Dana White will do anything for a little cross-promotion of next weekend’s UFC on Fox event. Even if it renders him homeless.

Of course, the UFC president isn’t really a homeless person. He just plays one on TV.

During the Fox NFL Sunday pregame show on Sunday afternoon, there was a mildly humorous skit in which Rob Riggle — a comic who’ll never be confused for Rickles — portrays one of those scurrilous tipsters who try to entice bettors to pay for can’t-miss picks. Nudging along the guffaws are cameos by Richard Simmons and, at around the 1:50 mark of the video below, Dana White.

Now, if it were anyone else playing the role that Riggle describes as “the man that lives outside my bank,” that would be the end of the story. But this is Dana White we’re talking about, and he’s always going to take things a step too far. So after a Fox Sports feed on Twitter sent out a picture of White, in character, sitting on a sidewalk holding a sign reading “PLEASE HELP!! NEED FOOD A.K.A. BOOZE,” and a few fans expressed their disapproval of the not-so-PC homelessness characterization on their own Twitter feeds, Dana couldn’t just let it go.

He fired back. And fired back some more. Typical of the venom that White spewed: “People are such pussies these days it makes me SICK!!!”

Oh, where have you gone, Dale Carnegie?

– Jeff Wagenheim

Tom Brady attended UFC 118 when it came to the TD Garden in Boston. (Mike Roach/Getty Images)

MONTREAL — Some fighters prepare for a bout by watching video of an opponent’s past performances. Others prefer to let their trainers do the film work. Georges St-Pierre might well have found his inspiration, in the lead-up to Saturday night’s welterweight title defense against Carlos Condit in the main event of UFC 154 at the Bell Centre, by tuning his TV to NFL football.

Specifically, games involving the Patriots … especially when the Tom Brady-led offense is on the field.

You see, St-Pierre and Brady have something in common. Or rather, someone: Neal S. ElAttrache.

“Dr. ElAttrache did Tom Brady’s ACL, and he had almost the identical injury to me,” St-Pierre said in a statement issued by the UFC. “Brady came back and was better than ever, so I put my trust in Dr. ElAttrache and I am back 100 percent.”

ElAttrache, an orthopedic surgeon specializing in sports medicine at the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic in Los Angeles, performed reconstructive surgery on Brady’s anterior cruciate ligament and also repaired his medial collateral ligament after the quarterback was injured in the opening game of the 2008 season. Since returning the following year, Brady has led New England to the playoffs and made the Pro Bowl each season. Last February he brought the Patriots right back to where they were just prior to his injury: the Super Bowl.

St-Pierre, who has not fought in 19 months after injuring his right knee during training for his original date with Condit, might find particular solace in watching Brady’s first game back from injury. Brady, whom teammate Chandler Jones (brother of UFC light heavyweight champ Jon Jones) says is a huge MMA fan, threw for 378 yards and two touchdowns in a comeback win over Buffalo.

“The knee is like the injury never even happened,” said St-Pierre. “I’ve been out for a year and a half, but I am back. All those who doubted me will have a big reality check, because I’m better than ever.”

How is Carlos Condit supposed to counteract that? Well, maybe he should watch some Eli Manning videos.

—Jeff Wagenheim

Georges St-Pierre returns to his native Canada to fight Carlos Condit at UFC 154. (Josh Hedges/Getty Images)

ST-REMI, Quebec — Sitting in a restaurant in northern Vermont enjoying a nice lunch and a much-needed break from my hours-long drive to Montreal, it occurred to me that a little further along my route I would be passing through the area where Georges St-Pierre grew up. The UFC welterweight champion is often referred to as a Montreal fighter, and the crowd at the Bell Centre will surely make him feel like one when he’s introduced before his title defense against Carlos Condit in the main event of UFC 154 on Saturday night. But GSP is no city boy. He actually hails from the vast Quebec countryside tucked between the St. Lawrence River and the U.S. border.

Pulling the smart phone out of my pocket while I waited for dessert to arrive — you’re allowed to have a little something sweet in the middle of the day, unless you’re trying to make weight for a UFC fight or something — I quickly scanned some online articles about St-Pierre’s youth and came upon one about a recent visit he paid to his old high school in Saint-Rémi, Quebec. Hmm, I thought, if it’s not too far out of the way …

And then, yup, to locate the land of GSP, I used my GPS.

I’m not sure what I expected to see when I pulled into Saint-Rémi, a tiny city of around 7,000 tucked into a landscape of farmland, small industry and windmills, lots of windmills, in southwestern Quebec. I guess I envisioned “Go GSP” window signs in storefronts, maybe even a banner strung across a downtown street proclaiming “Home of Georges St-Pierre.”

