[7] Another source says that he first stood before a bovine adversary at Vitigudino on the occasion of the Feast of Corpus Christi in 1955 (and therefore on or about 9 June that year[11]), although nothing is said about him wearing a suit of lights that day.

The young bulls were furnished by Juan José Ramos and Brothers, and he was alternating with Tomás Sánchez Jiménez and Antonio de Jesús.

[1] The 1960 bullfighting season brought 35 novilladas El Viti's way, but not all ended in triumph: he was wounded by yearling bulls twice that year, once in Alicante and another time in San Sebastián.

This injury left him with a slight but permanent defect that prevented him from fully stretching his arm out, but instead of hindering his art, it gave him a unique and inimitable style in his natural bullfighting (that is, when the bull is released on the same side as the hand that holds the muleta):[14][15]This little defect made El Viti's natural bullfighting sensational, because he had to offset the lack of elbow extension with wrist movement.

El Viti was a brave man, because to do bullfighting so slowly without taking advantage of the touches and wrist movements with one arm in the virulé style, you have to be a hero.—Domingo Delgado de la Cámara, Revisión del toreo (2002)[16]El Viti took his alternativa in Madrid on 13 May 1961, during the Feria de San Isidro ("Saint Isidore's Fair" — a yearly event at Las Ventas),[17] with Toledo's Gregorio Sánchez standing as "godfather", while Diego Puerta bore witness.

[1][12] El Viti appeared at 61 bullfighting engagements in the 1962 season, but he did not get through them all unscathed, sustaining two serious gorings, one in Palma de Mallorca and the other in Barcelona.

Although a bullfight in Pamplona on 10 July 1964 ended in great triumph and he was awarded the bull's tail, he rejected it, along with Diego Puerta and Paco Camino.

Also on the bill that day were Alfredo Leal, Antonio del Olivar, Madrid's Victoriano Valencia, Manuel Benítez "El Cordobés", and Gabino Aguilar.

It was a total success, after which El Viti cut a bull's tail off and the fans took him up onto their shoulders and bore him for several kilometres to the Bridge of Toledo.

Greatly influenced as he was by Juan Belmonte's aesthetic, he for years represented the seriousness and neoclassical tradition in tauromachy, being considered by critics to be one of history's best-skilled bullfighters with the muleta.

[15] Furthermore, he was acclaimed for the faena at the Plaza México on 4 January 1970 with the bull Aventurero ("Adventurer"), from the Tequisquiapan ranch (Alfredo Leal reaped two ears — but also a serious goring; Solórzano hijo rounded out the bill).

[12][22] On 17 April 1969 at the Maestranza in Seville, El Viti had a triumphant afternoon alternating with Palomo Linares and Ángel Teruel as they fought and slew bulls from the Lisardo Sánchez ranch.

[14][23] El Viti's sixteen trips out through the Great Gate at Las Ventas – two as a novillero and fourteen as a fully fledged matador[23] – were on these dates; details of each bullfight's outcome are included: El Viti's number of rides on shoulders out through the Great Gate as a matador is 14, as against Paco Camino's 12 and Antonio Bienvenida's 11.

His penultimate appearance took place on 14 September on home ground, in Salamanca, sharing the billing with Niño de la Capea and Julio Robles as all three fought bulls from the Atanasio Fernández ranch.

[14][12] For some years he worked as a livestock farmer, raising Spanish Fighting Bulls, the very beasts that he had faced in bullrings across Spain, France and Latin America.

[26] On 1 July 2022, El Viti's wife, Mari Carmen García Cobaleda, whom he had wed on 28 November 1968, died after a long illness.

In a letter entitled Torear es amar ("Bullfighting is Loving"), which he wrote for Felipe Garrigues's book Sonajero, published in 1998, he said, among other things:For me, the bull has been a companion.

In the Bienvenida Hall at Las Ventas, on the occasion of an event dedicated to him on 30 May 2019, he offered the following reflections:My whole career can be summed up in one word: coincidence.

In 1966, jazz pianist Jack Wilson did a version of this on the trumpet called The Matador in El Viti's honour, which was the only song that he recorded with Duke Ellington's orchestra.

[31] According to bullfighting writer Paco Cañamero, El Viti's status as a legend goes beyond the 14 rides on shoulders that he took through the Great Gate at Las Ventas, along with the two that he did as a novillero for, after all, these are mere numbers.

Cañamero went as far as to say that with Diego Puerta and Paco Camino, El Viti formed the unforgettable "holiest trinity" of the bullfighting grounds.