Wow, this is impressive…
UFC 205 was the biggest event in UFC history and tickets for the event were selling for upwards of $2,000… for nosebleed seats.
The event was far more expensive than many could afford to fork out when flights and accommodation were also taken into account, but this wasn’t a problem for some people.
Shane Gillen from Sligo and Kymann Power from Westmeath were over in America last week visiting the Pentagon and The White House.
Still can't believe we were galavanting around the @WhiteHouse yesterday while the country was gone to the polls. Unbelievable. pic.twitter.com/nJpC06lgQJ
— Shane (@ItsGillen) November 9, 2016
But the pair decided to stop off in New York on their way home to witness Conor McGregor make history by becoming the first man to hold two UFC belts simultaneously, but they couldn’t nab themselves tickets for the fight.
So they decided to take matters into their own hands by sneaking their way into UFC 205, and documenting the whole event on social media. In a Facebook post Shane said:
“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.”
We spoke to Kymann Power, who talked us through what was going through his mind while he sat through the most historic night in UFC history.
“The hardest part was getting the pass the right colour, as they changed daily. But we also had to gamble on the size of the pass.
“When I got through [security], it was the funniest moment ever.”
Kymann boldly decided to try and get Octagon side to take some photos during the fights but he couldn’t quite manage it.
“At the Octagon, all the photographers had specific places with their names on them. So I wasn’t really sure where to go, so I just sat on one of the chairs in the front row!
“As soon as I sat the security were over saying, ‘Sorry, you’re not supposed to be sitting there, we’re going to bring you to Dave Sholler (Vice President of Public Relations with the UFC),’ so they brought to speak with him.
“Obviously I didn’t have the correct pass so he said, ‘We can’t afford to have extra people down here’, which was fine so I went back up to the press area, relieved because I thought I was going to be thrown out.”
Kymann and Shane were able to see all the winning fighters in the press area and also attend the post-fight press conference with the fighters.
Not a bad night in New York, eh?
This story and media was produced with the full permission of Shane Gillen and Kymann Power.
