WWE wrestler Chris Jericho made headlines on Thursday when he was suspended by the company for stepping on and kicking the Brazilian flag during his match against WWE Champion CM Punk in Sao Paolo.

According to a report on TMZ, police stopped the match as Jericho was informed that desecrating the Brazilian flag is a crime punishable by incarceration, at which point he took the microphone and publicly apologized to the crowd before continuing the match.

While the story isn't exactly sports news, it's a good reminder of what kind of trouble the UFC avoided when it was forced to move the UFC Middleweight Championship bout between Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen from the UFC 147 fight card in Brazil to the UFC 148 fight card in Las Vegas on July 7.

Of course, the real reason for the change was that the UFC's plan to hold the event at a soccer stadium in Sao Paolo conflicted with a United Nations conference in the city that week. That necessitated a move to a smaller venue in Belo Horizonte, with Wanderlei Silva and Vitor Belfort headlining the card, while Silva and Sonnen stage their rematch in Las Vegas. Still, as exciting as it might have been to see an outdoor stadium packed for that title bout, Thursday's event with Jericho is a reminder of how dangerous it would have been to bring Sonnen to Brazil for that fight.

While Sonnen - who an interesting connection, originally intended to have CM Punk accompany him to the cage for his fight with Michael Bisping in Januray - has never been shy about speaking his mind, he's been particularly verbose on the subject of Brazil and the fighters who represent that country in the UFC.

In the buildup to his last fight with Silva, Sonnen picked a fight with manager Ed Soares, exhorting him to "pray to whatever demon effigy you prance and dance in front of with your piglet tribe of savages that I decide not to crucify you." At the press conference during fight week, he quibbled with Soares' translation of Silva's comments in Portuguese, adding that "It's a step harder picking up that language than it is understanding Pig Latin."

When confronted later on about some of his comments about the country, Sonnen through more fuel on the fire.

"I picked my medium very carefully when I talked about Brazil," Sonnen said. "I went to the internet, and if I had the foggiest idea that they had computers in Brazil, I wouldn't have done that."

There have already been consequences for Sonnen's comments. When he helped fellow UFC middleweight Yushin Okami train for his title shot against Silva at UFC 134 last summer , Sonnen had planned to accompany the Japanese fighter to Brazil for the title bout. However, that trip was scrapped when Brazil-based MMA gear brand Pretorian, one of Okami's sponsors, threatened to pull their sponsorship if Sonnen came to Brazil. When it looked as if Sonnen would be fighting Silva in Sao Paolo this June, Soares made a public appeal for Sonnen's safety, saying, "It will be very bad for Brazil if something happens to him." When Sonnen traveled to Brazil for a press conference announcing the fight's move to Las Vegas, he did so under heavy security.

Brazilians take their national pride very seriously, as authorities demonstrated with Jericho on Thursday night in Sao Paolo. If that's what happens during a staged show, then the UFC should be very glad indeed to have Sonnen fighting Silva in Las Vegas.