He alternated with José González Copano and Rafael Jiménez Márquez, facing an encierro (set of bulls for a corrida, usually six) of beasts from the Marqués de Villamarta's herd.

[1] Rivera had 19 further bullfighting engagements that season, but possibly the most important one for Rivera's career in the short term was the date at the Maestranza in Seville on 1 October 1966, at which he alternated with Jaime Ostos and "El Cordobés", for not only did he present himself as a matador at one of Spain's foremost bullrings, but the corrida also resulted in his cutting three "appendages" (meaning ears and/or tails) from bulls laid on by the Urquijo and Bohórquez ranches, a feat considered a resounding success in the bullfighting world.

[1][13] This engagement was significant for Rivera in another way: he had never trodden the albero (the finely crushed rock covering the bullfighting ground) at the capital's bullring as a novillero.

On 14 October, Rivera was facing down a bull at the Nuevo Circo de Caracas in Venezuela's capital when his opponent gored him in the right groin.

[14][1][12] Rivera's severe injury healed, this time, and a month afterwards, he was fighting bulls again, even to the extent of reaping three ears and one tail at an appearance in El Puerto de Santa María.

He did, however, remain in the news, albeit mainly in the gossip columns (or "the pink press", as one source calls it) owing to his often changing love life.

In 1984, Rivera had at first decided to end the bullfighting season after his engagement at the Dax bullring in the south of France, but most fatefully, he agreed to appear at two further corridas, one at Logroño and the other at Pozoblanco.

It was thus fate that led to what happened there on 26 September 1984, when, sharing billing with José Cubero Sánchez ("el Yiyo") and Vicente Ruiz Soro ("El Soro"), the afternoon's fourth bull, named Avispado (whose name meant "sly" or "clever"), weighing 420 kg,[16] from the Sayalero y Bandrés ranch, badly gored him, the goring from the thin-horned bull[17][18] taking two paths through his flesh, piercing the external iliac vein, the great saphenous vein, and the femoral artery.

On the way to Córdoba, he suffered a cardiac arrest, and in a desperate attempt to save the bullfighter's life, they decided to turn into the Military Hospital instead of their originally intended destination, as it was much nearer.

[15][13][19] Even though, according to the doctor who treated Rivera, the goring was not in itself deadly, the bullfighter's death owed itself to a fatal set of circumstances: the sanitary services on which the bullring relied were very limited; he was transferred in a conventional ambulance; and the roadway that joined both localities was in poor condition.

[8] The consequent judicial proceedings brought to light that Rivera had died of intense hypovolemic shock through massive and rapid haemorrhage.

The journey to the graveyard first stopped at Seville's bullring, the Maestranza (popularly known as the Baratillo), so that the late bullfighter could do one more round of the arena, on companions' and followers' shoulders, and thousands of people bid him farewell.

[1][15] It was less than a year later, on 30 August 1985 at the Colmenar Viejo bullring, that Rivera's fellow bullfighter that fateful day at Pozoblanco, José Cubero Sánchez, himself suffered a fatal goring by a bull named Burlero from the Marcos Núñez ranch.

[18] Unveiled in September 1991 was a monumental bronze sculpture in Rivera's memory outside the El Puerto de Santa María bullring.

The matrimonial ceremony was performed at the Basílica de Jesús del Gran Poder in Seville and was an event dubbed the wedding of the year, reportedly costing ₧ 1,500,000.