"Michael Koncz somehow disputed even knowing me, which obviously can't be in dispute now, but even more incredible is that Michael Koncz said MPBoxing was falsely calling itself the official website. I have video of Manny Pacquiao calling it the official website...My issue with being able to retort or argue or defend myself was that Michael Koncz called me at my hotel the next day and stated that the lawyers for the lawsuit were saying I was messing up the lawsuit with that statement and Manny Pacquiao was just furious at me. So I went and saw Manny later that night and there was no issues. Manny wasn't furious; Manny did nothing. Manny, in my opinion, never had that conversation with Koncz. It was stated, the way that people portrayed it, was that Manny Pacquiao adamantly denied ever talking or saying this, but Manny Pacquiao never went on record to say he didn't say that. You never heard Manny say he didn't say that, did you? You only heard Koncz say Manny didn't say that. Michael Koncz said Manny Pacquiao said that. Nobody ever heard Manny Pacquiao say that he didn't say that...I don't try to do harm to other people and that's what I would have had to do to Michael Koncz. I would have had to call him a liar. I would have had to call Michael Koncz a liar. It's obvious that Manny Pacquiao didn't adamantly deny it as Koncz reported. There's no validity in that," stated Timothy James, who found himself in the middle of the blood controversy that has prevented the mega-fight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather. You don't want to miss what he had to say as James relives the moment when he first broke the news that Pacquiao had agreed to Mayweather's initial offer of a 14-day cutoff only to see Pacquiao's adviser, Michael Koncz, deny even knowing him. According to James, all is not what it appears to be when it comes Michael Koncz. Check it out!
BT: So Tim, the day after Mayweather defeated Mosley, you found yourself right in the middle of the blood controversy that's prevented the mega-fight between Floyd and Manny Pacquiao. Before we get into that, let the fans know exactly how you became affiliated with Manny Pacquiao.
TJ: What happened was I used to be very very successful in business and I used to own, not anymore, but I used to own probably about almost 2 million dollars worth of cars, Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Porsches, etc., and a friend of mine would ask to borrow my cars to show Manny Pacquiao around the timefram of the De La Hoya fight. I told him, "Yeah, as long as you introduce me to Manny because I'm a fan. I want to meet the dude. I've been a fan since '01." So he introduced me. I showed up in my Lamborghini one day. This was the time when Manny had nothing as far as endorsements in the U.S. and some members of Team Pacquiao asked me, "Hey, are you good in business? Can you help out with getting Manny Pacquiao stuff?" So I said, "Yeah, are you kidding? Of course! I'd love to. It would be an honor for me." So since that time, I've met Attorney Jeng Gacal, I met Eric Pineda in the Philippines, I worked with Michael Koncz since De La Hoya, and I tried to introduce them to people and get them certain contacts and meet certain people that can make Manny Pacquiao more money. And then we became friends, and I say this jokingly, but Manny Pacquiao made the mistake of inviting me to dinner one night at his house, at the Pallazo, I sat next to him, we ate dinner, the food was incredible, I love Filipino food, and he told me to come back any time. That's like if you're a Laker fan and Kobe Bryant invites you to his house, has dinner with you, tells you to come back any time and he means it? I came back the next night (laughing). You know what I mean? I came back the next night. I'm like, dude, I'm a fan and he invited me back and I sat there and had dinner again. I kept coming back and became friends with the guys. We just became friends and that's it. I'm Manny Pacquiao's friend. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm not his business manager, I'm not his advisor, I'm not the guy that own's his website; nothing like that. I'm his friend and I'm trying to help him.
BT: Well, more specifically though, you do run his official website, MPBoxing.com, and you also wrote his official autobiography, PACMAN, MY STORY OF HOPE, RESILIENCE, NEVER SAY NEVER DETERMINATION.
