Bullfighting in Toledo is in luck. The province has a new hope among its bullfighters. Last Sunday, September 15, Jorge Molina de Torrije joined the list after being one of the most promising novilleros of the picadors in recent years. However, He was the leader in the 2023 rankings with 26 celebrations and has fought 64 since his debut with the horses. (This year there have been seven in Texcoco -Mexico-, Madrid, Cutervo -Peru-, El Casar, El Álamo, Trillo and Calasparra). Winner of the “Golden Potter” of Villaseca de la Sagra in 2022 (and the “Silver Potter” in 2017), Molina has had serious afternoons in Madrid, Málaga or Almería. With a classicist conception, mastered and even manipulated in the verticality that gives her stature, she has won victories based on triumphs, without breeding or economic influences behind her. Only desire and effort to achieve that dream of being a bullfighter.
Luck was on his side on Sunday in Madridejos, where managed to remove the ears of the sixth bull of Alcurrucénthe worst, in a task of effort and a bullfighter made to open the big door with Morenito de Aranda and Álvaro Lorenzo. “As soon as I got up I felt comfortable, I enjoyed the day and I knew that everything was going to go well. When I put on the costume and arrived at the square, I saw the atmosphere and the people eager to see the bullfighting, I was convinced and, in the end, everything went as you dream,” he says. An afternoon with a varied and difficult bullfight in Alcurrucén from which he emerged victorious with great ease and skill. “In front of the bull’s mouth, everything flowed. I found myself very cowardly; It seems like one of those afternoons where everything goes well for you. It was not an easy fight and the negative point was that I did not cut off the ear of the first one with the sword, but I am left with emotion and I have fulfilled my dream,” he adds.
“Right now I’m living in a dream. I remember being in the Plaza de Torrijos, bringing my cape and my muleta and playing bullfighting, dreaming of being a matador. And the fact that I’ve achieved it now makes me think that it was worth it because I did it all with the love and enthusiasm of the first day. I’m very proud of having shown that I could do it, for my family and for the effort they made for me. I especially remember my grandfather; I’m sure that if I were alive at that time, I would be the happiest person in the world,” he admits.
“I was born to earn things little by little, and that’s how it’s going to be”
The path to the alternative was not easy. The whole season was spent waiting for the venue for a ceremony for which there were great projects on the table, but fate and the offices, so capricious, decided that in the end it was the Plaza de Madridejos that was chosen. “At first I was upset because the first attempts at an alternative in Madrid, Toledo or Santander had not worked, but when they told me that Morenito could give it to me, and even more so with the relationship I have with him, for me it was already something important. Although he is not a great figure in bullfighting at the moment, he is a bullfighter who has achieved important things. And the poster, also with Álvaro and with Alcurrucén, who has been a fundamental house in my career, I liked a lot,” he says.
Regarding the fact that it was in Madridejos and not in a more prestigious place, Molina responds: “It may not be the most attractive, but look at the case of Talavante, who did it in Cehegín and is today an undisputed figure. in almost all the fairs of the season, or Paco Ureña in Lorca and there he is, up there with all the characters. So it is something indifferent.”
The future is undoubtedly in Madrid, where “I would like to be able to confirm next season, of course. Although I have had a long career as a bullfighter, I think my stronghold has been Madrid, triumphs aside. I was clear that I wanted to be in Madrid before the alternative, that people see me to be able to take references from me beyond knowing that the “Potter” of Villaseca had won. I went to San Isidro in 2023 with the mentality that something had to happen and then I had the chance to fight four more afternoons, some of them very important. But Madrid does not do everything. There is Álvaro Alarcón or García Pulido, from Toledo who also had their bullfighting atmosphere, went to Madrid with a poster of maximum luxury and then the companies forgot them.
In any case, Molina, now that he is a matador, will try to remain firm in his convictions: “I don’t want to become a triumphalist bullfighter, I want to carry my seal and my concept as a flag. I consider myself a bullfighter who takes care of the details and follows a model of classicism and aplomb in his bullfighting, which has fulfilled me since I was little. It is the philosophy and bullfighting that brought me here and it is what has opened up spaces for me since the day I started. In addition, I feel that I was born to earn things little by little, and that’s how it’s going to be.“.
