04/19/24
April 25, 2004
When you mess with the bull: Spanish matador Salvador Vega suffered a gruesome injury in a bullfight this weekend, as reported in the international press (more gore). ¿Es la tauromaquia un deporte?
Word up, vito90.
posted by dusted at 01:02 PM on April 25, 2004
Excellent.
posted by squealy at 02:37 PM on April 25, 2004
I wonder if I would've gotten my ass whipped at the stadium for standing up and applauding the bull. Viva el toro!
posted by wfrazerjr at 03:46 PM on April 25, 2004
I am open to be convinced that a good matador goring is not something that the punters wanna see from time to time.
posted by gspm at 04:47 PM on April 25, 2004
Whenever someone mentions bull fighting, I think of the 'Story of the Eye.' Also, wait vito said.
posted by jasonspaceman at 06:39 PM on April 25, 2004
I won't prentend to know the first thing about the culture of bullfighting - its not my tradition. Seems to me that taking pleasure in the injury of Vega makes the 'sports' owners, employees and fans exempt.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 09:01 PM on April 25, 2004
Olé! Hope he dies from it. Slowly. With swords sticking out his back.
posted by JJ at 04:30 AM on April 26, 2004
I love steak.
posted by dzot at 08:17 AM on April 26, 2004
It's good to know that Babelfish is there to help us non spanish-readers: Rescuing Fertile valley today obtained a full and important triumph, simultaneously that one burdens cornada at the time of killing the sixth bull of afternoon in the beneficial bullfight celebrated in the Spanish city of Zaragoza with reason the festividad for San Jorge, pattern of the region of Aragón. Five bulls of Domingo fought themselves Hernandez and one of Garcigrande in fifth place, right of presentation and good game in general all, except first and quarter. Javier Count: Silence after warning and silence. Jesus Millán: palms and ovación after warning. Rescuing Fertile valley (substitute of Morante of the Puebla): an ear and two ears. The seat registered almost three quarters of entrance. Rescuing Fertile valley as much harvested an important triumph in its first bull as the second of its lot, that caught to him at the time of entering to kill. It embroidered in first of his lot and left on white the authentic posters of bulls with natural rights and, before an animal that had its distance to attack and to that it understood perfectly. The end of the task by low was everything a luxury, although soon only it cut an ear to have punctured. In that it closed seat began the muleta task giving right in the subject of gossip of the seat, soon to follow with three natural series of of high flights and continuing with a end to frame of helped by high trincherazos and you happen of the scorn. He was taken when entering to kill after leaving a thrust and his group walked the two gained ears of the bull to law, while the bullfigther was taken care of in the infirmary of cornada of serious prognosis of which, according to the doctors, will take like minimum a month in recovering. According to the medical report, the matador suffers "herida by spear of bull in base of the triangle escarps right with orifice of entrance of ten centimeters and three trayectorias". One of them is inferior of 24 centimeters, "que dries the femorales glasses, and the nerve crural"; external other "también inferior of 15 centímetros" and third he is "superoexterna that arrives at the thorn ilíaca", it adds the part. On the other hand, in the seat Javier Count one was with a protested disabled person that it opened seat and that it must be given back to the corrals. The public got upset and Count tried to goad, although very taken off and without arriving too much at the layings. With fifth, which also it was protested by the púbico, not complicó the life in one short work. Jesus Millán was with astado that when took it goaded it attacked well. Spirited and he was varied with the cape and he obtained applauded loose muletazos, specially to the natural one. Fifth he let himself goad, but Millán was placed outside piece and there was no understanding. I think I understood more of the Spanish version. Anyone care to give a quick summary?
posted by Bernreuther at 08:40 AM on April 26, 2004
The bull won. Then they killed it. Probably.
posted by JJ at 08:58 AM on April 26, 2004
this reads like a pretty standard college paper, actually
posted by smithers at 10:28 AM on April 26, 2004
Between this post and the one with the wrestler getting his eye poked out, rcade definitely is in the early running for most gruesome SpoFi posts, 2004 edition. Now I'm just waiting for the top-secret photos of Mike Tyson devouring Lennox Lewis' children.
