Michael Koncz Accidentally Makes Pacquiao Look Bad with Marquez Comments - Or Does He?

In an interview with Lem Satterfield, Manny Pacquiao adviser Michael Koncz inadvertantly made the Filipino superstar sort of look bad with his comments on the seemingly foregone conclusion that is a November third fight with Juan Manuel Marquez.

"I don't really necessarily think that it's a good fight. I think that it will be controversial. In fact, I think that if we fight Juan Manuel Marquez 20 times that it will always end in controversy 20 times. They say that styles make fights, but, you know, sometimes, styles break fights. ... It's been shown that if you knock the guy down that many times, he's still very resilient and he gets back up and he's got Manny figured out. So I think that it's a very difficult fight and that's why I need to make certain that the financial rewards for Manny are valid enough to take that fight."

Boy, that's not going to help quiet the people who accuse Team Pacquiao of cherry-picking made-to-order opponents, is it? Koncz is basically saying that since Marquez has actually proven good enough in the past to challenge, this fight had to be, like, extra lucrative. Not just normal Pacquiao-lucrative.

I mean, I'm sure you think that way, but who says it publicly like this? "Unlike other fighters, this guy's actually really hard to beat."

Of course you have to separate what we call a good fight and what Michael Koncz might call a good fight. A good fight for him is probably the Mosley fight, where Manny wins easy and makes a lot of money and the other guy barely tries after three rounds. A good fight for fight fans, who help pay the freight on these $20 million paydays, is a fight that actually has some intrigue.

Or maybe this is reverse psychology. Since so many think that Pacquiao vs Marquez III is an advantageously-timed matchup, with Marquez nearing his 38th birthday and Pacquiao now a welterweight, Koncz painting this "Danger! Manny Pacquiao! Danger!" picture could convince some that someone in the Pacquiao inner circle is, you know, "afraid" of the fight, which indicates that Marquez, unlike the others, is not a patsy. You know, if they were saying the other guys were patsies chosen to lose without much difficulty.

Boxing is fun. I love quote puzzles.