Last week, Michael Koncz had a meeting with pound-for-pound champion Manny Pacquiao to discuss his role as “adviser” after reports surfaced all over the internet that he was either fired or demoted. Shortly after both he and Pacquiao left a basketball exhibition between the NBA All Stars and the Smart Gilas Philippine national team last Tuesday, Pacquiao cleared the air regarding those reports, simply stating, “See, he’s here. No problem.” In order to get everyone on the same page, Koncz would later tell reporter Ronnie Nathanielsz that he planned on having “a little meeting” with Pacquiao and “the people who are making allegations”, namely Timothy James [Sladeck], operator of Manny Pacquiao’s official website MP8.ph, who first reported that Pacquiao was making some decisions regarding his team and that some of Koncz’s reponsibilities had indeed changed. Apparently, that meeting between Koncz, James and Pacquiao did in fact take place and the outcome of their sitdown sheds a little more insight into what’s been going on behind the scenes with Pacquiao’s decision to bring in VisionQwest to strengthen the overall peformance of his team.
It’s no secret that James has been very critical of Koncz’s business decisions in the past. In a video interview posted nearly a week prior to Pacquiao clearing the air, James said of Koncz, “I’m a firm believe that he’s a better gopher than he is a business man. I’m the loudest one to say that because of the money that’s involved with Top Rank, the money that’s involved with pay-per-views, the money that’s involved with the gate, you know, obviously, in my opinion, there should be an actual accounting force that looks over that money, that makes sure every penny is being paid correctly.” He continued, “Does Michael Koncz have those abilities? I don’t think so personally. Absolutely not. I don’t have those abilities. Not many people do. That’s something that you go to school for, that you become educated for, that you have experience for; that’s actually a team of people that do it, so I would make arguments towards that.”
Following that interview, Michael Marley of Examiner.com began a smear campaign that I can personally confirm was spearheaded by Michael Koncz himself (and should Koncz deny it, I welcome the opportunity to speak more in-depth about what I know). Armed with misleading information that originated from Koncz, Marley wrote a series of articles that were intended to discredit James as well as Pacquiao’s official website. He would first write an article suggesting that not only did the email, allegedly sent to Team Mayweather from a member of Team Pacquiao, actually exist, but he knew exactly who sent it. Although he did not reveal the name, saying instead that he would give that information in a later article (which his readers are still waiting for), it was obvious to this writer that he was suggesting it was James, as Marley would later brag to another “writer” that he was going to “emphasize the steroid part” due to some “circumstantial evidence” he had.