TJ: The truth is I'm just a fan of Manny Pacquiao; that's all I am. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm not on Manny Pacquioa's payroll. Manny Pacquiao has never paid me a penny except when I won his weight loss challenge, but I earned that. Hell, people don't know this, but I told Pacman that if I don't win, I will pay him $20,000. I had to win. I lost 49 pounds in like 20 days or something crazy; almost killed myself, but I wanted to show Manny my heart. I'm not on his payroll, Manny Pacquiao does not pay for my plane flights, he does not pay for my hotel rooms; never has. Never! Manny Pacquiao has never given me a penny for work. I paid for everything myself. The entire website, everything you see, I paid for myself. I'm doing this strictly because in 2001, I became a huge fan of Manny Pacquiao and I'm doing this more as a big fan. I basically said to Manny, "Why don't we create something in the United States for you so we can gather more countries and create an image for you around the world." I did this around the De La Hoya time, before he fought Hatton and before he fought Cotto, we started talking about this concept. I'm just a big fan, so for me to hear people say, "Oh, this Tim guy." I'm just a fan, and if somebody can't appreciate that a fan wants to do this for Manny Pacquiao because he's white, or because he's not Filipino, that's crazy. Manny Pacquiao has fans around the world that love him. You know what I'm saying? I've been to the Philippines 6 times in the last 2 years. I love the Philippines. I love the Filipino people. I mean, some of the most beautiful people I have ever met in the world are in the Philippines. I mean, incredible; just loving, giving. They always open up their home to you. They always say, "Please, come sit with us. Eat with us. Please." It's like, I want to go to the Philippines tomorrow if I could. Just incredible people. So it was like, the more I went to the Philippines, the more involved I wanted to get with bringing more money to the Philippines. I've gotten sponsorship deals for Manny Pacquiao before. The only money that Manny's ever cut a check to me for, I told him to make it out to a charity. He didn't even pay me. I was supposed to get 40 grand on a San Manuel commercial. There's a San Manuel commercial that's being played all over California right now; the San Manuel Casino. I got Manny Pacquiao that deal with JD. I was entitled to 40 thousand dollars in commission. I actually told Manny Pacquiao, "Don't pay me anything." Michael Koncz said, "Tim, you deserve it. This is your deal." I told him, "Make the check for 20 grand, tell Manny to keep the rest, give it to the Filipino people or whatever, take the other 20 grand and make it out to a charity." And that's what he did. I didn't get paid. Manny Pacquiao has never cut me a check.
BT: So you meet Manny Pacquiao around 2008 in a short period of time, you created his official website, MPBoxing.com, and started writing a book for him. How did that come about?
TJ: When we decided to write the book, a big part of Manny didn't want to do it because he wants to write the book after he retires. But I just said, "Hey Manny, here's the deal." It was actually me, Attorney Jeng Gacal, and Manny Pacquiao upstairs in the Pallaza. I said, "Manny, here's the deal. Right now, you have the world listening to you; the world right now. If you wait until you retire, those fans in New Zealand, Australia, the United States, Canada, Mexico, they might not have their ears to you like they do today. Why don't we write a motivational book on lessons and teaching lessons. It won't be your total life story. We'll save that for your retirement. Why don't we just write a motivational book. I'll sit down with you, I'll pen everything out, you tell me some stories, and we'll right a motivational book just based on what you did in your life. How about that?" I said, "We'll capture more of the world right now because you have more people listening. If we can affect more lives around the world for young children, to teach people what you've done and how you've done it, is that going to hurt anybody?" And he says, "No." I said, "Then do you want to do it?" And he says, "Yeah, let's do it." The way that I explained it to him is if you have a magician and he does this incredible magic trick in front of you, and you know that the deck of cards was there and then a second later the deck of cards is gone, you thought it was incredible, but you don't now how he did it. Well, Manny Pacquiao is that magician to little children around the world that know that he started with nothing, but now has everything, but they don't know how he did it. So what we tried to do was we wrote a book on teaching people how he did it so it's not a magic trick to them. That was the whole sole purpose around the book. It wasn't a book about his life story. There's way more to his life than that. This was a book about teaching; to try and teach children about discipline, about setting goals, about eating healthy, about always staying positive and focused, and not begging and not taking the easy way out. Try to take the hard route just to build self-esteem, that's what the book was about. Truthfully, a Filipino has to write his life story. To be honest with you, a Filipino that speaks his dialect has to write the book because the interesting thing about Manny is with his dialect, which is Bisaya, in order to learn English, you have to learn Tagalog, so Manny taught himself Tagalog and also taught himself English. So whenever Manny goes to speak English, he has to go from Bisaya to Tagalog to English. That's why he takes a little bit longer to respond because he has to process in his head Tagalog to English because that's how he learned English. He taught himself, which is brilliant. I can't learn Tagalog or Bisaya. That's awesome. But in my opinion, for someone to write Manny Pacquiao's life story, it needs to be someone that speaks Bisaya, his language. This book was strictly a motivational book.
