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Sports coverage for the week of 5/14/10


Latest Bullfighting Injury Spurs Debate
By Grey Sports


The recent spectacular footage of a bullfighter being gored in the groin has once more fuelled calls for the sport to be banned.
Frequently called barbaric, anachronistic, and a waste of good pork, bullfighting has seen a recent resurgence in popularity in Spain and Mexico, as well as other Latin nations. Tradition, masculinity and the declining economic conditions spurring interest in alternative forms of entertainment have seen a return to the former spectacle.
Armed only with swords, a red cape and an outfit that would make Liberace vomit lone men stand their ground against charging animals, dancing around them until the bull collapses, or the fighter is horribly injured.
Some would at least like to see the bull’s horns blunted, however studies indicate this may lead to worse wounds rather than increasing safety.
Once it was a matter of whether or not the sport was humane. Now the argument has risen that the poor creatures need to be better armed.
Matador protectionists want the humans fully outfitted in high impact armour, with particular attention paid to the genitals (the bull’s favourite target) and the appendix.
The utter lack of anatomical understanding aside most have objected to this as it takes too much away from the life at risk aspect of the popular past time. Much like boxing, NASCAR racing and teen beauty pageants the audience is drawn in by the scent of blood and the distinct possibility that someone or something dies.
Bull allies have shot back that this is blatantly unfair to a nominally unarmed animal whose only crime is being lead into a ring by humans and being slightly killcrazy.
This does not mean they object to basic protection of the matador, instead they wish to see the naked bull clothed in something at least as gaudy, and possibly sporting a turret mounted light assault weapon.
While this may sound like overkill the matador can be give sunglasses to negate the glare of the clothing, and bulls notoriously undershoot.
There have been suggestions of using teams, either of bulls or matadors, however that has been largely shot down as the sport is intended as an honourable duel between man and beast, and only the most cunning and vicious of creatures should be faced with a team, as the Chinese penguin pit fights and Scottish sheep trials prove.
Of course through all of this no one has really bothered to ask either the bulls or the matadors for their opinions, and the recent appointment of several lawyers as spokespeople for the bulls has rendered that section fairly quiet.
On the other hand matadors are sworn to secrecy over the matter, lest their lips be as sewn together as their scrotum.

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