Morante and Morante: A Legend and a Myth

Originally written 25 July 2026...and rejected by every Spanish bullfighting publication

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"No real man could work as close to the bulls as Belmonte was supposed to have dinner, not, of course, even Belmonte." - Ernest Hemingway, Fiesta, 1926

When Morante de la Puebla hit the ground during last year's Feria de Otoño, I saw what many others did. As he recovered from a tough cogida, Morante's face revealed a man suddenly realising he was an old man in a young man's profession. At forty-five years old, the hits, cogidas, and cornadas hit harder and took longer to heal than they did ten years before. After two years of particularly difficult medical encounters, Morante made the difficult, honourable decision to retire as a bullfighting legend.

Just a few months later, Morante unretired, much to the delight of his fans. But was that a prudent decision? Medical concerns aside, Morante now had a new competitor in the ring and the newspapers: his own legend. Could he live up to the mythology that surrounded his legacy?

His performances in Sevilla earlier this year left the question open, with one granting him the Puerta del Princípe, but only after another saw him gored so badly that he couldn't eat solid foods. Pamplona cast doubt upon his return as well, though this was in part because of the lacklustre lot he drew. Even so, the bullfighting papers lauded his mastery of the cape, so much so that I had to wonder if they had seen the same performance as me. I certainly hadn't seen the mastery I was expecting from a legend of bullfighting lore.

Morante's performances last week in Santander suggested, rather completely, that his legend outshined his return. His first bull tore the capote from his hands with ease before the puyazo, and before he could regain control of the tercio, his picador was nearly shoved over the barrera. A single instance might have been excusable, but his muleta was repeatedly caught on the horns. To be sure, the horns were short and the bull thrashed them to catch its prey, but moderating the muleta just in front of them was what made the arte del toreo art. His successors, the artistic Juan Ortega and daring Víctor Hernández, faced the same challenges, yet had no such trouble as each earned ears to fill Morante's silence.

Morante's second faena brought much of the same, with the matador nearly losing his capote to the bull while performing chicuelinas. While his work with the muleta was better, several catches on the horn threatened to withhold victory from his grasp. A pinchazo from the first and a long wait in the second sealed away his triumph.

Morante's encounter with bulls from Juan Pedro Domecq a few days later promised to provide the stage needed to prove he was mightier than a myth. Yet again, Morante allowed the bulls catch his capes with the horns time and again. And, in a display of premature triumph in the tercio de varas, he nearly received a cogida from behind as his capote was torn from his hands. While I must applaud his technical skill with the muleta, especially in a third faena resulting from another bullfighter’s cornada, his heavy reliance on derechazos kept him out of any true danger. Poor estocadas throughout the evening, the most essential skill of bullfighting, kept victory from his grasp while Marco Pérez and Aarón Palacio, both 28 years Morante's junior, departed with trophies in hand. 

Morante himself seem to understand something had changed in his too-few months of retirement. When returning to the barrera in Cuatro Caminos, whether to change his capes, his swords, or to reset his passes, Morante shook his head with a smirk as if to say, "I just can't catch a break!" That may be true, but it wasn't from the bulls. It was his from own legend. Not even Morante could compete with Morante. Like Hemingway's Belmonte, Morante's is a legend best left to the mythology of bullfighting lore.

Originally written 25 July 2026...and rejected by every Spanish bullfighting publication