Aaron McKenna has shared a fresh account of his unlikely friendship with Kendrick Lamar, the 12-time Grammy winner who drove four hours to watch the Irish boxer fight in California, according to a new Sky Sports Boxing feature that resurfaced the story this week.
The Unlikely Friendship Between Irish Boxer Aaron McKenna and Kendrick Lamar
Aaron McKenna, a young Irish prospect meeting Kendrick Lamar in a gym, trading a few conversations, then seeing the rapper turn up for a fight after a four-hour drive. McKenna’s account explained this week, and the detail that stands out is how ordinary the meeting sounded before it became a story people wanted to hear.
Aaron McKenna said that the connection started while he and his brother Stephen were sparring in training, with Lamar nearby working on his own boxing. McKenna said: “We were just training me and my brother and there’s Kendrick [Lamar] training away. After he was done training, he stayed on to watch me and Stephen spar. The next day he was there again, and we started to build a few conversations. Then he came to my fight, which was a 4 hour drive from where he was living. So for someone like him to make the journey to watch me fight, unbelievable. What a guy. He’s a really nice fella.”
The story dates back to 2018, when McKenna was a 19-year-old prospect signed with Golden Boy Promotions and fighting regularly in California. The Pennsylvania-born rapper encountered the Smithborough siblings in a Los Angeles gym, then popped into McKenna’s dressing room before and after his sixth professional contest at Fantasy Springs Casino, where Aaron stopped Abel Reyes in the second round.
That contest came on November 7, 2018, and the rapper was in the crowd, which is what McKenna describes as a “4 hour drive” from where Lamar was living at the time, likely Los Angeles to Indio, California. McKenna does not say Lamar showed up for a photo or a quick visit. He says Lamar trained with the brothers, stayed to watch eight rounds of sparring, returned the next day, and made the drive to the fight. That level of detail is what helps a story pass as real rather than manufactured.
Kendrick Lamar is one of the biggest names in music, while McKenna was still building his career in the United States, so a gym meeting turning into real friendship carries some impact. The award-winning raper has been seen boxing before, with reports and footage across several years showing him in gyms and doing mitt work in California. That makes McKenna’s recollection sound less like a one-off celebrity cameo. Kendrick Lamar has been seen training boxing for years, with footage from as early as 2019 showing him working in a California gym.
McKenna has long been presented as one of Ireland’s notable boxing exports, and reports from his early US run tracked him as a teenage prospect fighting under the Golden Boy banner in California. A celebrity showing up at that stage did not change the record, but it did become one of those details that stayed attached to his rise. The unbeaten Irish middleweight is ranked No. 7 by The Ring and has called for a fight against Hamzah Sheeraz after upsetting Liam Smith on the Chris Eubank Jr vs Conor Benn undercard at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in April 2025.
