By Ronnie Nathanielsz

Now that undefeated Floyd Mayweather Jr hasn’t signed to fight pound-for-pound king and “Fighter of the Decade” Manny Pacquiao in a megabuck showdown, originally planned for November 13, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is looking at the many options available to him.

BoxingScene.com, Insidesports.ph, Standard Today and Viva Sports has learned that Pacquiao’s adviser Michael Koncz and Arum were scheduled to meet Monday afternoon in Los Angeles to discuss the preferred opponent for Congressman Pacquiao’s next fight and the venue that would offer the best deal.

Indications are the fighter will be Antonio Margarito, the former WBA light middleweight champion who has a record of 38-6, with 27 knockouts and returned from a one year suspension slapped on him by the California State Athletic Commission after he was found to have used hand-wraps allegedly loaded with plaster-of-Paris prior to his 9th round TKO loss to Shane Mosley on January 24, 2009, although a Pacquiao  rematch with the reigning WBO light middleweight champion Miguel Cotto hasn’t been ruled out.

After serving his suspension Margarito fought and won a ten round unanimous decision over Roberto Garcia in a battle for the vacant WBC International light middleweight title on May 8, 2010  in Mexico. However when he applied for a license and personally appeared before the Nevada State Athletic Commission to present his case, executive director Keith Kizer told us the Commission voted 4-1 to table the request. Kizer indicated that what the Commission did was to basically ask Margarito to first get his license from the California State Athletic Commission before the NSAC could consider his application for a license to fight in the state indicating it was the right thing to do in terms of respect for other US boxing commissions and their decisions.

Margarito who was being lined up to fight Pacquiao at the MGM Grand on November 13 should the Mayweather negotiations fail to prosper,  now has a lucrative offer from Monterey for a Pacquiao fight for Pacquiao and Arum  to consider while Abu Dhabi has also shown huge interest in staging the fight in that Middle-East’s  large-scale sports and entertainment center backed by the Royal Family of the United Arab Emirates.

A representative as well as a lawyer of the Emirati Royal Family met with Arum and Koncz last week and had promised to get back to them with what would be a firm offer on Monday, Manila time.

It seems that besides a site fee of $30 million the Abu Dhabi bid may include a total package which would give them all revenues including pay-per-view and which would sweeten the pot substantially.

While no decision has yet been made on the site of the fight we understand that Margarito who is also managed by Arum along with Cotto is the likely opponent,  with a Cotto – Julio Cesar Chavez title fight likely to happen. The scenario is that should Cotto win, then a rematch with Pacquiao is likely before they buckle down to a serious effort to finalize a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight.

Grand Rapids Michigan boxing writer David Mayo, a friend of the Mayweathers as well as handlers Leonard Ellerbee and Al Haymon believes that the stumbling block to the fight this November was the 50-50 revenue split which he indicated Mayweather Jr wouldn’t accept, despite the fact that he accepted it in the previous negotiations between Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer and Arum for a fight last March and introduced the 14 day cut-off for random drug tests that resulted in the collapse of the negotiations late into the talks. Despite the fact that Pacquiao, after initially balking accepted the terms of Mayweather for a November clash  , this time around Mayweather has raised the issue of a revenue split and reportedly demands a 60-40 split.

Mayo told us some time ago that nobody was talking directly to the Mayweathers, even as he told us that Mayweather disliked both Arum and Golden Boy Promotions owner Oscar De La Hoya, who had announced that both fighters had accepted the terms only to later retract his statement and to claim he was misquoted although his claim was made on television.

Mayo however appears fairly confident that a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight could happen in May 2011 which probably explains Arum’s soft-pedaling Mayweather’s falure to accept the terms for a fight against Pacquiao this year, hoping that it could be Pacquiao’s last hurrah in an illustrious ring career.