Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard Ellerbe has retaliated to comments attributed to Michael Koncz by branding Manny Pacquiao’s advisor a ‘moron’ and an ‘idiot’ in the wake of a drug test row.
Koncz confirmed that Floyd Mayweather and his team rejected the offer by Pacquiao to have a five million dollar fine in the fight contract which would be activated if either of the welterweight champions recorded a positive test.
The decision to speak out by Koncz has been met with fire by an irate Ellerbe, who gave the outspoken member of ‘Team Pacman’ a piece of his mind during an interview with ESPN on Thursday evening.
“Michael Koncz is an idiot, and Manny Pacquiao should be ashamed to have him as his representative, in my opinion,” said Ellerbe. “It’s obvious he didn’t read the contract. Why would he have his fighter sign something he was not happy with?
“The deal was negotiated up and down by his promoter on behalf of Manny with Floyd and Mayweather Promotions, and it’s been well documented in the media for quite some time.
“If this moron didn’t convey his fighter’s wishes when the negotiation was going on, that’s their problem. This is a lame-ass attempt to generate publicity,” he added.
Both camps have seemed fine with the contract until this point as the fighters have already begun being drug tested in the run-up to their massive pay-per-view event set to take place at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on May 2nd.
If one of the superstar fighters was to fail a test, a fine may become obsolete as the likelihood would be that the encounter would be called off meaning everybody loses out on a huge amount of money without the $5m even coming into play.
It’s almost six weeks until Mayweather and Pacquiao trade blows in the most lucrative fight of all time and arguments like this are just par for the course in the build-up to the first bell. I’m sure it won’t be the last.