posted by holden at 10:37 AM on April 26, 2004
Should I start a thread with some Malarchuk photos?
posted by mkn at 11:40 AM on April 26, 2004
Yeah, go for it, mkn. I haven't seen a streaming-jugular shot in days, and I'm jonesing. Okay. At the risk of defending the guy, it's obvious that none of us grew up in the culture there. The people who engage in and support bullfighting are for the most part otherwise rational, smart people, who just happen to do or watch something we see as horrifying and barbaric. I'm not saying it isn't, but you all are filtering bullfighting through a rather different value system than the one they use there. It's easy to point at people and say, That's Wrong, How Backward, How Evil of the Matador, Good On The Bull. But there's a reason bullfighting is still popular, even if it's on the wane, even there. It's at most a half-step below, oh, horse racing (or Jerry Springer, for that matter). I empathize with the bull too much to watch it too, but I just can't justify being that high and mighty about hating it.
posted by chicobangs at 11:57 AM on April 26, 2004
While I was visiting China a couple of years ago, I managed to see a broadcast of a bullfight. I guess I knew intellectually that they were gruesome, but I really had no idea. If the one I saw was representative, the bull does not die a fast death. The "flags" are basically designed to force the bull to bleed to death slowly over the course of the event so that he is weak enough to approach and kill with one stroke of the sword. This final stroke is also not a "drop dead instantly" sort of thing. The bull stumbles about a while longer before finally collapsing. That the matador maintains a sense of poise and dignity throughout this only, in my mind, added to the grotesqueness of the whole event. Like a dancer or a circus acrobat, they do things that are athletic, but to call them an athelete is a bit of stretch. More like a slaughter dancer or something. That all being said, being gored is clearly an occupational hazard of being a matador, just as dying in a crash is an occupational hazard or racing or dementia puglisia is an occupational hazard of boxing. While I certainly empathize with the pain and horror of being gored, Vega entered the ring fully aware that this could happen to him. The bull, on the other hand, just thought that he was going for a bit of a run - as others have mentioned. Anyhow, if all matadors were required to take one to the crotch, it might go a long way towards ending this sport, so we can go back to slaughtering bulls in nice pristine factories with whirling blades. I mean, at least we don't have to see that.
posted by Joey Michaels at 01:50 PM on April 26, 2004
People talking like they know this bull. Like he was just a vicitm. Frankly, I wonder - what if this bull was a total asshole? What if he beat his kids? Or slept around a lot? He knew what he was getting into.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 02:14 PM on April 26, 2004
chicobangs, I understand where you're coming from and sympathize with the cultural argument. But cockfighting has a long and storied tradition in some cultures as well. Maybe even dogfighting? (but I'm not sure about that one) I remember a bullfighting thread once before where somebody posted a story about a gruesome "game" where an animal of some sort was ripped to pieces by bare hands. Normally I'm not one to indict other cultures for their own traditions...but I have to call a spade a spade in this case and say that bullfighting is sick and wrong.
posted by vito90 at 02:57 PM on April 26, 2004
It wasn't bullfighting, it was running with the bulls...
posted by vito90 at 02:57 PM on April 26, 2004
Again, I'm not justifying or defending it. I find bullfights revolting too. (Hemingway's remains do not approve of our collective unmacho attitude, I have no doubt.) And I'm not saying it shouldn't be outlawed. (Which is apparently happening; It's illegal in Barcelona already, and most of the rest of what used to be the center of bullfighting for the world can't be all that far behind. Much like cockfighting in the southern States & Mexico; officially illegal and consigned to back alleys and ever-fading obscurity.) I was just saying it seems not-quite-right to stand on a high chair and point the finger of shame at people because of an old habit they're only now learning to break.
posted by chicobangs at 03:05 PM on April 26, 2004
Only one of the two living beings in that ring had the choice to be there, and the bull was literally fighting for his life. As for the gored bullfighter, not even the pictures of his pain and anguish make me feel one tiny iota of sympathy for him. Fuck him, and fuck his fellow bullfighters, and fuck that so-called sport.