A news photographer accused two ranking members of Team Pacquiao of assaulting him for taking pictures of the fallen Manny “PacMan” Pacquiao, seconds after he was knocked out by Juan Manuel Marquez on Saturday (Sunday in Manila).

Getty Images photographer Al Bello said that Pacquiao’s financial adviser Michael Koncz and assistant trainer Buboy Fernandez punched and kicked him when he tried to photograph Pacquiao, who was lying face down on the mat.

A Yahoo! sports report said that Bello jumped off the apron in an effort to avoid confrontation with the Pacquiao Team member.

“Had I not gotten off the ring, I have no doubt the two of them would have beaten the [expletive] out of me and I might have been seriously hurt,” Bello told Yahoo! Sports.

Chased by Buboy
Even after Bello jumped off the apron, an enraged Fernandez went through the ropes after him in an effort to get at him, the report said. Veteran sportswriter Kevin Iole reported that Fernandez had been on the ground crying when he became aware that Bello was shooting photos of the knocked out Pacquiao.

Koncz did not return a phone call seeking comment, though he sent a text message to Yahoo! sports regarding the incident, Iole said.

“Not an assault just a miss understanding [sic] in the heat of the moment,” Koncz said in his reply.

Iole wrote that when a follow-up text was sent by Yahoo! Sports indicating that there was photographic evidence of both Koncz and Fernandez attacking Bello, Koncz quit responding.

‘Sore losers’
“Wow, hindi ko alam na pikon pala ang mga bata ni Pacquiao. Nakakahiya sila! [Wow, I didn’t know that Pacquiao’s boys are sore losers. Shame on them],” said boxing aficionado Patricio Yanez of Fairfax, Virginia.

Yanez, a die-hard Pacquiao fan, said that Koncz and Fernandez should emulate the gentlemanly behavior of Pacquiao who, he observed, was gracious in his defeat.

UNTV reporter James Bantuyan said the assault on a member of the media was “completely uncalled for” and was yet another negative sidebar to Pacquiao’s shocking loss.

“Koncz and Fernandez should apologize, and they should be dealt with properly if proven guilty by the boxing governing bodies,” said the Baltimore, Maryland-based television scribe. “If something like this happened in another sport like the NBA or the NFL, they would have been fined and suspended.”

Executive Director Keith Kizer of the Nevada State Athletic Commission said that he would review the incident and would consider potential penalties against Koncz and Fernandez.

“What I find interesting is that neither of these gentlemen, nor anyone else on Team Pacquiao, had any problems when the photographers were doing their jobs and shooting pictures of Ricky Hatton after Manny knocked Hatton out,” Kizer said.

Pacquiao knocked Hatton out cold in the second round of their May 2009 bout at the MGM Grand Arena.

Bello said that the incident began on Saturday when Pacquiao trainer Freddie Roach asked him not to shoot. He said that that caught the attention of Koncz and Fernandez, which started the incident.

Bello said that Roach never touched him and later apologized for asking him not to take photos of the motionless Pacquiao.

Bello said that he is a fan of Pacquiao’s and was just doing his job.

“Nobody likes doing that, but I was where I was credentialed to be and I was trying to do my job, which is to document the event,” Bello said. “It’s no different than the war photographers who have to shoot what is happening on a battlefield. Nobody wants to do that, but you have to document the history.

“I’ve been a fan of Manny and I have shot a lot of his fights. I watched all the 24/7s [on HBO], but what happened here was not right.”