By Mark Vester

Top Rank CEO Bob Arum held his conference call to announce the outcome of the Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr. negotiations for a November 13 showdown in Las Vegas. A proposal was sent to Mayweather a few weeks back. Mayweather was given a July 16 deadline to approve the deal. He never responded.

Arum said he was never negotiating with Golden Boy Promotions or their CEO Richard Schaefer. The negotiations took place between Arum and Mayweather's manager Al Haymon, with HBO Sports President Ross Greenburg as the middleman handling the talks between the two men. Arum never spoke to Haymon directly. Greenburg handled the negotiations between them, likely to avoid any disputes that would possibly crash the fight.

Arum said a fight with Mayweather could still happen. The date of July 16 was simply a deadline agreement with Greenburg - that Arum would not negotiate or finalize any opponent until Mayweather gave an answer. Now Arum is free to negotiate with the other two options, Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito.

"We now have to go out and secure an opponent for Manny Pacquiao," Arum said.

If Mayweather comes around and decides that he wants the fight with Pacquiao in the next few days, Arum will be ready, but there is not a lot of time on the table. Arum said that he needs to finalize a deal with an opponent for Pacquiao, within ten days time, because of everything involved with making a big pay-per-view fight for November 13. 

Arum speculates that Mayweather did not accept the fight at this time because his uncle/trainer, Roger Mayweather, has a trial scheduled for an assault charge in August and there is a good chance that he might do some time in prison. Arum doesn't see Mayweather going forward with a Pacquiao fight without Roger being the trainer.

"I am sure there is a very good reason that Mayweather did not commit to a fight at this time," Arum said. "Greenburg told me that Haymon really tried to put the fight together."

"I don't think any of you guys should be hard on Floyd. I really think the issue with the uncle has had an effect. I can understand Floyd not taking a fight until there is a resolution with the Roger situation."

If nothing comes about within the next few days, Arum will attempt to make the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight in May 2011. But he will now move forward with trying to match Pacquiao against Margarito or Cotto in a junior middleweight championship bout.