BT: So it went from cars, to the website, to a book, and now to a business. How did the formation of MPBoxing Incorporated come about?
TJ: It was my idea with Attorney Jeng Gacal and it was basically just to give some authority behind it for people like Michael Koncz because they needed to know that there really was an establishment here. Because of Michael Koncz's statements...back when I got Manny Pacquiao to agree to the blood testing, Michael Koncz made statements that there was no such thing as MPBoxing.com and that there is no official website, which was crazy for me to hear and read because Michael Koncz has made official statements before on MPBoxing.com. He's made official statements with me. He even made the statement himself that MPBoxing.com was Manny Pacquiao's official website. Michael Koncz knows about the contracts and Michael Koncz was a part of the boxing side, but because he didn't like that I came out with that official statement first, which was true, he decided to bash MPBoxing and it's validity. So I decided to make it valid, with Attorney Jeng and Manny Pacquiao, as a business, and gave Manny Pacquiao ownership of it so there can never be a question of authority again.
BT: So just to clarify, MPBoxing.com is indeed the official webiste of Manny Pacquiao and MPBoxing Incorporated is indeed a business that yourself, Manny Pacquiao, and Attorney Jeng Gacal are partners in, correct?
TJ: Manny Pacquiao owns MPBoxing Incorporated and MPBoxing.com. The reason why we came up with the concept for him was because there's already a Pacland that's mostly Philippine based, so why not capture some of the audience around the world and in the US that are Manny Pacquiao fans, which may help with endorsements in the US and which will bring more money to the Philippines. So that's where the concept was created, but we have purposely not tried to compete with Pacland, such as forums and stuff. We try to do it different than what they're doing and it's because we're not trying to compete with Pacland. That was done on purpose. Pacland doesn't have videos; they don't have photos. We're creating an official store; they don't have that, so we're trying to bring something totally different and bring other countries involved, which just creates more revenue for the Filipinos in the Philippines.
BT: So MPBoxing, would you say it handles endorsement deals for Manny Pacquiao or...
TJ: (Cutting in) It would handle anything that Jeng Gacal wants it to handle because Jeng Gacal is a partner at MPBoxing Incorporated and everything that goes through MPBoxing has to go through Attorney Jeng Gacal. Definitely if people want to bring endorsement deals through and contact us at MPBoxing, then it goes straight to Attorney Jeng Gacal. They do not have to deal with a middle man, they do not have to deal with agents taking their percentage, it goes straight to Attorney Jeng Gacal and straight to Manny Pacquiao.
BT: So how does that dynamic work with Bob Arum, Top Rank, and Michael Koncz. Is there like a boxing side to Manny Pacquiao where they strictly handle that and then there's a business side where MPBoxing would be move involved?
TJ: Well, technically, Michael Koncz's role in Manny's world and Manny's business is MP Promotions, which is technically Manny Pacquiao's fighters. Technically, that's what Michael Koncz's job is. He is a part owner and a manager of MP Promotions. Because he's involved in that aspect of the business, he works directly with Top Rank to go over the contracts with Manny Pacquiao regarding his own fights and other fighters that are on the cards. Whether or not Michael Koncz gets in anything else other than that, you know, I don't know what his background is to handle endorsements. I know he's gotten involved with it, however, there should never be a contract signed by Manny Pacquiao without Jeng Gacal's initials on it and his approval because Jeng Gacal knows every single deal that Manny's done in the Philippines and the last thing you want is Manny Pacquiao to sign off on a deal in the US that's in direct conflict with a deal in the Philippines. That's why you need Jeng Gacal, so in my opinion, to go straight through Michael Koncz without going through Jeng Gacal could hurt Manny Pacquiao in the short term and the long term. And that's being done right now.
BT: Really?
