MICHAEL MARLEY’S PHILIPPINE DIARY, PART 26:
THE ARC OF POWER; POLITICAL RISE WILL KEEP PACMAN IN THE RING, NOT PUSH HIM INTO RETIREMENT; ADVISER KONCZ ON THE MARK IN SAYING GAG ORDER BEHOOVES MAYWEATHER AND PACQUIAO CAMPS; MAYWEATHER LOOKS TO LUXOR OR CLEOPATRA’S BARGE AT CAESARS PALACE FOR MIDDLE EAST THEME
GENERAL SANTOS CITY?I have a new nickname for Manny Pacquiao’s Canadian adviser, Michael Koncz.
And it doesn’t start with a maternal reference and end with a word that rhymes with plucker.
I call the indefatigable Koncz ?Dr. No? like the villain in the eponymous James Bond movie.
Nesrly always pleasant and always wanting to please, Pacquio rarely says no to anyone no matter how screwy their idea, proposal or request might be for his time, services or some of his hard earned money.
It’s left to Koncz to play the bad cop, hence the “Dr. No” tag. He often must brush people off because his Big Boss doesn’t like to make anyone unhappy even at his own expense.
Political field general, Manny Pacquiao or “Dragon 1” as he is code named, monitored all electoral activity (Michael Marley Photo)
Koncz was making sense, plenty of it, when he told me Tuesday night, as the entire Pacman camp basked in the warm, winning glow of the Congressional election in Sarangani, that the quickest route to make the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight is for the parties involved to zip their lips.
?That means everyone,? Koncz said, ?including Freddie Roach and Bob Arum. Bob can be just as bad as Freddie on this. And I include myself as well.
?None of us, including the other team, should be discussing terms and conditions with the press, really. It doesn’t help, it only hurts the situation. Let’s work out a deal and keep the terms and conditions private business.
?That way, nobody’s ego gets hurt and nobody is trying to gain the upper hand in the media or to make themselves look better than the other guys. We can’t work this out in the press but we can do it privately, discretely and, I think, quickly.?
Switching to the recurring topic of Megamanny’s ring retirement, don’t make me laugh.
His arc of power in politics might keep him around in boxing for three more full years. Don’t forget he only turns age 32 in December.
Arum’s guess is that Manny has at least three bouts left in him and I concur. If there is any spark coming out Pacman-Mayweather, any controversy or any question left unanswered as to who is the better fighter and the real P4P king, then there will be a rematch.
Heck, we’ve had rematches in boxing even without such a spark. Does Sonny Liston KO 1 over Floyd Patterson followed by Liston KO 1 over Patterson ring, you will pardon the expression, a bell?
And how about the recent Roy Jones-Bernard Hopkins II, that dreadful debacle?
If Pacman and L’il Floyd can earn somewhere around $40 million from their showdown, there is most likely going to be a rematch.
Staying in the ring gives Pacman another fulcrum, another lever, for his progressive plans to lift the economy and the life of the common people in long neglected Sarangani.
That spotlight dims quite a bit when he is merely Congressman or Senator Pacquiao and not the active fighter whose campaign drew ABC ?Nightline? and CBS ?60 Minutes? TV crews here, not to mention those boxing nuts from Al Jazeera.
As for Koncz revealing to me he hopes for a huge site bid for the megabout from the leader of a megarich Middle Eastern country, there is some movement on this from the Mayweather camp.
Money May remains unwilling to leave hometown Las Vegas for the Pacman titanic but he did say he would possibly accept either the pyramid-themed Luxor or the Cleopatra’s Barge at Ceasars Palace as sites.
That was a joke, son, a joke.
