Sometimes, you take a supposed joke too far. In rare instances, that joke was told in the worst time possible when a country’s political climate gets incredibly dicey.

(In)famous fighting game player Ryan Ramirez, better known as Filipino Champ, did not read the proverbial room and, as a result, is now banned indefinitely from all Capcom-owned and operated events. Street Fighter V, Marvel vs. Capcom 3; you name it, he ain’t participating in it.

Why? It all started with this race-related “joke” he tweeted:

The tweet has been deleted, but that didn’t stop everyone from calling him out for his bad taste in racist humour, especially during the current Black Lives Matter movement. This was followed by him being banned from tournaments like Combo Breaker and East Coast Throwdown.

In solidarity with the team behind ECT, any community member barred from attending East Coast Throwdown will not be welcome at Combo Breaker 2021 or other events I direct. https://t.co/aeeHpMBKGy

— Rick (@TheHadou) June 13, 2020

This was followed by the aforementioned Capcom ban (via Slasher).

former EVO champion Filipino Champ has now been banned indefinitely from all Capcom owned and operated events following insensitive comments made on black lives matter pic.twitter.com/a2qdFTIdeM

— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) June 17, 2020

Filipino Champ is an entertaining smack-talking tournament player who spices things up in versus games for his villainous persona; mad props to him for that. But as a professional for 9 years in the fighting game circuit competing in large-scale tournaments, he should know better than to joke about things like these during a heated time in the US of A. He’ll most likely be back after his indefinite suspension -see Infiltration- but this is a cautionary tale to all esports players who want to be controversial.