Bullfight on TV brings protests

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32634, 16 June 1971, Page 11

Bullfight on TV brings protests

riV.Z. Press A«»n.—Copyright) NEW YORK, June 15. Three brave men fought and killed six brave bulls for closed circuit television audiences throughout the world yesterday, but their efforts drew almost as many protests from animal protection groups as “oles” from the fans. Demonstrators picketed Madison Square Garden, focal point in the United States for the first such presentation of a bullfight, and similar protests were made in other United States cities where it was shown. In West Germany, an animal protection society won a court order cancelling its showing. As expected, most of the "ole’s” were for Manuel Benitez “El Cordobes,” Spain’s most popular bullfighter and the highest-paid athlete in the world, with an estimated annual income of SUS2.Sm. El Cordobes cut a total of four ears from the two bulls he fought in Jaen, Spain, throwing back the tail he also had been granted from the second because he felt that he had not deserved it. He needed three attempts With the sword to kill each of

Hs bulls, and tails are not to be awarded for such sword work.

Santiago Martin “El Viti” was awarded two ears and the tail from his first bull but earned nothing from the second because he failed with the sword and had to kill it with the descabello, a long dagger with which the bull’s spinal cord is severed.

Jose Fuentes, the third matador, cut two ears from his first bull and one from the second. Rarely are nine ears and a tail awarded in a single bullfight, so in that respect the sponsoring Management Television Systems Inc. M.T.S.) could consider it a successful presentation. The bullfight even had an “espontaneo,” or “spontaneous one,” who jumped into the ring with a cape while El Cordobes was fighting his first bull. The youth managed one reasonably good pass before El Cordobes’s assistants grabbed him and turned him over to police. By law, the "espontaneo” must serve two days in gaol and is banned from any opportunity to fight bulls for two years. Although there was no doubt the fight was an artistic success, the turn-out at Madison Square Garden, at least, raised a question about its (financial return.