UFC 197 becomes UFC 196

UFC 196 has now been scrapped and rebranded as ‘UFC Fight Night: Hendricks vs. Thompson’ after Cain Velasquez and Fabricio Werdum both withdrew from their main event scrap for the heavyweight title.

After a brief scramble that saw Nate Diaz offer to fight Anthony Pettis in the main event, the UFC promoted the co-main event between Johny Hendricks and Stephen Thompson to the main event, and moved the card to Fox Sports 1.

With the change, UFC 197 which featured a lightweight title fight between Rafael dos Anjos and Conor McGregor, as well as a women’s bantamweight title fight between Holly Holm and Miesha Tate, has now been rebranded as UFC196 according to Sherdog.

In addition, the UFC will likely add an extra PPV between now and UFC 200 on July 9th.