Bulls in Las Ventas: Cristian Pérez touches the Puerta Grande before a tough herd in Madrid | Culture

The right-handed bull from Albacete Cristian Pérez, who cut off an ear from his first bull and went around the ring in the fifth, brushed the exit on his shoulders through the Puerta Grande in the celebration held on Saturday night in Las Ventas, in which he raffled off a lot of Valdefresno of tough tameness before which he made a notable and meritorious effort.

After he was seriously injured in this same arena on March 29, when he also showed great dedication, Pérez was received with a great ovation by the Las Ventas crowd, which was no longer as wild as the one in San Isidro on this Saturday, when the bullfight was brought forward so as not to coincide with Spain’s match this afternoon at the Soccer World Cup.

And with that spirit, the bullfighter from Hellín made up for that bad experience with a performance in which he put absolutely all the dedication that his gentle and tough batch of bulls from Valdefresno lacked, the second of which was on the verge of spilling its blood again on the Madrid sand.

In fact, Cristian Pérez was one step away from leaving on his shoulders, once he had cut off the ear of the second in the bullfight, a very long bull with a long neck that he never used to take him down after the tricks. Without any class, almost always overwhelming in the first thirds, as he did when he knocked down the matador in a takeover through saltilleras, the man from Valdefrenso did not make it easy for him. But that did not matter to the man from La Mancha, who opposed the animal’s bad style with an iron will, which always tended to hook his crutch in a task in which he ended up breaking into boards. And it was right there where Pérez knocked him upside down with a great thrust, with a devastating effect, which alone was worth the trophy.

The fifth, big and uphill, did not give any advantages either. Because even though he was well stung, he retained his strong temper in an opening of the task in which Pérez was overwhelmed to the point that the man from Valdefresno caught him in a dry somersault that left him defenseless on the sand. When he was taken to the infirmary, a worrying feeling ran through the floor, which was soon cleared up when, just three minutes later, the man from Albacete returned to the ring to, now without a jacket, face such a tough man again with even greater determination and dedication, even going so far as to link his passes and decorate himself on the boards where the horned man wanted to take refuge.

But a couple of punctures left everything in a loving return to the ring and not in the trophy that would have opened the threshold to Alcalá Street.

With another batch of bulls, the Mexican Juan Pablo Sánchez performed with great skill and bullfighting, making good work a declaration of intent to get even more than what his bulls offered him. To his first, a weak patch from Couto de Fornihos, he linked with firmness and nerve two good rounds of right hands, tempering his initial violence, but without the horned Portuguese finishing thanking him, with subsequent and constant defensive headbutts. And in the same sound, the one from Aguascalientes was seen in front of the fourth, a more determined but very horny exemplary of Valdefresno who ended up suffering from his constant government, in a tenacious task and above the circumstances.

For his part, Alejandro Peñaranda had to shorten it with a third, tall and battered, already cracked since his exit into the ring and decomposed when it was time to kill, only that luck “compensated” him with a sixth of Couto’s spectacular pythons that at least allowed himself to be done and who took the deceptions without great class, but with clarity.

The young bullfighter from La Mancha tied the first rounds of muletazos with his seat in a move that gradually lost connection with the line to the same extent that the donkey lost depth, although it still gave Peñaranda time to leave some well-cut details.