "the personal rivalry," as Zuñiga says, had been going on for a while. This year in Granada, when Roca didn't go out to check the ring with Morante after the storm, and Morante reprimanded him as no one has ever reprimanded him for his delays in the bullring.