By Steve Kim

As Top Rank CEO Bob Arum was away on vacation last week, the name of Adrien Broner came up as a possibility as Manny Pacquiao's opponent on April 9th. Admittedly, this was news to the veteran promoter.

Pacquiao's adviser, Michael Koncz, phoned Broner directly to see if he would entertain the idea.

"Yeah, I was very surprised," said Arum on Monday morning to BoxingScene.com.

"But y'know, Mike is trying to figure out the best thing for Manny and he's not as conversant in the pay-per-view like we are. We talk to all the distributors, to HBO and we figure out who is the best draw. We don't do this by the seat of our pants. But his idea was,'Well, the kid has a big mouth,' but that doesn't sell pay-per-views.

"We had a real nice meeting with Michael and he understands. So we're going with the original group and we'll see where it goes from there."

The names that were prominently mentioned were the likes of Terence Crawford, Tim Bradley and Amir Khan.

''We should have an answer in the next day or so based on what Michael said and then we go to work," said Arum, who added that Pacquiao's fight will be staged at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com.