With nicknames like “Hitman” and “The Silencer,” the questions shouldn’t focus on Stevie and Aaron McKenna’s Friday night fights in Redditch, England, but when the brothers’ action movie comes out.

“Coming soon,” laughs Stevie. “Next year.”

It may be a bit of a stretch putting such ominous monikers on the affable and soft-spoken siblings but given their combined 15-0 with 11 knockouts record thus far in their pro careers, they’re almost fitting.

“Once we go inside the ring, we turn into different people,” said Stevie. “Outside the ring, we're quiet and humble, but once we go through them ropes, we have a job to do, and we go in and do it.”

And people are starting to take notice.

Junior middleweight Aaron, 21, is a Golden Boy Promotions fighter who already has his sights on tracking down WBO champion Patrick Teixeira in 2021, while junior welterweight Stevie, 23, has just signed with Mick Hennessy ahead of tonight’s card.

And though the show (which airs on free TV in the UK on Channel 5) won’t see either brother in too tough – Stevie faces 2-57-2 MJ Hall while Aaron takes on 5-72-2 Jordan Grannum, it is the first time the Smithborough, Ireland lads will be on the same card as pros.

“We both get excited when we're watching each other fight,” said Aaron. “When Steven's in the ring, I just get really excited, and it's always exciting seeing him fight because he always puts on a really good performance.”

The two have fought on the same card as amateurs back home, and during international meets, so there won’t be any added nerves for either one. It’s all about business and they’re both confident that they’ll get the job done.

“We think about winning and nothing really changes,” said Stevie. “We're in there to do a job and we stay focused and go in and perform.”

What will be interesting to see is if Aaron has any ring rust as he prepares for his first bout since December of 2019, when he halted Victor Gaytan in two rounds to improve to 10-0 with six knockouts. That layoff was the fault of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced the brothers to leave Southern California, where they train with Freddie Roach at the Wild Card Boxing Gym and return home to Ireland. But being home most of the year wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“Nothing really changed for us,” said Aaron. “We had the gym right at the back door and we had each other to work with. If we couldn't get sparring with anyone because of the lockdown, we just sparred with each other a lot and we had the treadmills and the strength equipment we needed at the gym, so nothing changed for us. It was still the same. We still got all the important training in.”

“It's always good to get home to friends and family,” adds Stevie. “Everyone's always happy to see us when we get home and we're doing good here as well. We've got a lot of sponsors on board over here, so we're well looked after. We have a food sponsor and a strength and conditioning guy that looks after us, so we have everything here for us to keep us going while we're at home. But we're looking forward to getting back to the U.S. and back fighting as well over in the Wild Card Gym.”

That’s the hope for 2021, but first there’s business to be taken care of. Stevie did get his fifth pro fight in on September 5, as he needed just 73 seconds to defeat Gary McGuire, so the question is, was Aaron a little jealous?
 
“It was good that he got to fight after such a long year,” said Aaron, as politically correct as a younger brother can be. “I'm just really happy now that I've got the opportunity to fight on the 11th of the December.”

Stevie?

“Both of us were itching to get back into the ring, so I was happy I was getting back in,” he chuckles. “It was eight months or so before my last fight, so it was a long time waiting for a fight, but with everything that happened, you just had to be patient and keep ready. We trained non-stop over the whole lockdown once we came back to Ireland, so we were more than prepared for my last fight and we're really well prepared for this one as well. We're just looking forward to it.”

Next year, Hollywood.