WBO super lightweight champion Teofimo Lopez may pay a steep price for the displayed racism last week as WBO president Gustavo Olivieri indicated action would be taken against the American fighter. In a social media reply to another user, Olivieri stated there was a meeting planned for this week to address the latest incident involving Lopez.

This past week, Teofimo Lopez (22-1, 13 KO’s) was seen on video referring to Terence Crawford (41-0, 31 KO’s) as the N-word amidst a rant made by his trainer/father, Teofimo Lopez Sr. With there being a multitude of past similar incidents Lopez found himself involved in, it appears the WBO has finally had enough and will be taking action.

“We will convene next week to address this matter and other relevant events,” Olivieri stated on social media.

“Rest assured, we will carefully investigate any and all potential violations of our rules regardless the fighter and proceed in accordance with due process guarantees.“

According to the WBO’s rules, outside of PED violations, champions can be held responsible depending on the type of crimes they committed or behavior they showed:

Given the WBO swiftly responded to allegations from the Michigan’s state athletic commission regarding Claressa Shields’ “dangerous conduct” and failed drug test following her undisputed women’s heavyweight win in February by demanding Shields prove her innocence, the sanctioning body appears to be very much looking to remain consistent when it comes to holding fighters accountable.

Though Lopez’ incident will be discussed along with other “relevant events” as Olivieri stated, this might be the precursor to actionable decisions or another, more specific meeting, depending on the course of the upcoming WBO meeting. Potentially, this could set a course for Teofimo Lopez to be stripped of his WBO super lightweight (140 lbs) title.