HAMBURG, Germany – Former UFC welterweight champion and UFC Hall of Famer Matt Hughes has strict orders not to fight – from his dentist.

Upon his official retirement in 2013, Hughes said he got some work done to erase the damage from 13 years of professional fighting. The straightening came with a directive: no more getting punched in the face.

Plus, there’s the fact that, at 42, Hughes confronts the truth that he’s probably too old to be competitive in the octagon.

But then again, when you’re a fighter, no amount of advice is going to remove the yearning to compete. That’s why he can’t fault three-time opponent and fellow UFC Hall of Famer B.J. Penn for wanting to fight again after an utter shellacking at the hands of Frankie Edgar.

“He’s sitting on a couple of losses; I’m sitting on a couple of losses,” Hughes (45-9 MMA, 18-7 UFC) said at today at a Q&A in support of Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 93 event at Barclaycard Arena in Hamburg, Germany. “I’d love to come back and get a win and get my hand raised. So if B.J. wants to come back, more power to him.”

Hughes’ second-to-last fight was a vicious knockout loss to Penn (16-10-1 MMA, 12-9-1 UFC), which gave “The Prodigy” a 2-1 lead over Hughes in their series. Penn’s upcoming return to the cage comes against Ricardo Lamas (after planned bouts with Cole Miller and Dennis Siver fell through), but Hughes would want something bigger.

“I could fight for the title,” said Hughes (45-9 MMA, 18-7 UFC), stating the obvious after some minor goading from UFC commentator Dan Hardy at the Q&A.

The country-breakfast lovin’ welterweight would return in a second for the opportunity, of course. Short of that, however, he might return to settle a long-running score.

“It’d probably have to be somebody a little older,” he said. “I dislike talkers. Matt Serra is always talking about me, so that would be a fight.”

The two rivals never mended fences after appearing on “The Ultimate Fighter 4” (Serra as a fighter and Hughes as a guest coach) and a stint as opposing coaches on “TUF 6.” Hughes might entertain a rematch after a unanimous-decision victory in 2009. But, like Serra, Hughes knows the chances of that happening are slim to none.

So unless Hughes gets in a time machine and heads back to 2007, when he was just 33 and still a top-tier UFC welterweight, he’s going to exercise his better judgement and listen to his dentist.

For more on UFC Fight Night 93, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.