There was nothing, though, no visible acknowledgement that one of the greatest mixed martial arts of all time — a three-time Sportsnet Canadian Athlete of the Year — spent his formative years here.

I saw a bunch of guys gathered outside an apartment building down the block from École Pierre-Bédard, where GSP returned not long ago to talk to students about his school chin-ups record, which still stands, and the bullying he went through while in school. I wondered whether any of these men on the apartment building stoop were the ones who’d pushed GSP around back in the day. I decided not to bother them.

Right across from the school I saw an elementary-grade kid walking with his book bag and, imagining him to be of the age where he might have a GSP poster on his bedroom wall, considered pulling over and talking to him. But then I thought better of being that guy who pulls his car to the side of the road and rolls his window down to talk to a school kid.

I ended up at a convenience store in the center of town. As I walked up to the cash register with my bottled water, I noticed that among the staff gathered was a young man with a buzz cut, wearing a black T-shirt with some combative-looking logo across the front. He looked like what half of the Bell Centre crowd will look like on Saturday night. He’s my man, I thought.

“I understand I am in the home of GSP,” I sid to the woman behind the counter as I fumbled through my Canadian coins to pay for my water. She stared at me blankly. It turned out, as I learned when I look it up on my iPhone upon returning to my car, that 96 percent of the Saint-Rémi population speaks only French. The young woman took my money and gestured toward the black T-shirt guy, who it turns out is among the community’s bilinguals.

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Ronda Rousey’s next match will be as a member of UFC. (Robert Beck/SI)

MONTREAL — Ronda Rousey usually is the one doing the arm twisting. Did someone beat her at her own game to get her to finally comment on her job status?

“Okay I admit it … I’m officially a UFC fighter,” Rousey wrote on Twitter on Friday afternoon, after more than a week of steering clear of the subject of a TMZ.com report that she had become the first female fighter in the promotion’s history. “So excited! Can’t wait to debut! Let Dana White know who you want my first opponent to be!”

There’d been no arm twisting involved, actually, but White had beaten Rousey to the punch, so to speak. Earlier in the day he went on Jim Rome’s nationally syndicated radio program and confirmed what he, too, had been uncharacteristically silent about ever since the groundbreaking story broke. “Yes, it’s official,” he said in answer to Rome’s question about the TMZ report, which had been confirmed by other media outlets, but all citing anonymous sources. “Ronda Rousey did sign with the UFC.”

This official confirmation didn’t create much of a buzz at New Gas City, the cavernous downtown Montreal nightclub that was the venue for Friday’s UFC 154 weigh-ins. The place was packed and noisy, just as the UFC likes it, and what the fans saw was uneventful, with every fighter on the card making weight — also just as the UFC likes it. Georges St-Pierre, who defends his welterweight championship for the first time in 19 months in Saturday night’s main event, got a hero’s welcome in the city where he lives and trains. His opponent, interim champ Carlos Condit, received polite applause. The Rousey news, so widely considered a fait accompli after last week’s report, was not the least bit of a distraction.

Still, listening to the Rome show, it was cool to hear White make a public endorsement of women’s MMA, something he had said as recently as a year ago would never be a part of the UFC. It’s not too difficult to understand why Dana would have had a change of heart if you’ve ever seen Rousey fight.

“I tell you, this girl is nasty,” he told Rome. “She might be beautiful on the outside. She’s a Diaz brother on the inside. She’s a real fighter. She’s very talented. She has the credentials, the pedigree, I mean, everything.”

Everything? Dana was referring to more than Rousey’s Olympic bronze medal in judo, her Strikeforce women’s bantamweight championship and her 6-0 professional record, with every win by that unstoppable armbar, all but one in the very first minute. The UFC president is looking beyond all of that. “I think she has that ‘it’ factor,” he said. “I think she’s going to be a big superstar.”

Whether that happens falls as much on him and his promotional team, of course, as it does on the fighter. But so far Rousey and the UFC have been a marketable match, with “Rowdy Ronda” appearing everywhere from the cover of the ESPN the Magazine “Body Issue” to the Sports Illustrated TV magazine show on NBC Network.