TJ: Oh yeah, absolutely. There was a press release done by a company that was hired by Michael Koncz and they listed Gary Poole's book as the official autobiography of Manny Pacquiao. So I got upset about that because that was completely incorrect. Gary Poole's book is unautorized by Manny Pacquiao and it's not endorsed by Manny Pacquiao. Manny Pacquiao does not like to sign and put his signature on that book. He's actually offended by the book because Gary Poole did not ask his permission. He misled Manny Pacquiao. He was basically there to write articles for Time magazine, but really, he manipulated and got his way in to get a book done. That was never approved by Manny, so Manny takes offense to that. So anyway, Michael Koncz hired this particular agency to handle endorsement deals and when I called them and explained to them that they had the wrong book, they told me that they brought that book to Manny's L.A. home and Michael Koncz had Manny Pacquiao sign the book. They asked me if this was not the correct book, why would Michael Koncz get Manny to sign it instead of telling us we had the wrong book? I said, "Well, I don't know why Michael Koncz would do something like that, but that's not the correct book." I let them know that getting endorsement deals done in the US, because I've tried for Manny and have been successful on a couple, that you always have to get it approved by Attorney Jeng Gacal. They told me that according to Michael Koncz, they were not to include Attorney Jeng Gacal in any of their deals, that they were to only go to Michael Koncz, and that they were leaving Jeng out of all the deals. I further confirmed with them, and I actually have it in email from them, that they would not be including Eric Pineda or Attorney Jeng on any matters and would only be dealing with Michael Koncz.
BT: Wait. So you're saying Gacal and Pineda, they handle like all of Manny Pacquiao's business contracts, but...
TJ: (Cutting in) All of them. Eric Pineda is one of the most intelligent business men ever created and he has gotten more deals for Manny Pacquiao than everybody else combined. And Attorney Jeng is obviously Manny Pacquiao's attorney in the Philippines and authorizes, you know, he puts his initials on the contracts to give Manny Pacquiao that authority to say yes, and he lets him know if there's a conflict. If Jeng says there's a conflict, there's a conflict and if Jeng says there's not a conflict, there's not a conflict. Jeng is wise above his schooling probably. He has an incredible knack for law and understanding it. Manny Pacquiao has never been sued for a contract that Jeng put his initials on. There's never been a conflict.
BT: But right now, Koncz is making deals and basically telling companies not to talk to Jeng or Pineda?
TJ: The firm that he hired that put it out as a press release that they are representing Manny Pacquiao 4 deals, 4 endorsements, that also stated that Poole's book was the official autobiography, they stated to me on the phone that they are not allowed to talk to Attorney Jeng Gacal, that he will be staying out of their deals completely. And then on an email, when I told them that they need to speak with Eric Pineda to make sure that there was no conflict, as well as Attorney Jeng, they explained to me that they will not be speaking to Eric Pineda and they will be dealing with Koncz.
BT: Wow. I know Manny just got sued by some record company. Did that have anything to do with something Koncz might have done?
TJ: Because there's a lawsuit, I don't want to cause any problems, so I can't really comment on that.
BT: Since you've already mentioned it a couple of times, take us back to May of last year when you first made the announcement that Manny agreed to a 14-day cutoff. As soon as you released the statement on MPBoxing.com, Koncz immediately denied it and said Manny had never even heard of you. From what you've said thus far, it sounds like Koncz may not have been telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
TJ: I was in the Philippines. At that time, I was there for around my 7th week, basically staying at the mansion. I had seen Michael Koncz every day, working with him, working on other things, even working with the website with Koncz up until that statement was made. Michael Koncz left for Manilla for a couple days. When Sugar Shane Mosley fought Mayweather, Koncz was in Manilla. I saw Manny about 12 hours after the fight and I told him, "Hey, it looks like Mayweather may be next." Manny kind of smiled and I just asked, "Hey, what is your problem about the blood test?" He said, "Tim, I have no problem about the blood test. As long as I don't have to take the blood test the day of the fight, I'm okay." He said the day of the fight. He didn't even say 14 days; he said the day of the fight. I said, "Manny, you know that they don't want to take a quart of blood or a pint of blood. They just prick your finger basically. They just take a little; a teaspoon. Mayweather would have to take it when you have to take it." I said, "You know, Manny, it's not that you're cheating. It's just there's bicycle people in the U.S., and football players, and hockey players, and people swimming taking steroids. It's like everybody takes steroids in the U.S. The stuff you did is heroic." And I said, "It's a matter of helping to keep the sport clean." And Manny Pacquiao agreed and he said, "Tim, I got no problem. The 14 days is not a problem for me." We actually wrote it down on paper and Manny Pacquiao signed it. So the statement I made was 100% correct and factual because Manny Pacquiao read it with me, he signed it and it was true. I told Manny I was putting it up on his site.
