Donald Trump steals Conor McGregor’s fire

It’s hard silenced, New York. But, on the early morning commute to downtown Manhattan on Wednesday, you could mark that as another odds-scorching upset for the man who somehow, someway will become leader of this land in the much too near future.

Donald Trump’s name has quite literally hung heavy over this city for decades but never as suffocatingly as it did the morning after an election that can never be forgotten... no matter how hard so many tried. Grand Central Station, Times Square, Broadway, they were all a little too eerie, a little too quiet as life tried to get going with going on.

The night before, screaming updates, flashing graphics and startling statistics had told the world that America’s most populous city is politically, culturally, definitively removed from its heartlands and so much of the country at large. The sound of silence in New York on Wednesday confirmed as much.

Cutting down Eighth Avenue and half a dozen blocks south things started to pick up. Low murmurs became more of steady buzz in the dank November drizzle. Turned out Hillary Clinton’s rearranged concession speech was soon taking place. Her staff had picked the Wyndham New Yorker Hotel for their final farewell to the 2016 campaign and crowds were gathering.

But they were also gathering directly across the street. At almost exactly the same time, a body that doesn’t know the meaning of silence was about to try and make itself heard in Manhattan. But this just wasn’t the morning for it.

The UFC have waited an age to make their break into the New York market, the state the last in the whole of North America to legalise mixed martial arts, when it bowed to pressure, reason and economics earlier this year. The sport’s most high-profile organisation, which has new owners keen to flex their muscle after buying the thing for $4bn this past summer, roped in their highest-profile fighter for the historic event at Madison Square Garden.

So it was Conor McGregor and Hillary Clinton’s paths crossed yesterday. McGregor and his fellow headline men and women were working out in front of the New York public ahead of a stacked UFC 205 card on Saturday night, one topped by McGregor’s bid for a second simultaneous title when he takes on lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez.

On recent Notorious fightweeks in Las Vegas, the public workouts have been wild, raucous affairs. But not this...just wasn’t the morning for it. Alvarez was first out at 10am in front of a smattering of a couple hundred. Two hours later and McGregor, as is his style, was the final act. But the crowd had not swelled significantly.

In between times, Stephen ‘Wonderboy’ Thompson, who faces Tyron Woodley in the card’s co-main event, went through his own workout. When asked afterwards about what being under this roof meant to him, Thompson evoked the name of the man who had ensured this hall became so hallowed.

It was hard though not to immediately wonder what Muhammad Ali, lost earlier in this wretched year, would have made of events in his country over the previous 24 hours. They tell us sport and politics aren’t supposed to mix but Ali arguably swirled them better than any.

The man some have dared to label as Ali’s MMA equivalent had been asked for his own verdict the previous night, while votes were still being counted and states had yet to swing.

“I just could not give a b******s,” McGregor told BT Sport. “The whole thing is just weird to me. I don’t think anything is going to change. I think the public are brainwashed into thinking that something is going to happen. I don’t think [the new president] will have any power.”

Not quite McGregor at his most Ali. The UFC say they are on course to break one of The Greatest’s longest- standing records this week.

The record Madison Square Garden gate came on the night Ali and Joe Frazier put on the last century’s iconic fight. They are also on course to shatter the venue’s gate record with secondary ticketing sites showing the cheapest available tickets high up in the nosebleeds going for well over $700.

But what is now indisputable is that the organisation will not make the same deep impact they had hoped to with this historic maiden event in the Empire State.

They simply can’t. No matter how much buzz McGregor et al can manage to drum up in the next 48 hours, the president-elect has thieved spotlight away.

UFC chief Dana White, ironically, has played his part in this less than helpful outcome for his organisation. White, a close friend of Trump’s for many years, contributed funds to the campaign and spoke (more accurately bellowed) on the candidate’s behalf at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

White’s golden boy will do his best to wrestle back as much attention as he can before fight night - he and Alvarez square off in a final press conference today - but this is one battle the Notorious is unlikely to win.

“It means the world to me,” McGregor said after his workout yesterday”, Clinton’s cavalcade having raced away from Eighth Avenue shortly before.

“That’s why I kept pushing on it. I couldn’t miss this event no way. I built this event and here I am. Saturday night I become immortal. I’m immortalised when I get the second belt and raise it up. It’s my life’s work.”

There were cheers and roars. But outside...outside was mostly silent.