By Allan Fox: Things aren’t looking too good for right now for former WBO featherweight champion Juan Manuel Lopez (31-2, 28 KO’s), who not only badly beaten up in a 10th round TKO loss to Orlando Salido earlier in this month, but now the 28-year-old Lopez faces a possible suspension until September 2013, according to Fightnews.com. This is related to comments made by Lopez about referee Roberto Ramirez after Lopez’s loss to Salido on March 10th.

Fightnews is reporting that Puerto Rico Boxing Commission examiner Alberto Arroyo is talking about a suspension for Lopez lasting until September 2013, in addition to a fine of $100,000, plus 100 hours of community service. Lopez already has been given a 90 suspension for his comments about referee Ramirez.

The suspension is only for a year, but Lopez already has the 90 suspension he’s currently serving as well as another three months due a doctor’s suspension, according to fightnews, that will be ending on September of this year. Six months isn’t a big deal because Lopez probably could use that time off to recover from some of the punishment he took in the Salido fight.

However, adding a year to that total would very likely badly hurt Lopez’s career. Coming back from the loss to Salido will be hard enough for Lopez, as there’s big questions now whether he can still be a champion on the featherweight division. However, coming back from a layoff of a year and a half would be disastrous for Lopez’s career. The thing is he’s a big star in Puerto Rico, and draws huge crowds over there. If Lopez decided he didn’t want to wait out the long suspension and fight outside of the country, he’ll probably have to settle for fighting in front of much smaller audiences unless he stages his fights in the East coast of the United States where there’s a significant Puerto Rican population.