It appears as though Michael Koncz, chief adviser to Manny Pacquiao, has taken a page from Pacquiao’s promoter, Bob Arum, when it comes to getting a pass for his client’s poor opponent selection.
Yesterday, Koncz told ABS-CBN News that talks had re-initiated between Pacquiao and Team Mayweather and even that said talks are “looking
positive.”
Unfortunately, nobody from Mayweather’s side has acknowledged this info and even Arum, himself, called the story “nonsense” and “bullsh*t.”
Could Koncz be floating the Mayweather name out there as a way to distract from the wildly unpopular choice of Shane Mosley as an opponent for his client? Could he be reinforcing the pro-Pacquiao rhetoric that has worked before to lay the blame for Manny’s poor opponent selection at the feet of Mayweather?
Whatever the case, this is a game that Bob Arum has mastered over the last several years as he has repeatedly leveraged Mayweather’s name into favorable career moves for several of his fighters without ever having to actually sign a bout against the boxer from Grand Rapids, Michigan.
The first instance was immediately after Mayweather had his nasty split with Top Rank. While Arum was allowing Mayweather to buy out the remainder of his promotional contract, he was also issuing a bogus eight million dollar challenge for Mayweather to fight Arum’s top remaining welterweight, Antonio Margarito.
Knowing full well that Mayweather-Margarito would’ve been a logistical, logical, and legal impossibility, Arum lit up the media with proclamations that would, when Mayweather went to fight someone else, give Margarito a boost in exposure and reputation without ever having to actually get in the ring with his former stablemate. Suddenly, Margarito was the “most feared man in boxing” and all Arum needed in order to get him that designation was to make it look like Mayweather was afraid to fight him.
Arum would employ this strategy twice during the Pacquiao-Mayweather negotiations saga.
The first time, after the only real face to face negotiations between the two sides had broken down over proposed Olympic-style blood testing, Pacquiao ended up knocking on the door of Ghanaian
punching bag, Joshua Clottey. The excuse given by Arum was that since Mayweather killed the negotiations, it was his fault that Manny had to face a sub-par opponent.
That same logic was used when Pacquiao would choose to fight an unworthy and disgraced Antonio Margarito later that same year.
Despite evidence indicating Arum’s desire to use Margarito from the very beginning, Arum would fabricate actual negotiations between Team Pacquiao and Team Mayweather, insisting that all details had been worked out and that all that was needed was Mayweather’s signature on the contract. However, as Arum would admit later, he had never spoken directly to anyone on Mayweather’s side and that the extent of the so-called negotiations was limited to a few phone calls with HBO head, Ross Greenburg.
Still, Mayweather took the fall and Pacquiao was free to fight Margarito without having to deal with any negative public relations backlash.
Now, Koncz seems to be looking to take a page out of Arum’s playbook by bringing Mayweather’s name into some sort of fictitious negotiations that will surely fall apart and allow for Manny to fight Mosley completely guilt-free.
Could it be that maybe Mayweather is not the problem and Team Pacquiao’s choice of opposition, is?
