A new role for Dana White in promoting next weekend's UFC fight card on Fox?

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