The ultimate test, however, will come not on the newsstand, the TV screen or the Madison Avenue boardroom. It’ll come in the cage. No one has yet posed a threat to Rousey, and for the 25-year-old’s star to continue to rise she’s going to need to overcome some viable challenges. Cris “Cyborg” Santos, long the indomitable force in the women’s fight game, will be Rousey’s most treacherous hurdle once the Brazilian finishes her steroid suspension. Then the two fighters’ camps can get past their silly squabble over how to bridge the weight-class gap between the 145-pound Cyborg and Rousey, who began her career at 145 but now is champion among women 10 pounds lighter.

White offered no hint on when we’ll see a Rousey vs. Cyborg matchup. But he did insist that Rousey’s challenges will not end there. “She’s got four or five good fights,” he said during his radio appearance. “The next two years, we’ve got really good opponents for her, and it’s going to be interesting.”

It’s already interesting, considering that White’s dismissal of women’s MMA all along was centered on his insistence that there were not enough top-level women to fill a division. Rousey’s “four or five good fights” sounds like a UFC women’s division in the making.

—Jeff Wagenheim

Anderson Silva easily defeated Stephan Bonnar at UFC 153 last month in Rio. (Zumapress.com)

Anderson Silva plays with people.

The UFC middleweight champion has done it for years inside the octagon, most recently a month ago in Rio de Janeiro. He languished against the cage early in the main event that night as if lazing about on a street corner, arms at his side except to rev up the crowd of adoring countrymen by broadly gesturing for his opponent to hit him. No, to try to hit him. Then, after dodging every punch with nothing but a fluid rhythm of head and upper torso movement that would make a matador blush and a contortionist blanch, Silva apparently decided that he’d toyed enough with the musclebound man standing in front of him slinging hopeless leather. And with a single well-placed knee, he knocked the juice out of Stephan Bonnar. Show’s over, folks.

Outside the cage, Silva plays with all of us.

You were expecting “The Spider” to walk into the octagon Saturday night in Montreal, if Georges St-Pierre wins the UFC 154 main event, and publicly challenge the welterweight champion to a superfight, right? He’s going to be at the Bell Centre, we know. And UFC president Dana White is on record as saying, “He wants [GSP] to win this fight, and he wants to fight him after.” Asked directly if Silva will challenge St-Pierre in the octagon post-fight, the UFC president answered, “I would say yes.”

But Silva says no. “Not in my character to stand up and challenge anyone,” he told Tatame in a story posted Monday on the Brazilian magazine’s website. “I think that this will not happen.” He laughed and added, “I think not, I’m sure.” (Translation from Portuguese is from online sources.)

We might be inclined to chalk up this about-face letdown to the fight promoter with the mostest. During his conference call with MMA media last week, White made it sound like the octagon challenge was a fait accompli. But does he really need to use a phony Silva call-out to help sell the first St-Pierre fight in more than a year and a half? No, he doesn’t. It might well be that Dana simply knew that Silva was going to be in the building and put two and two together.

Well, here’s another set of numbers for White’s abacus: two zero one three.

Silva revealed in the same Brazilian interview that he does not intend to fight again until the end of 2013. White had been expecting to be able to put Silva back in the cage much sooner than that — perhaps against GSP in Cowboys Stadium outside Dallas.

“I think it’s time for me to leave my life in order, because this thing of always being worried and having work, I just leave my personal life aside,” Silva told Tatame. “I have my projects, my personal plans and will keep them moving forward.”

While grinding the middleweight division to a halt?

Or maybe just putting Dana White through the grinder. Silva knows what Dana told the media and understands how much a superfight with St-Pierre would mean to the UFC. Perhaps this is simply his dramatic way of letting it be known that he won’t come cheap.

We know Silva likes to play with people. Maybe he plays them, too.

—Jeff Wagenheim

Demetrious Johnson (above), the UFC’s first flyweight champion, will make his maiden defense against John Dodson on Jan. 26. (Al Bello/Zuffa LLC)

Election Night was a sensory overload of names and numbers, of blue and red and talking heads. Obama vs. Romney. Rove vs. Mathematics. Johnson vs. Dodson.

That last one was not a race for a seat in Washington. It’s a contest for which the finish line is in Chicago and still far, far away. The starter’s pistol has just sounded, in fact.

I’m talking about Demetrious Johnson vs. John Dodson, the first defense of the UFC flyweight division belt that “Mighty Mouse” captured back in September by beating Joseph Benavidez in the finale of a four-man tournament. Dodson, winner of the 135-pound tourney in Season 14 of The Ultimate Fighter, earned the first shot at the new 125-pound champion by knocking out Jussier da Silva last month.

So we knew Johnson and Dodson were destined to clash sometime, and the UFC announced Tuesday night on its Fuel TV show, UFC Tonight, that “sometime” will be in the main event of the UFC on Fox card Jan. 26 at the United Center.

