Damián Castaño contributes to an unjustified bullfighting hype in Bilbao.

Damián Castaño's determination to showcase the two bulls in his group, both in the lances and in the long cites, earned him the only ear of the afternoon and greatly contributed to increasing the preconceived enthusiasm for bullfighting that was experienced this Tuesday at the Bilbao fair, with the fight of a spectacular and deceptive corrida from local breeder Dolores Aguirre.

Thanks to the Salamanca-born bullfighter's determination, the first bull of the afternoon was even awarded a more than generous lap of the ring during the dragging process. This bull was the lightest and the culmination of a large, tall, and very seriously built pack of bulls, which almost always refused to accept the tricks with minimal commitment, even though its punctual mobility was taken for true breed.

And that was precisely what 'Yegüizo', the award-winning bull with the blue and yellow insignia, had: a mobility and a promptness that Castaño helped to demonstrate by already putting him at a distance in the three entrances to the picador, to which the red-colored bull came at a walk, without breaking, to allow himself to be hit without further ado and without bleeding too much.

The public watching the bullfight in favor of the work clearly sided with the animal, to which Juan Leal even managed to perform a quite by espaldinas, with the minimum demand in the embroques that his matador also applied in the third of the muleta, when he again gave him a lot of distance in the cites to link him with short and light muletazos with his right hand.

That first stretch of the bullfight didn't require much effort from the Aguirre native, who performed with a touch of temperament and a certain transmission. But it was a different story when, with his momentum now lacking, Castaño tried to force him to lengthen his passes, to which he responded with a classless, swaying lunge before falling swiftly from a falling thrust that preceded the reward for both protagonists.

Castaño repeated the formula with the fourth, which, to compensate, was a loose-bodied but very serious bull, standing tall and always with its horns in the air, not showing any effort at all in the face of the tricks. Three more puyazos, from which it emerged unhinged, allowed it to forcefully approach the Charro matador's long cites, although each time it fell shorter.

Castaño warmed up again with his swift, short passes in the opening stages, those of inertia, only to run into some trouble when the bull, bouncing, stopped responding equally to so much skill, and then failed with the sword in two encounters, from which he also injured his right wrist.

There was no further reason for the bullfighting euphoria to be unleashed again by the Bilbao fans, even though there were those who insisted on applauding and cheering on this only apparent caste , and on disdaining and even whistling the efforts of the bullfighters, such as the one made, with great firmness, by the Frenchman Juan Leal with the two of his lot.

The second, a bull without a finish in the hindquarters and that showed its meekness by constantly turning its rump, was tenaciously harassed by Leal in the pigpen grounds , denying it escape in the short distance despite the temperament it developed when being harassed, only to later see his brave work with the steel diminished, with Aguirre's work now shaving the boards.

The Frenchman also endured the hesitant exit of the fifth bull in the portagayola greeting, which declared itself tame in the varas and refused to accept, with constant headbutts, another persistent effort from its matador for which no one in the stands thanked him either.

For his part, Jesús Enrique Colombo had already made the effort to return to Bilbao, and with this bullfight, just three weeks after suffering a fracture of the ulna and radius of his left arm, only to leave almost booed by the vehement supporters of the ranch.

The Venezuelan struggled greatly to place banderillas on the third, a monster that darted from side to side and measured the position with the muleta until he hurt his left hand . However, he did manage to show off with the sticks against the sixth, which forced his team into another laborious struggle. The latter didn't give him many options with the muleta either, once he became violent and gave up when he forced it with the muleta at the start of an insistent but futile move, amidst the background criticisms of the "toristas."

CELEBRATION DETAILS:

Six bulls from Dolores Aguirre, with volume and height, and very serious in the heads, although uneven in their finish and build. Generally tame, with apparent mobility and lacking commitment, they were lax and, as the fight progressed, refused to charge. The first, 'Yegüizo', a red-faced man weighing 548 kilos, who performed well on horseback and came quickly to the cites, although without finishing his runs, was generously rewarded with a return to the ring after being dragged out.

Damián Castaño, in white and silver: front thrust (ear); two punctures (ovation).

Juan Leal, in light blue and gold: a forward thrust, two stabs, and eight descabellos (silence after two warnings); a deep, detached thrust, and four descabellos (silence).

Jesús Enrique Colombo, of Tobacco and Gold: a downward thrust (silence); a cross-thrust sword thrust and four descabellos (silence).

The second bullfight of the Bilbao Corridas Generales season, with a quarter of the capacity covered (around 3,500 spectators), on a cloudy and cool afternoon.