It could only be so. Election morning arrived in Manhattan on Tuesday...and it was jarring.
As fixers and runners hurried around Times Square, erecting the set and stage for ABC News' results night coverage, they were forced to stop, wipe sweat from their brow or peel off another unnecessary layer.
Polling days on America's north-east coast aren't supposed to require sunscreen. But on a day when the country factored between two candidates who share a home state - this one - and not a whole pile else, the weather was as unsettling as everything else about the campaign mercifully coming to a close.
The faces of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton incessantly flashed across news billboards in the heart of Midtown as the mercury tickled nearly 20C, spears of warm sunlight piercing up the city's avenues in this the second week of November. (In the process, this all made fresh mockery of the fact that global warming had apparently not been an election issue).
"The history that McGregor craves most is that second champion's strap. Alvarez stands as a far from insignificant roadblock"
On a facade off to one side though, another face peered down on proceedings. Next to an advertisement for Comedy Central's election night coverage, Conor McGregor rubbed shoulders with the political powers that may or may not be. He might have chuckled at the satirical network's title for the night - 'America - The Season Finale'. After the past year he knows a thing or two about demises and the sometimes great exaggeration of them.
The Dubliner is finishing 2016 here in New York City the same way he entered the year - chasing history in the octagon. On Saturday night, a full eight months after initially planned, he gets his shot at the UFC's lightweight crown, and with it the prospect of becoming the first ever fighter in the world's biggest mixed martial arts organisation to hold two divisional titles simultaneously.
McGregor, still the featherweight champion, meets lightweight king Eddie Alvarez in the headline act of UFC 205, the first ever card in the state of New York after it legalised the sport earlier this year.
Given his outlook on these things, it's likely that the 28-year-old now reflects on the injury suffered by then lightweight champion Rafael Dos Anjos ahead of their scheduled bout in March as nothing but good fortune.
That rejig sent him down a winding, wild path that featured two stops with Nate Diaz for welterweight bouts that went one way and then, so memorably, the other, but ultimately led here. And here is somewhere McGregor looks to really be relishing.
After its record-breaking sale in the summer, when it changed hands for over $4bn, this New York debut in the storied surrounds of Madison Square Garden is arguably the UFC's biggest night yet, certainly the most perfect opportunity imaginable for the new regime to lay down a marker. Over, then, to the Notorious one.
The fight card - rammed with quality from top to bottom but heavily headlined by the meeting of champion and champion - is reportedly on course to break the Garden's attendance record set the night of Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier's Fight of the Century, and its gate record of $13.5 million set by Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield in 1999.
Two second-row tickets changed hands on the reselling site Stubhub on Monday for an eye-watering $29,510.50. On Tuesday the cheapest available seats - a couple hundred rows further back - were going for $1460 for a pair. And that's before fight week festivities really begin to take hold in the clearer post-election air.
Are you fully prepared for what an EPIC event #UFC205 will be?! Neither are we .. #UFCNYC https://t.co/zPplD66HuS
— #UFC205 (@ufc) November 7, 2016
Little wonder that McGregor is embracing the Empire State of mind. Preparations for what will be a first UFC outing in his preferred 155-pound division have been intense but thus far smooth. For a fighter who has so often on recent fight weeks in Las Vegas cast his mind two and three steps down the road to the next bigger thing, it appears the only issue slightly unsettling McGregor is the future-gazing of others.
"Everyone always looks ahead so much, talking about vacate the [featherweight] belt or let's talk Vegas. It's like, let's enjoy this moment right now, because it took so long to get here," he said soon after his arrival in Manhattan late last week.
"So many hours went into getting the UFC into New York City and now here we are. Now here we are, a potential two-weight world champion. A superfight, champion versus champion, first time a champion has gone up. These are all historic moments."
The history that McGregor craves most is that second champion's strap. Alvarez stands as a far from insignificant roadblock. The Philadelphia veteran is resolute and respected, a fighter who has proven his credentials in many parishes throughout his career. He has yet to show any signs of rising to any of his rival's verbal bait either.
McGregor will surely try to keep temperatures unseasonably high when the pair will again come into close confines on Wednesday morning local time with public workouts at Madison Square Garden and again at a final press conference on Thursday, with huge throngs expected at both.
As it gets ready to host both a defeated and victorious candidate on Tuesday night, McGregor is adamant his maiden outing here four days later will end with him in the latter category.
"I'm looking to enjoy this whole experience and I'm very confident in my preparation, very confident in my opponent that I'm facing, so I'm looking to just enjoy this whole process," McGregor insisted on that conference call last week.
"This is the main thing in my life. It’s all I know. Not only am I not getting tired of it, I’m actually getting better at it."
