Josh Koscheck and Dan Hardy Build Some Heat at UFC 106

From Heavy.com:

Koscheck seemed to feed off the crowd’s anger, destroying the bigger Johnson standing and outwrestling him to boot.  On one memorable (yet somehow failed) takedown attempt, Koscheck drove Johnson into the cage so fast and hard that they might have ended up in California without the Octagon to stop him.

"I was blown away by his performance," White said. "We’ve butted heads a lot in the past, but that was a great performance."

Earlier in the day, welterweight contender Dan Hardy was talking up a fight with Koscheck, suggesting the wrestler needed a haircut and that he intended to color his hair red-with blood.  Koscheck called Hardy out in the cage, but White held firm that Hardy would get the next shot at champion Georges St. Pierre.  Koscheck would have to wait.

The last paragraph explains why Koscheck felt the need to call out Hardy from the Octagon in his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan after choking out Anthony Johnson.

Koscheck has been a headache for Dana White in many ways, but one of his most annoying habits has been his knack for eliminating other potential title contenders (Johnson, Yoshida) without managing to make a title run of his own (losses to Paulo Thiago and Thiago Alves). There's no way that White is going to risk Hardy when champion Georges St Pierre is desperately in need of challengers and has already beaten Koscheck.

Nevertheless, it's good to see Koscheck and Hardy building a little bit of a rivalry -- they may not be the #1 and #2 fighters in the division, but they're easily the #1 and #2 smack talkers.

Koscheck did make one painful gaffe in his anti-Hardy tirade -- he initially said "(Hardy) ain't fought no one" which he soon corrected to be "ain't fought no one like me" -- presumably to spare the feelings of his teammate Mike Swick who just got beat soundly by Hardy at UFC 105.