The Madrid Twins Discover That Fighting is the Easy Part

Once they were known as the Sylmar Slashers. Recently though, a better title would be Sylmar Slashees.

Elias and Erick Madrid, 25-year-old twins from Sylmar, have won 42 of their 45 professional fights in the lightweight division. Elias is 20-0-1 with 16 knockouts, Erick 22-1-1 with 15 knockouts.

Once the bell rings, these guys don’t have too many problems. It’s what happens before they get into the ring that has left the twins looking like cover boys for a medical digest. Elias, despite his undefeated mark, has not fought in nearly a year and half. He sprained his ankle stepping in a gopher hole while jogging, then hurt his hand and suffered a hairline rib fracture in separate sparring sessions. He has also been distracted from his career by divorce proceedings.

Erick won a tough 10-round decision over Neri Reyes in February at the Reseda Country Club despite not yet having fully recovered from a separated shoulder, which occurred during training. He also sprained an ankle, believe it or not, while dancing around the ring during the prefight introductions of the Reyes fight.

His younger brother (Elias was born three minutes after Erick) will climb into that same Country Club ring Monday night to meet Benny Quintero (10-4, six knockouts) of Mexico in the 10-round super lightweight main event. Matchmaker Harry Kabakoff has also scheduled five other fights on the card, with the first bell at 8:15.

“I felt kind of rusty and sluggish when I started to train,” said Elias, who has been running 10 to 12 miles a day to get in shape, “but I’m getting sharper, my reflexes are getting better and I feel once I get back in the ring, it will all come back to me.”

If that happens, the only thing he’ll have to worry about is making it through the prefight introductions.