Chico Camus in for Kyung Ho Kang, meets Chris Holdsworth at UFC 173

The UFC’s annual Memorial Day weekend event continues to undergo shuffling, this time on the preliminary card.

Kyung Ho Kang (12-7 MMA, 1-1 UFC) has been forced out of his bantamweight fight at UFC 173 against “TUF 18? winner Chris Holdsworth (5-0 MMA, 1-0 UFC). Stepping in for him will be Chico Camus (14-4 MMA, 3-1 UFC).

UFC officials recently announced the switch.

UFC 173 takes place May 24 at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. The main event is a bantamweight title fight between Renan Barao and T.J. Dillashaw after the planned middleweight title bout between Chris Weidman and Lyoto Machida was scrapped due to a Weidman knee injury and subsequent surgery. The main card will air on pay-per-view following prelims on FOX Sports 1 and UFC Fight Pass.

Camus has won back-to-back fights. He won his UFC debut in August 2012 with a decision victory over Dustin Pague, but was stopped by Dustin Kimura with a third-round rear-naked choke at UFC 156. Since then, though, he has a win over Kang at UFC 164, and in January, after a relatively public split from the Duke Roufus team in Milwaukee, he outpointed Yaotzin Meza at UFC on FOX 10 in Chicago.

Holdsworth won the men’s bantamweight tourney on Season 18 of “The Ultimate Fighter” this past November. After winning by submission to get into the house, he was the second pick by coach Miesha Tate. He won his first fight in the house by guillotine choke, and in the semifinals, he tapped out Michael Wooten with a rear-naked choke to reach the final against Davey Grant.

At the TUF 18 Finale, Holdsworth continued his impressive early career run of stoppages when he submitted Grant in the second round with a rear-naked choke. All five of his official pro fights – plus the unofficial three on “TUF 18” – have come by submission for the product of Team Alpha Male.

Kang, from South Korea, was going after his second straight. He picked up his first UFC win in January when he stopped Shunichi Shimizu with a third-round arm-triangle choke. That got him back in the win column after a decision loss to Camus at UFC 164. In his UFC debut in March 2013, he dropped a split decision to Alex Caceres. But that result was flipped to a no-contest after Caceres tested positive for marijuana.

With the change, the latest UFC 173 card now includes:

MAIN CARD (Pay-per-view, 10 p.m. ET)

• Champ Renan Barao vs. T.J. Dillashaw – for UFC bantamweight title
• Junior dos Santos vs. Stipe Miocic
• Jake Ellenberger vs. Robbie Lawler
• Takeya Mizugaki vs. Francisco Rivera
• James Krause vs. Jamie Varner

PRELIMINARY CARD (FOX Sports 1, 8 p.m. ET)

• Michael Chiesa vs. Francisco Trinaldo
• Tony Ferguson vs. Katsunori Kikuno
• Chico Camus vs. Chris Holdsworth
• Mitch Clarke vs. Al Iaquinta

PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass, 6:30 p.m. ET)

• Anthony Njokuani vs. Vinc Pichel
• Doo Ho Choi vs. Sam Sicilia
• Jingliang Li vs. Danny Mitchell

For the latest on UFC 173, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.

(Pictured: Chris Holdsworth)