Before I watched this commercial, my cultural understanding of Brazil had been drawn mostly from Werner Herzog movies and guesstimated quotes from Pitbull’s “International Love”.

In Brazil they freaky with big ol’ booties. And they thongs? Blue, yellow and green!

Now, thanks to Nike Futebol’s “Brasil x Brasil”, I have a more educated perspective on its people: everyone plays soccer, they all look the same and Anderson Silva is there. And they thongs are a variety of colors.

From Cage Potato, who have to be experts on Brazil a la Wayne Campbell and Sweden because Anderson Silva is always doing stuff:

The message of the ad, which also features members of the Brasilian national soccer team, former Brasil player Ronaldo and singer Thiaguinho, is “Triumph Over Your Shadow.” In one-minute spot, Brasil players Neymar, Ganso, Pato, Thiago Silva, and Mascherano play against themselves in their away jerseys.

See, that’s a much better analysis than the “this is just like the last stage in Super Dodge Ball” paragraph I had written. Ah well, here’s to hoping Silva didn’t go out for a cheeseburger after the game.

… of course, that’s if you want to beat him using your tribe’s “huka-huka” rules. You can win huka-huka by taking your opponent’s back. When you let him start trapping your legs and ripping your arms out of socket, yeah, then not so much.

This video (jump to the 1:00 mark if my coding is terrible) features UFC Middleweight Champion Silva testing his might against an Amazonian tribe with only the help of his delicious and nutritious Amazoo Açaí brand sports drink (or whatever). As a bit of a warning, this video could be considered NSFW as it contains small amounts of hard-to-see-unless-you’re-looking-for-it dong, but not porno dong, National Geographic dong. Educational dong. Circumstantial dong.

Regardless, this video manages to be overtly masculine and heartwarming at the same time, and shows one of the cool perks of being a world-renowned martial artist: getting to battle people from all four corners of the cultural globe, share a hug of fellowship, and split a box of Go-Go Juice.

Someone to send Chael Sonnen to Brazil and see if the locals take to him.

[h/t Cage Potato]

If you’re trying to pinpoint the exact moment that Mike Tyson went from raging psychopath meltdown monster to the current hilarious and generally affable guy that we all love, most people would probably say it was his cameo in The Hangover. But I think it goes back a little further to one of his first appearances on Jimmy Kimmel Live, when he sang “Monster Mash” with Bobby Brown. The Hangover probably made us all realize that he was finally laughing with us, but if it didn’t, then his 2009 interview with Oprah Winfrey at least made him a human to us again.

And that’s why his latest antics have been so fantastic and hilarious, even though we know he’s still batsh*t insane. Whether dancing with Wayne Brady to “Every Little Step I Take” or delivering the worst-yet-funniest Herman Cain impression or simply telling us how hard Sarah Palin should be, um, romanced, Mike Tyson should be more involved in every aspect of our lives. Thank God he’s back with an appearance on the Brazilian TV show, “Huck’s Cauldron,” this past weekend, as he sang “The Girl from Ipanema” with host Luciano Huck.

If this doesn’t make you smile, then you might just be the real monster.

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A ton of stuff happens in the sports world each week and there are only two of us here to try to scoop up as much as we can and shove into all into your eyeballs like an ocular smoothie of awesome. So of course we’re bound to miss a few things here or there. For instance, did you know former WWE diva and current George Clooney love interest Stacy Keibler went golfing on her vacation from standing still and looking hot? See, this is the kind of stuff we shouldn’t be missing out on.

Thankfully, I keep a few hundred folders of random sports photos on my computer to cover up my incredible collection of adult anime stills, and I figured that we could clear a few of them out with this new weekly feature, the Wednesday Wild Card. Today we’ll pay a visit to New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and see what he did to prepare for his loss to the New York Giants, while David Beckham signs some autographs, Kim Kardashian and Matt Millen cry, and the World Series of Poker pays out again.

Please hold your applause until the end.

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Another day, another story about Justin Bieber, the world’s Sexiest Teenage Man, shoehorning himself into the world of sports because he’s rich and popular enough to do anything he wants. The latest incident comes from one of The Beeb’s concerts, and if your ears can get through the throng of screaming adolescents you’ll see Anderson Silva celebrating his defense of the middleweight title at UFC 134 in Rio de Janeiro by doing a synchronized “The Shuffle” onstage for the enjoyment of 40,000 screaming Brazilian 12-year olds.

At no point did Silva counterstrike Bieber’s dancing with a Muay Thai knee to the face, but it’s worth watching anyway, and is at least a step or two up from wanting to put your junk in a cheeseburger.

Take a look, courtesy of our friends at Cagewriter:

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To call this anything short of a tragedy would be wrong, but when nine people on bikes were injured by an automobile in Brazil, one has to ask, critically, “How did this happen?” Fortunately, there were no fatalities.

It would take nine people getting plowed by a Volkswagen before I would ever hear of Critical Mass, the subversive worldwide bike network that organizes monthly rallies. But now I have, and I was surprised to learn that these were not “bikers,” but cyclists on bicycles. Their Wikipedia entry suggests that their intentions are more social than political, but even those participating in the monthly rides admit that the groups’ own social courtesies, such as sharing the road, become lost concepts.

Critical Mass has a different flavor from city to city — there’s a big variety in size, respect of traffic laws (or lack thereof), interaction with motorists, and intervention by police. So if you want to know more about Critical Mass, you’ll really need to find out what your local ride is like.

–Michael Bluejay/Critical-Mass.Info.

And if you give that site a gander, you can see that even the guy running it got tired of the tactics of some of their groups. The driver reportedly had his 15-year-old son in the car with him, and one would doubt that the father set out to teach his kid how to mow down a pack of Brazilian hippies. Richard Neis, 47, would abandon his vehicle before giving himself up to authorities.

But yeah, running over people is bad, but this is what cycling will have to do to get back into the news without Lance Armstrong. Am I right, America?

–via Deadspin.