"I know there's a lot of stuff happening yesterday and I believe we're going to be making an actual official statement, on the website, what Manny wants to report and what's going on," stated Timothy James, owner and operator of Manny Pacquiao's official website MP8.ph, as he revealed more details regarding yesterday's rumblings that Michael Koncz had already been relieved of his duties as adviser. James, who is currently in the Philippines with Pacquiao getting footage for the official launch of Manny's social network, explains that a number of people, including a "really, really reliable source in the camp", were all told that Koncz was indeed being fired, and they strongly believed the information to be true until Pacquiao himself clarified that it wasn't. "I know that there's going to be a press release coming out and I think it's going to articulate a lot of things; a lot of things happening in the camp. I know Manny wants to fight Mayweather. I know he's not happy that the fight hasn't been made," James continued, hinting that indeed there's more to the story than what's been reported thus far.
According to James, for at least a year now, Pacquiao has not had any problems with Mayweather's request for random blood tests leading all the way up to the day of the fight. "I reported a year ago that Manny Pacquiao agreed to the blood tests; I reported a year ago. I mean, Manny hasn't cared about the blood for quite some time. He hasn't cared about random testing. He hasn't cared if it was all the way up to the day of the fight quite some time ago," James explained. His comments may come as a surprise to many considering that both Michael Koncz and Bob Arum have given a number of reasons as to why Pacquiao is unwilling to agree to Mayweather's request. In fact, just two weeks ago, Koncz himself revealed to FightHype that, thus far, they had only agreed to do random testing up until 14 days prior to the fight, stating that he would "have to talk to Manny" about the possibility of moving the cut-off date up to 7 or even 5 days prior to the fight due to the fact that Paquiao is "afraid of needles". Now, according to Bob Arum, the problem is a concern with the neutrality of USADA as the organization responsible for the testing.
"So with a fight this size and magnitude, and it's not happening, and if he finds out that it's not really Mayweather's fault and Mayweather's really not scared to fight him, and possibly the burden was being neglected on his side by getting it done, then some heads are going to roll because he wants that fight to happen because the fans want it to happen," James continued, suggesting that there's a feeling amongst those closest to Pacquiao that perhaps more can be done in order to make the mega-fight with Floyd Mayweather a reality. "Like Michael Koncz says, Manny is very intelligent, you're right. Probably more intelligent than even Michael Koncz realizes. So Manny's making some decisions right now and we'll wait to see what they are, but stay tuned for the official press release that we will be making on MP8.ph," he added.
Exactly what will be revealed in this official press release remains to be seen, but it sounds like it won't be coming from Top Rank Promotions. With so much information floating around out there, one can't help but wonder exactly what is going on inside of Team Pacquiao. Stay tuned as this story develops, and keep an eye out on MP8.ph for much more information regarding Manny Pacquiao.
ALSO CHECK OUT THE ENTIRE VIDEO INTERVIEW BELOW TO SEE WHAT ELSE JAMES HAD TO SAY ABOUT MICHAEL KONCZ
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