A Man's Man's Man's World

Ah, but we do love Mexico - where it's never enough just to be an 11-year-old torero, you've got to be an 11-year-old world-record setting torero.

An 11-year-old Mexican boy has killed six young bulls in a single fight, apparently becoming the world's youngest matador to achieve the feat.

A video of the contest is to be verified by Guinness World Records.

Seriously, we had no idea this was even a category. As you can imagine, everyone and their nanny tried to stop this, but little Michelito had what we thought was a pretty eloquent response: Like, how 'bout you all shut the fuck up?

"The bullfighting opponents shouldn't stick their nose in things they don't like," he said ahead of his record attempt.

"No-one is forcing them to watch bullfights or to keep informed about them. It's as if I told a boy who does motocross not to do it, it's very bothersome."

Awww. You can see the little scamp in action here.

Last weekend we went down to Mexico City to watch a local kid, Octavio "El Payo" Garcia, take his alternativa, which is where he "graduates" from being a novice to a full-fledged bullfighter (thus ensuring that the only way he will ever appear in Querétaro's Plaza Santa Maria again is if he joins Grand Funk Railroad as a backup singer). Our boy was mediocre at best, but that's possibly because his choice of padrino was destined to overshadow him: José Tomás, whose testicular fortitude we've chronicled here many times. Having never (to the best of our recollection) seen him in person, we decided it was worth the road trip. This turned out to be a rather unoriginal idea, and we were amazed to find Plaza Mexico - the largest bullring in the world, considerably bigger than Fenway Park - sold out. Luckily, we quickly met up with the world's worst scalper, who sold us a decent ticket at face value. Tomás more than lived up to the hype, as you can see in this (bloodless, vegetarian-friendly) compilation:

It's easy to see how he keeps getting gored in the cojones; we've had lap dances that were conducted at a greater remove. Unfortunately for the bulls, they wind up breaking a horn on his enormous, clanking brass balls. Tomás does all this without a hint of showmanship or flash.

The same couldn't be said for the other big name on the bill, Mexico's Arturo Macías, but we'll forgive him because he pulled one of the best fake-dramatic moves we've seen anywhere: apparently having been gored at the moment he was killing the bull, Macías falls to the ground and is quickly scooped up by his team, who frantically run with him towards the exit. But then Macías, noticing that the bull is still standing, grabs the wall of the bullring with both hands and tries to pull himself back in. A struggle ensues, he breaks free, staggers over to the bull, and the two injured warriors stand there, swaying back and forth until finally the bull collapses and Macías - forgetting he's supposed to be badly injured - dances around like he'd just won Latin American Idol. All we could think of was James Brown being dragged off stage by his handlers ("Please, James, please - this is insanity! Don't do no mo'!"), only to shake them off and break into "It's a Man's Man's Man's World."

All this for ten dollars, and they serve beer.