How fitting that this fight announcement would come on a night when the country was focused on something other than mixed martial arts (and something far more vicious, at that!). Flying under the radar on Election Night is actually a step up for the flyweight division. It’s maddening but true. Johnson vs. Benavidez and Dodson vs. Da Silva were fought at a pace achieved by competitors in the bigger weight classes only when the bouts are viewed on a DVR set at fast-forward. Yet the 125-pounders heard boos from arena crowds presumably more interested in bloodshed than lightning-fast displays of all-around technical mastery.

Hearing fans in Toronto jeer the Johnson-Benavidez title bout embittered UFC president Dana White, who afterward spat out, “If you didn’t like the flyweight fight, please, I’m begging you, don’t ever buy another UFC pay-per-view again. I don’t want your money. You’re a moron. You don’t like fighting. You don’t appreciate talent.”

Sure, Dana is one to bluster, but in this instance he was spot on. I mean, c’mon, people.

Now the UFC is presenting another 125-pound main event. Interestingly, this one is on free TV, not PPV, so maybe name caller Dana is all bark and no bite. Still, watch your step, Windy City.

Even if you can’t appreciate the little guys, though, you’re still in for big entertainment. The co-main event between Donald Cerrone and Anthony Pettis — also made official Tuesday night — could determine the next challenger for the lightweight belt. Erik Koch vs. Ricardo Lamas, a bout that MMAjunkie.com has reported is being moved to this event, could produce the next featherweight title contestant. And then there’s Glover Teixeira vs. Quinton Jackson, a clash between a light heavyweight on the way up and one on the way out.

With a lead-in as potent as all that, the flyweights are really going to have to bring it to justify their place in the spotlight. What else is new?

– Jeff Wagenheim

Georges St-Pierre (left) is returning to the cage for the first time in 20 months. [Al Bello/ Zuffa LLC via Getty Images]

“We missed him,” said Dana White, the words spoken with a hint of longing. “It’s good to have him back.”

The UFC president was speaking of his company’s most lucrative pay-per-view draw, welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre, who is indeed back after 20 months away from the octagon because of knee surgery and the rehab that followed. White was so thrilled that GSP is ready to fight again, in fact, that he assembled MMA reporters on Wednesday afternoon to hype the superfight between St-Pierre and middleweight champ Anderson Silva.

No, wait, the media conference call was actually about Georges’ bout against interim champion Carlos Condit a week from Saturday in the main event of UFC 154 in Montreal. At least that’s what the press release said the call was going to be about.

As things turned out, though, the session came as close to being an announcement of GSP vs. Silva as the fight promotion could muster without issuing an official poster.

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It’s not going to cloud the joy of witnessing the birth of his first child on Wednesday. And he’ll still take to heart all of the laudatory sendoffs that came flowing his way after he announced his retirement from fighting earlier in the week.

But the week didn’t end so glowingly for Stephan Bonnar.

On Friday, the UFC revealed that the light heavyweight was one of two fighters to test positive for banned substances at UFC 153 three weeks ago in Rio de Janeiro. Bonnar, who lost to Anderson Silva in the main event, was found to have the anabolic steroid Drostanolone in his system, SI.com confirmed with Marc Ratner, the fight promotion’s vice president of regulatory affairs. Ratner also confirmed that heavyweight Dave Herman, a loser to Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira at the Oct. 13 event, tested positive for marijuana metabolites.

Because there is no athletic commission in Brazil, the tests were conducted by the UFC. According to a story at MMAjunkie.com, which first reported on the failed drug tests, Ratner expects to issue suspensions next week.

It could be a moot exercise. The 35-year-old Bonnar, best known for his rock ’em, sock ’em robots slugfest with Forrest Griffin in the first-season finale of The Ultimate Fighter – a 2005 bout widely credited with boosting the popularity of the UFC and the sport of MMA in general — is done fighting. He took to Twitter on Wednesday with this: “Huge thanks to every UFC fan out there! All I ever wanted was to bring ya’ll some fun. Hope you were entertained. Peace, love & violence!”

As for Herman, the 28-year-old nicknamed “Pee Wee” presumably plans on continuing to fight, but his next big adventure could very well take place outside the UFC. The second-round submission to Nogueiro was his third straight defeat. Since knocking out John-Olav Einemo in his debut with the promotion in June 2011, he’s been finished by Stefan Struve (TKO), Roy Nelson (KO) and Big Nog.