BT: And that's when you posted the news on your site, right?
TJ: I posted it on the site, absolutely. Of course I did. I was the first one to release it. I was the first one to release that Manny Pacquiao would do the blood testing up to 14 days. I'm the one who talked to him when he agreed to it. I'm the one who had the conversation with him just explaining to Manny that they weren't going to take a lot of blood, explaining to him that, you know, that it could help the sport of boxing by getting them the fight and maybe in the future it could be good for the sport if it made sure everybody wasn't cheating. Manny Pacquiao thought it was a good idea.
BT: Did he say he'll just do the 14 days or did he say he would do it all the way up until the fight?
TJ: The first comment he made to me was, "I just don't want to take blood the day right before the fight." That's the first comment, he said, "I don't want to take blood the day of the fight, like right before the fight." That's the first comment he made to me. He didn't agree to all of Floyd Mayweather's terms right then because I don't even know what they were then. He just said to me, "Tim, I have no problem, the 14 days before the fight doesn't bother me."
BT: I think that's where they left off during arbitrations, with Floyd offering the 14-day cutoff.
TJ: So Michael Koncz somehow disputed even knowing me, which obviously can't be in dispute now, but even more incredible is that Michael Koncz said MPBoxing was falsely calling itself the official website. I have video of Manny Pacquiao calling it the official website way back in the Cotto days and Michael Koncz has done numerous official statements on the site, so for him to say that, it just didn't make any sense to me. It was almost idiotic. I was like, "What?" My issue with being able to retort or argue or defend myself was that Michael Koncz called me at my hotel the next day and stated that the lawyers for the lawsuit were saying I was messing up the lawsuit with that statement and Manny Pacquiao was just furious at me. So I went and saw Manny later that night and there was no issues. Manny wasn't furious; Manny did nothing. Manny, in my opinion, never had that conversation with Koncz. It was stated, the way that people portrayed it, was that Manny Pacquiao adamantly denied ever talking or saying this, but Manny Pacquiao never went on record to say he didn't say that. You never heard Manny say he didn't say that, did you? You only heard Koncz say Manny didn't say that. Michael Koncz said Manny Pacquiao said that. Nobody ever heard Manny Pacquiao say that he didn't say that. As a matter of fact, 2 days later, Philippine press asked Manny Pacquiao, "Hey, we hear that you okayed the 14 day." Manny Pacquiao, on video, just a couple days after, said, "Yeah, I have no problem taking the blood up to the 14 days." Which confirmed everything I said, right? So we know there was confirmation of what I said, but I ended up pulling the article because I didn't know if it would've caused any legal problems, and I didn't want that. Manny Pacquiao was just days out from his election to Congress and that was the most important thing to Manny at the time, and the last thing I wanted to do was interrupt Manny's...you know, this was like the happiest time in Manny's life, a couple days out from the day of the election, and I wasn't going to bother him with some BS just because my name was going through the mud, even though unappropriately and obviously incorrectly because it's proven that MPBoxing.com is Manny's official website, everyone obviously knows that Manny knows who Timothy James is and 2 days after, Manny Pacquiao on video said he'll do exactly what I said he said. I wasn't going to retaliate because, to me, that would have distracted from Manny Pacquiao's Congressional win. It just would have been stupid. Instead, I bit the bullet and just kept writing the book with Manny, like I was supposed to when I was in the Philippines, and celebrated the Congressional seat with him. I'm not a hater. I don't try to do harm to other people and that's what I would have had to do to Michael Koncz. I would have had to call him a liar. I would have had to call Michael Koncz a liar. It's obvious that Manny Pacquiao didn't adamantly deny it as Koncz reported. There's no validity in that.
BT: Do you think that Michael Koncz is making moves without talking to Manny Pacquiao about it?
TJ: Absolutely! Absolutely!
MUCH MORE TO FOLLOW....
[EDITOR'S NOTE: For more news and information on Manny Pacquiao, including behind-the-scenes footage of his life in and out of the ring, check out his official website at MPBoxing.com]
[ Follow Ben Thompson on Twitter @fighthype ]