UFC Is Trying to Sucker B.J. Penn out of Retirement by Using Josh Koscheck

Oh man, I love it when I have a fun story to kick off a day.

The UFC—and Dana White in particular—really wants B.J. Penn to come back from his short-lived retirement and fight again.

Penn is a huge fan favorite for the UFC, and White has done everything he can do to goad Penn off the beach, short of sending a SWAT team into Hawaii to make a quick capture. He's even repeatedly told the world that Penn is coming back, only to find out that Penn said no such thing at all.

Earlier this month, we saw Dana's latest tactic: using other fighters to anger Penn and sucker him into a fight:

"

#UFC just offered me to fight BJ Penn...I said YES!!!!! Just waiting on him!!!!!! Let's scrap bra?

— Josh Koscheck (@JoshKoscheck) May 17, 2012"

That attempt worked out just about as well as the rest of them, with Penn shooting Koscheck down in very public fashion.

"

@joshkoscheck I know it costs a lot of money to live that lavish lifestyle, big house, fast cars & you need big fights but sorry I'm not coming back anytime soon!

"

Oh well. You can't say Koscheck didn't give it the old college try. A fight between the most-hated and one of the most-loved welterweights in the world would have been the perfect kind of main event for a UFC on FOX show, or perhaps even a B-level pay-per-view. But it wasn't to be.

Last night on Spike TV's MMA Uncensored Live, Koscheck revealed the idea behind his public call-out of Penn:

"

Me and B.J. have a good relationship. It's business, and, you know what? I like to have big fights. I think that B.J. is the type of fighter that would be a big fight for me. The UFC asked to try and stir up something. You know, I do my job well, and I went on to my Twitter account, and just kinda said, 'Hey, B.J. Let's do this fight.

"

I realize Penn is still retired and that this seems like a dead issue, but I'd still love to see this fight. Neither guy will be challenging for a title any time soon—or at least as long as Georges St-Pierre is the welterweight champion—so pairing them up with one another seems like perfect matchmaking to me.