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During the Fox NFL Sunday program, a comedy sketch was aired featuring comic Rob Riggles playing the part of an eccentric celebrity sports tipster, revelling in the excess of his success.
The whole premise is daft with Riggles in a fur coat running his 'platinum' tips agency, orchestrating his high priced scheme in order to supplement the lifestyle he's leading. Celebrity personal trainer Richard Simmons makes an appearance in matching fur coat as part of the sketch, and a little later UFC president Dana White makes his own cameo.
From the 1:45 mark of the video embedded below, Riggles continues the hard sell of his premium platinum sports tip line, saying "I'll take information from anyone, my nutritionist, my dog's stylist, the man that lives outside my bank!"
Cue Dana White. In a makeshift cardboard dwelling, with a dirty tanned face, blanket, garish trousers, and for some reason what look like white socks and penny loafers, White delivers his line in his best gravelly, impoverished voice:
"Cam Newton is pregnant, hahahahaha"
White appears for a matter of seconds and the skit itself seems to have passed without controversy.
But when the UFC posted the picture below on Facebook it seems to have upset some people. In the photo White holds a cardboard sign that says 'Please Help!! Need Food aka Booze'.
Fans that found the stereotype offensive took to Twitter and Facebook to let Dana White know about it and that they didn't like the sketch. Not one to shy away from response, White replied on his Twitter feed, calling people 'puss' and then went on an entire tirade about 'pussies in this country' making him sick.
Yet again, Dana White has turned this into a bigger story than it had any right to be. Personally I didn't find that segment to be offensive. Of poor taste, sure, but the whole segment took place in a warped universe full of caricatures, and since the sketch ran like a mock commercial advertisement, the character White portrayed is that of a homeless man viewed through the skewed perspective of Rob Riggles. Dana White agreed to take part and did so for a few seconds; he didn't create the premise and he's not making a mocking statement about how he feels about the homeless in the real world.
Explained that way, the video and White's part in it can be easily dismissed, but we're dealing with a fight promoter here, and not a defender of satirical black comedy.
Instead, White's tirade of 'pussies' only highlights the ugly side of his personality. Assuming White is using the colloquial definition 'pussy' and its derivatives to mean someone exhibiting qualities and characteristics of cowardice, a weak constitution and masculine inferiority (analogous with being feminized), not only are you one if you didn't like the sketch -- which doesn't actually make sense given the aforementioned definition -- but you make White sick.
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