Trujillos now on identical path
Twins set to compete on Fight Night card
Brandon and Brendan Trujillo, identical twins, pursued different sports as high school athletes. Brandon wrestled for Del Norte; Brendan played basketball for the Knights.
Now, almost five years after graduation, they find themselves on an identical path. They’re both MMA fighters.
Both 24-year-olds are scheduled to fight — provided a replacement opponent is found for Brendan — Saturday night on the inaugural Jackson-Wink Fight Night card at Isleta Resort & Casino.
Even so, the identical twins have separate identities within their chosen sport. Brandon is a professional fighter with a 1-1 record; Brendan (2-1) competes as an amateur.
Brandon’s head start as a wrestler — he was a District 5-4A champion for Del Norte as a senior — gave him a head start. After graduation in 2012, he said, “I kind of got (Brendan) into it.”
Brendan, a high-scoring guard for the Knights, said he hasn’t found the transition from hoops to harm as difficult as one might think. Once an athlete, always an athlete. “It’s a little different, but I hold my own in the cage,” Brendan said. “I have that fight. Being from New Mexico I have that grit. It’s all coming together, piece by piece, day by day. That’s why I stay in the gym every day, so I don’t get embarrassed in the cage.”
The twins train tat EVOLV Strong, an Albuquerque fitness center, with their cousin, Patrick Ayala. Like his cousins, Ayala (0-0-1 as a pro) is set to fight on Saturday’s card.
When the brothers work out together, they say, it’s with the understanding that it’s cooperation and not competition. Otherwise, Brendan said, “We’ll go ham on each other.”
Said Brandon: “We try to take it easy a little bit . ... More teaching each other, just going through stuff as partners. He sees something, I see something.
“We just try to critique each other a little bit rather than sparring the whole time. (Otherwise) we’d kill each other, for sure. That’s just the competitive (side) that we have.”
Brandon began his pro career in December with a victory by firstround TKO over Adam Ramirez on Jackson’s MMA Series 20. Just two weeks later, he lost by first-round TKO to Kamuel Kirk, a far more experienced fighter, in Phoenix.
Brandon is scheduled to face another opponent with more experience, Clovis’ Harvey Park (4-1), on Saturday. A natural featherweight (145 pounds), he’ll fight Park, a Curry County Sheriff’s deputy, at the 155-pound lightweight limit.
Brendan said his fight also is at 155 pounds, provided an opponent can be found.
Eventually, Brendan said, he plans to join his brother in the pro ranks.
“I’m in no rush, though,” he said. “… I want to get as many MMA matches as I can as an amateur, maybe boxing as well, just because I’m still new to this. So I want all the amateur experience I can get before I make that move.”
Ayala, the twins’ cousin, is matched against Jackson-Wink fighter Nate Flanders (1-0).
Brandon, the MMA pro, works construction on the side. Brendan, the amateur, works as a personal trainer. But both twins consider MMA their true calling.
“We live in the gym,” Brandon said. “That’s where we work, that’s what we do.
“Our job is basically to train, and that’s a good life right now.”
Brendan’s feelings on the matter are, well, identical.
“I don’t want to do anything else,” he said. “I don’t like doing anything else.
“I just want to train.”