The New Aficion

Iron Mike, Punchy and the rest of the gang back at Stillman's Gym will never believe it, but Willie the Weep McGinnity has become a bullfighting fan. It is only a month or so since Myra, Willie's old lady, dragged him off to Spain ("Willie," she said, "you hit the twin double for four big ones and you expect me to go to the Catskills again?"), but already he has seen three bullfights. The first time Willie went because Myra was out shopping, and it was the only wheel in Madrid. When he got back to the hotel, he was still laughing so hard he had to lie down for ten minutes before he could even tell Myra about it. "Myra," he said, tears running down his cheeks, "I haven't seen anything so funny since the night Gypsy Jack Ramos forgot to wear his shorts into the ring at Sunny-side Gardens."

What happened was that this guy they call El Cordobes, who is the bullfighting champion of Spain, sort of a Sugar Ray Robinson-type with flashy clothes and cars and goodness knows how many mill in the bank, was out there doing a fancy two-step with this bull about the size of a Volkswagen, when all of a sudden another guy climbed into the ring. His name was Miguelin; he was a rank contender, but he thought he ought to be champ. So what did Miguelin do? He strolled up to El Cordobes' bull, put one hand on its shoulder, another on its rear end, and spun it right around in a circle. Then he kissed the bull on the nose and strutted off. "Boy," Willie told Myra, "anyone can cow those bulls."

Now that he knew bullfights were fixed, just like prizefights, Willie figured he was onto a good thing. The next week he was in the stands when Miguelin tackled a big bull with an unpronounceable name--and he laid some fan at ringside 5 1/2 to 7 1/2 that unpronounceable would take a dive. Willie collected when a fan ran out, pulled the bull's tail, and the beast just stood there looking silly. Miguelin polished the bull off as fast as he could and headed for the exit, ducking shrapnel from the stands.

By this time Willie was fast becoming a real aficionado, which is what they call the smart money in Spain. He bought a new book called Or I'll Dress You in Mourning, a biography of El Cordobes, by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, who also wrote Is Paris Burning? (a proposition on which Willie would lay even money at the moment). At night, while Myra was washing her hair, Willie read about how El Cordobes, born Manuel Benitez, now 32, got to be champ--fighting 133 bulls in a single summer, a lot of them bums that even Rocky Marciano would have been ashamed to face. Some were purposely starved to make them weak. Others had sandbags dropped on their backs before the fight. Still others had their horns shaved down so that they lost their sense of distance and pulled their punches.

Finally Willie was ready to make his big estocada (killing). Converting his traveler's checks, he headed for Madrid's annual "Benefit Bullfight," where El Cordobes was scheduled to face two bulls. Betting on first-round knockdowns, Willie collected a bundle. The first bull was so weak that his knees buckled as soon as he spotted the champ's cape. The second was obviously in the tank; he stuck his head in the sand and calmly awaited the knockout. While the oldtime aficionados in the stands whistled El Cordobes out of the ring, Willie stood there happily, waving his big fist full of pesetas and yelling: "Give him the ears! Give him the tail! Give him two tails yet!"

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