The bullfighter Rodolfo Rodriguez, known as “El Pana”, has died from injuries he sustained in the ring a month ago, ending the longest career in Mexican bullfighting. El Pana, so called because he was once a baker (panadero), was 64 when he fought his last bull – ironically named Pan francés – on 2 May in the plaza Durango in Mexico.
The bull, catching him off guard, gored him and then threw him into the air. The injuries left him unable to move and barely able to speak, and Rodriguez is said to have asked doctors to allow him to die so that he did not have to live with tetraplegia.
Born in Mexico, El Pana had no bullfighting pedigree. His father, a police officer, was murdered, and El Pana held a variety of jobs, among them a gravedigger. He rose from his humble beginnings to become a larger-than-life character much loved beyond bullfighting circles.
In a world circumscribed by ritual and tradition, El Pana was an iconoclast who liked to arrive in the ring in a pink carriage, his hair tied back in a long ponytail, and smoking an immense Havana cigar. For all this, he was derided by purists, who laughed at his fake Andalusian accent and extravagant gestures and excluded him from the most prestigious events. His life was chaotic, he had problems with alcohol, and spent more than one night in jail.
El País described Rodriguez as “a bullfighter out of hunger, not for glory”, while El Mundo called him “bullfighting’s last bohemian”.
El Pana himself said: “I come from an epoch when you became a bullfighter in order to be successful and buy your mother a house. Now young guys want to sell their mother’s house in order to become toreros.”
El Pana often said he wanted to die like El Manolete, the legendary Spanish torero who died in the ring in 1947. Instead he died in a Guadalajara hospital bed, surrounded by his family on Friday morning.
