Upper Deck’s hostile takeover bid may be out of the picture, but the sale of Topps is anything but a done deal right now. Monday, the company announced it was pushing back a shareholder’s vote on the sale of the company to a group headed by former Disney chairman Michael Eisner. Topps admitted in its filing that had the vote taken place as scheduled on Aug. 30, the shareholders might have turned down the deal that would have paid them $9.75 per share.

Topps believes the controversy surrounding Upper Deck’s offer of $10.75 per share still lingers in the minds of many shareholders. I'm not sure if that memory completely goes away in three weeks or not, but the company has also had to deal with three proxy research firms advising shareholders in the past two weeks to reject the deal as well.

Topps is hoping to buy some time to convince shareholders of the merits of its offer. And, it also gives Eisner’s group time to sweeten its offer. Of course, it also gives the opponents of the deal more time to build on their recent momentum.

Should the deal be rejected, new management could be voted in by shareholders. The new board of directors would then try to attract new suitors by building more “value” into the company. That would likely delay a sale by several years, and how that will affect the product offerings from Topps in that time period is anybody’s guess.