The failed drug test was not a first for either fighter. Bonnar tested positive for the anabolic steroid Boldenone following a 2006 loss in a rematch with Griffin and served a nine-month suspension levied by the Nevada Athletic Commission. Herman’s other failed test was just a year ago and revealed the same substance. After the pre-fight screening resulted in the cancellation of a UFC 136 fight with Mike Russow, Herman told MMAfighting.com: “I do not smoke marijuana. I can’t say I’m not around it. I live in California. Pretty much everyone out here smokes weed. Maybe I need to pick my friends a little better. I don’t know.”

– Jeff Wagenheim

Chael Sonnen (right) was last seen getting dominated by Anderson Silva at the main event of UFC 148. (Donald Miralle/Getty Images)

Remember that fake UFC championship belt a mischievous Chael Sonnen used to sling over his shoulder for press conferences and television appearances in the contentious leadup to his July rematch with Anderson Silva? You know, the one that he impishly told an interviewer on ESPN was proof that he was the real middleweight champion?

Well, let’s pull it out of the closet and dust it off. That plastic-and-pleather strap is the one that rightfully ought to be put up for grabs next April 27 when Sonnen challenges once again for the UFC championship. This time at light heavyweight, though.

Seriously?

Yep, this is not another Chael media ploy. The UFC actually announced on Tuesday that Sonnen, who has competed in the fight promotion’s 205-pound weight class exactly one time — and that was seven years ago and he lost — will challenge Jon Jones after the two serve as coaches on the 17^th season of The Ultimate Fighter.

Jones need not bother to bring along the shiny brass-and-leather belt that he’s been proudly wearing for the last 19 months, the one he acquired by knocking out a champion and in the time since has defended against four former titlists. That belt signifies something earned, something extraordinary, something real. So “Bones” should leave it home in the trophy case. When he steps into the octagon next spring to take on a middleweight fighter with a heavyweight mouth, the fake plastic belt will suffice for the fake title defense.

That is not to deny that the next several months will be a lot of laughs. Chael is at this very moment locked in a windowless room with a team of joke writers brainstorming a Top 10 list for Letterman and five minutes of couch chatter for Leno.

And there’s no doubt that Dana White and Co. will benefit from this arrangement, which first was reported by The Los Angeles Times and later was confirmed by the UFC. The Ultimate Fighter will get a much-needed boost in ratings, and that springtime pay-per-view, featuring two of the organization’s top draws, is sure to do big numbers.

Maybe that’s good enough for the UFC: a financial boon generated by a dud of a fight.

Yes, a dud.

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Anderson Silva (left) is a lopsided favorite to defeat Stephan Bonnar in the main event of Saturday’s UFC 153 in Rio de Janeiro. (Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC)

SI.com analysts Dave Doyle, Loretta Hunt, Jeff Wagenheim and Jon Wertheim provide their predictions for UFC 153 on Saturday in Rio de Janeiro.

Anderson Silva vs. Stephan Bonnar

DOYLE: I’m tempted to go with Bonnar simply because this would fit right into the UFC’s 2012 “whatever can go wrong, will” theme. But a Bonnar victory is a bridge too far. Silva by KO.

HUNT: Knowing my colleagues will cover the bases, I’ll cut to the chase: it’s a mismatch. Silva by TKO.

WAGENHEIM: Bonnar is going to shock the world … by surviving the first round. He’s rugged and resilient, having never been knocked out. And Silva will not be done putting on a show for his countrymen by the end of one act. But eventually … Silva by KO.

WERTHEIM: We can debate whether Silva is the G.O.A.T., but Bonnar is not going to change the discussion. Just two completely different tiers of fighter. Admire Bonnar’s sensibilities, his heart, his role in growing the UFC brand by virtue of that TUF finale. But in no universe does he win this fight. Silva by TKO.

Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira vs. Dave Herman

DOYLE: The veteran Nogueira’s UFC fights have followed a familiar pattern: Losses to the elite and wins over the guys just a cut below. Herman falls into the latter camp. Nogueira by TKO.

HUNT: Big Nog has this one in the bag as long as it goes to the canvas, which is likely. Nogueira by submission.

WAGENHEIM: How’s the arm, Big Nog? We’ll find out if there are any lingering issues when the ref raises the rehabbed wing after Nogueira taps out Pee-Wee. Nogueira by submission.

WERTHEIM: When we last saw Big Nog, Frank Mir was nearly divorcing his arm from the rest of his body, his third loss in five fights. The UFC threw him a bone, pitting him against Herman, a beatable fighter. On a two-fight losing streak. In Rio. Nogueira by submission.
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