Isaac Fonseca - a young torero with personality
When the Club Taurino of London’s March video meeting opened to show the invitado de honor, the young Mexican matador Isaac Fonseca, sitting in a coach midway through a journey, there were understandable concerns that the planned interview would be the victim of poor sound quality and visual shutdowns. In fact, there was just one short break and, 90 minutes later when the interview ended, Isaac had won the hearts and best wishes of the participating CTL members.
Asked what he might have become if he wasn’t a torero, Isaac said he’d always wanted to be a bullfighter: otherwise, perhaps he would have become a businessman, but one got the impression he hadn’t given this option much thought. He was born in Morelia (Michoacán) in 1998 and his interest in bullfighting was stimulated by his aficionado grandfather. Aged 11, Isaac joined Michoacán’s escuela taurina and, a year later, made his public debut in a becerrada at Morelia’s plaza de toros, El Palacio del Arte. Six years later, he debuted as a novillero at Santiago Cuautlalpan, winning two ears, then cut an ear in his debut in a suit of lights at Plaza México.
Isaac told the CTL meeting that the novillada circuit in Mexico is very unstructured compared to that of France or Spain and, come the end of the 2017 temporada, after two seasons he had only managed to appear in 13 novilladas sin picadores. His manager, Jacobo Hernández, said, to further his career, young Isaac really need to go to Spain, and so, in 2018, the 19-year-old got on an aeroplane for the first time in his life and landed in Spain with just 500 euros in his pocket and knowing one other person who lived there.
Isaac remembers that arrival as a difficult time in his life. He tried to join various escuelas taurinas, but all were unwelcoming until he came across la Escuela Taurina de Colmenar Viejo whose director is the ex-matador and ganadero Carlos Aragón Cancela. Showing evident talent, Isaac was soon toreando with greater frequency than had been the case in Mexico and he ended the year as the triunfador of the sin picadores certamen ‘Camino hacia Las Ventas’.
2019 saw Isaac debut with picadors, going out on shoulders at Gijón on August 13. He appeared in 11 further novilladas that season, winning a total of 18 ears. Thanks to the Covid epidemic, 2020 was a write-off, but in 2021, now managed jointly by Jacobo Hernández and Carlos Aragón Cancela, Isaac made a substantial impact in Spain, being triunfador of Villaseca de Sagra’s ‘Alfarero de Oro’, the Circuito de Novilladas de la Comunidad de Madrid, the Circuito de Novilladas del Norte and la Liga Nacional de Novilladas (when the competition in the final was with Jorge Martínez, Manuel Diosleguarde and Manuel Perera).
During the break in the interview, a fellow Mexican described Isaac as a ‘torero de valor’ and Isaac said later he was happy to be described in this way. Despite being gored and fracturing his jaw in a June novillada in Madrid, he took the alternativa at Dax on August 11, 2022, sharing the cartel with José María Manzanares and Andrés Roca Rey. A year later, he won the mano a mano Grand Final of la Copa Chenel. The other finalist, the veteran Juan del Álamo, was gored by his opening bull, so Isaac had to face six bulls that day, and was also gored whilst killing his third opponent but managed to carry on; he won three ears, two of them off Palha bulls. By the end of 2023, he’d taken part in 33 corridas, appearing in Spain, France and Mexico, and was well on the way to realising his ambition of buying his mother a house (in another interview on the web, he’s asked about the objective of having his own finca - “A casita on two floors would be nice,” he replies, reflecting his down-to-earth nature).
Isaac on the afternoon of his Madrid confirmación in 2023
In recent years, his European appearances have been limited, Isaac explaining that, at a time when bullfighting is under attack in Mexico, he has felt a responsibility to focus his temporadas there, to stand up for the spectacle and encourage people to come and view it. His romantic attitude was revealed at the CTL meeting when he described the current situation in Mexico and the forthcoming prohibition in Colombia as battles in a war that would eventually be won. While enjoying sizable temporadas in his home country, in Spain he appeared in only six corridas in 2024, and just one event in the capital last year. Las Ventas, indeed, has been a constant venue. He confirmed his alternativa there during the 2023 Feria de San Isidro, producing an exhilarating performance with a bull of El Parralejo. In San Isidro the following year, Isaac cut an ear from his first Pedraza de Yeltes bull, only to be seriously gored in the back by his second animal, a torrestrella. In 2025, in another San Isidro pedraza corrida, Isaac cut an ear from ‘Brigadier’, permitted an extraordinary suerte de varas and later considered the best bull of the feria.
This year, Isaac told his CTL audience, he currently has three contracts in Europe - two in Madrid (Dolores Aguirre bulls on March 29 and pedrazas in San Isidro again on May 27) and Vic-Fezensac’s corrida concurso on May 24 - and whether he makes further appearances this side of the Atlantic this season will depend on how those afternoons go. On one level, it’s a shame he appears to be pigeonholed in Europe in corridas with difficult bulls; at a time when interest in bullfighting among the young is growing, here is a young torero with personality who could capture many hearts and minds were he to be seen more frequently and in more commercial festejos.
