It's been a while since a major sporting event was graced by the obligatory couple of Irish chancers who blagged their way into some of the best seats in the house.
Without further hesitation, allow us to introduce Shane Gillen and Kymann Power, who travelled to the United States last week not to follow Conor McGregor's exploits in the octagon, but to visit the home of a man more accustomed to The Pentagon; they were invited to the White House by their good friend Henry Healy - one of the Moneygall Obamas.
After a one-in-a-lifetime day out in Washington, the two lads decided to head to an Irish-heavy New York for the week to soak up some of the UFC 205 atmosphere. With tickets scarce and some selling for as expensive as $25,000, Kymann - a videographer from Westmeath - got a notion.
The day before the event at Madison Square Garden, he went down to the venue and spotted crew members with backstage access. He photographed their accreditation and was able to recreate three uncannily similar passes for himself, Shane and their friend Rachel Beatty. The rest is best left described by Shane's Facebook status and uploaded Snapchat story just hours after Conor McGregor had made history at The Garden:
With tickets selling for up to $25,000, here's my Snap story detailing how we blagged our way in to UFC 205 in Madison Square Garden tonight. Not only did we blag our way in, but we full on entered the most famous venue in the world via the media entrance under the guise of sports journalists, entitling ourselves to Access All Areas passes, no less. The entire thing was the master work of Kymann Power. The rest was just having the guts to be ballsy in the face of security. Kymann will have a vlog about it soon, and we have some hilariously incredible photographs. It's almost 5am, I'm off to bed. Unreal.
Ho-ly shit. Outrageous scenes. Shane is a magician from Sligo, but it was his mate Kymann who made the magic happen on Saturday night. And they certainly seeemed to enjoy themselves...
Best night of my life. pic.twitter.com/IpyPXatOq0
— K Y M A N N (@Kymann) November 13, 2016
We're in the Garden. This is one of the funniest nights of my life. pic.twitter.com/2f1wgIlcB7
— Shane (@ItsGillen) November 13, 2016
Cheers to our mate Ste McGovern of The Final Third for sending this our way, via Shane himself, who we understand is 'lying low' Stateside. If he stays around long enough we'll probably see him kick a field goal for the New England Patriots at the Super Bowl.
