One young man from Limerick used the luck of the Irish – and a ladder – to blag $80,000 front row seats to the richest fight in boxing, and we think Conor McGregor would be proud.
Brían Grace channelled the audacity and resourcefulness of a UFC champ, and ended up watching the Notorious go 10 rounds with Floyd Mayweather at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Saturday.
How did this dedicated 19-year-old boxing fan, pictured below centre, do it, you ask? He used a ladder. Obviously.
Brían told JOE exactly how he got past the first security check, recalling:
There were two different security check-points. The first one was metal detectors and sniffer dogs.
I hung around for a bit and then I noticed that Conor’s family – not his close family, maybe his extended family, like his cousins or something – they all turned up.
I was well dressed, so I just walked in with them, and there was so many of them that it wasn’t a problem.
Onto the second, Brían said:
Then I got to the second security check-point, and there was no way of getting past without a ticket, plus I think Conor’s family had noticed me so I just kind of separated myself from them.
I was walking around a bit and I noticed this ladder just lying there by a door, so I picked it up and walked in, no security pass or anything, just straight through this door. Then I put the ladder down, found my mates inside and we played the waiting game.
He’s in! So how did he blag those seats, when he couldn’t afford the cheapest tickets for the fight, being touted that day for a reported $5,000?
Gumption, and bare-faced confidence, much like McGregor himself, according to Brían:
We asked around and someone said that those seats were going for $80,000 each, so we waiting for security to leave the area and we just went for it.
As fearless as the man himself:
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After a failed attempt to get into the weigh-ins through a toilet vent, things finally started looking up for Brían and his pals when they managed to get backstage after the fight and meet Gerard Butler and Wesley Snipes.
The trio spent the night partying in Las Vegas at the Encore Beach Club, which McGregor also graced with his presence.
Think the real winner here is Brían Grace.
A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.