The Jorge Linares-Vasiliy Lomachenko fight ain't dead yet.

Two weeks ago, the fight, one of the most attractive potential pairings in boxing, looked to be all but dead when Golden Boy Promotions, which is the American promoter for lightweight world champion Linares, and Top Rank, which represents pound-for-pound king and junior lightweight world champion Lomachenko, reached an impasse.

Top Rank and Golden Boy have long been rivals, but they had agreed to terms for the fight to be promoted by Top Rank. The one issue holding up the deal was the date.

Top Rank intended to put the fight on ESPN on its May 12 date at Madison Square Garden in New York. However, Golden Boy is staging an HBO card on the same night -- probably junior middleweight world titlist Sadam Ali in his return from an enormous upset to win the title from Miguel Cotto in December to face mandatory challenger Liam Smith. Understandably, Golden Boy did not want to compete head-to-head against its own event.

But in recent days, the sides have come up with a possible solution that would allow both events to take place on May 12.

"We have reached out to executives at ESPN to see if they would be willing to move up the start time for the Linares-Lomachenko card so it doesn't interfere with the HBO telecast, and they told us they are considering it," Golden Boy president Eric Gomez told ESPN on Wednesday. "We're doing our part so that we can try to make this fight. We know it's a big fight and we want to give the fans the fights that they want. So let's have a really great fight and a great day of boxing on the two biggest platforms for boxing, which is ESPN and HBO. ESPN loves the idea and said they're considering it, so we are hopeful we can work it out."

The usually talkative Bob Arum, Top Rank's chairman, declined to discuss the situation other than to tell ESPN, "No comment, but what Eric said is not inaccurate."

No ESPN executives could be reached for comment about the situation, which was first reported by Yahoo Sports.

A few weeks ago, Top Rank worked out the financial details with Teiken Promotions' Akihiko Honda, Linares' Japan-based co-promoter, under which the Linares side would receive a package of $1.2 million for the fight. Linares would receive $1 million of that package, which would be by far the biggest purse of his 16-year career.

However, Golden Boy objected to the date, on which Lomachenko was going to decide whether he was facing Linares, possibly newly crowned lightweight titleholder Raymundo Beltran or somebody else. Eventually, the promoters came up with the idea of staggering the start times for each card so there would be no overlap.

"If we can work out the start times we would move forward with the fight. There would be no obstacles, no more problems," Gomez said. "We want to work it out. ESPN is also our partner as well [on the Golden Boy Boxing on ESPN series], and we want to be able to deliver the fight to them. If we can work out the start time and the same deal is on the table as we were offered we'll take it and move forward with the fight.

"The money was worked out with Honda and we accepted it, and Honda is supposed to get the TV rights for Japan. As long as that stays the same, we can work it out. If ESPN is willing to move up [the start time] we're in."

Lomachenko (10-1, 8 KOs), 29, the two-time Olympic gold medalist from Ukraine, has won world titles at featherweight and junior lightweight and is moving up to seek a title at lightweight after four defenses at junior lightweight. In his last fight, on Dec. 9, Lomachenko easily dominated Guillermo Rigondeaux, making him quit after the sixth round of a one-sided match, which was the first-ever between two-time Olympic gold medalists. It was the fourth consecutive fight in which Lomachenko made his opponent quit.

Linares (44-3, 27 KOs), 32, who is from Venezuela and fights out of Las Vegas, has won titles at featherweight, junior lightweight and lightweight. Since suffering back-to-back losses in 2011 and 2012, Linares has won 13 fights in a row and won two versions of the lightweight title. In his last fight, he retained his 135-pound crown by one-sided decision against Mercito Gesta on Jan. 27.