By Áine Leech
Last Saturday, 12 November saw thousands of Irish fans flock to Madison Square Garden in New York to witness Conor McGregor’s history-making title match.
One local man spent his day crafting a way to sneak into the fight for free.
Kymann Power from Kinnegad has had one whirlwind of a week since he landed in the US last week, from tours of Capitol Hill, a visit to the White House, to witnessing the effects of one of America’s most shock elections.
It seemed like one moment of history was not enough for the Westmeath man as he was determined that if was in New York for McGregor’s fight he would do everything he could to get into the match to see him. The plan began some time before his trip to Washington as it dawned on Kymann that he would be in New York at the same time as McGregor and soon the twitter search for tickets began. Soon replies came in of people baring bad news that a ticket would cost a minimum of €700 each.
Before departing for America Kymann joked with friends that he would find some way of sneaking in to the fight. It hadn’t been unheard of considering Westmeath man Ken Delaney managed to bluff his way into the press room after one of McGregor’s big fights last year.
It wasn’t until the day of the fight that inspiration struck Kymann. With camera in hand he headed to the weigh in at Madison Square Garden and captured images of journalists heading in with their press passes. Unfortunately, the images were too blurry to print so Kymann put his Photoshop skills to work and spent hours recreating the perfect press passes, allowing himself Shane Gillen and American friend Rachel Beatty to gain access as “freelance journalists”.
As all three approached the security they estimated that at most they had an 80% chance of it not working. A chance they were willing to take. “I actually almost didn’t get in at first, the fight passes were apparently a different colour than the ones we had, but somehow I just managed to blag my way in.”
Kymann said that during those moments his heart was absolutely racing, “I just couldn’t believe it, as much as you hope it will work you can never be sure until it does.”
Following McGregor’s victory, the trio got to sit in on his press conference and managed to get some pictures of some of the UFC’s most important fighters. “I hopped in a taxi as soon as it was all over. I was wrecked. It was definitely one of the best nights of my life, really it was just the icing on top of an amazing week for me.”
It was certainly one of the many highlights of what has been an unforgettable week for Mr. Power who was privileged to experience all sides of the election debate. From the media coverage before he flew over to the election itself and the changing atmosphere after it all Kymann recognised how lucky he was to be in America during such a historic occasion. “We were in an Irish bar in New York the night the results came out and as they were announced the mood changed dramatically. People were crying and others just got up and left.”
With New York a strong Clinton supporting state, Kymann found it interesting to see the change in attitudes as he travelled to Staten Island to visit family, “Staten island voted for Trump and you could automatically see the difference. We spent the evening at a restaurant and the place was absolutely buzzing.”
Once he gets back to reality Kymann will be editing his vide-blogs of the week so that he will be able to share the story in full detail via his YouTube channel – Kymann Power.
