With Ryan Bader removed, Dan Henderson vs. Tim Boetsch headlines UFC Fight Night 68

Dan Henderson

Ryan Bader has officially been removed from UFC Fight Night 68 on June 6 and originally scheduled co-main event between Dan Henderson and Tim Boetsch has been promoted to the top of the card.

Bader vs. Daniel Cormier was the original main event, but when Jon Jones was stripped of his light heavyweight title, “DC” was moved to a vacant title bout against Anthony Johnson at UFC 187 later this month.

Henderson (30-13 MMA, 7-7 UFC) is set to take on Boetsch (18-8 MMA, 9-7 UFC) in the new five-round middleweight bout, while Matt Mitrione (9-3 MMA, 9-3 UFC) will fight Ben Rothwell (34-9 MMA, 4-3 UFC) in a co-main event heavyweight contest. UFC officials announced the change Monday night.

UFC Fight Night 68 takes place at Smoothie King Center in New Orleans. The main card will air on FOX Sports 1.

Henderson has suffered back-to-back losses and dropped five of his past six after a four-fight winning streak in 2010-11. After a three-fight stint in Strikeforce, where he won the light heavyweight title, he returned to the UFC and topped Mauricio Rua in a “Fight of the Year” candidate at UFC 139. But then he dropped split decisions to Lyoto Machida and Rashad Evans, then was knocked out by Vitor Belfort.

He rebounded with a come-from-behind TKO win over Rua in their rematch 11 months ago, but then was choked out by Cormier at UFC 173 and stopped by a Gegard Mousasi TKO in Sweden a month ago.

Boetsch has dropped four of his past six and hasn’t had a winning streak since 2012. He’s alternated wins and losses his past four fights, including a split call over C.B. Dollaway and a TKO of Brad Tavares. But at UFC 183 just a month ago, he was submitted by Thales Leites – though the bout was a “Fight of the Night” winner.

Mitrione is one of the hottest fighters in the heavyweight division with three straight first-round knockouts after a stretch that saw him drop three of four fights. Since that rough patch, he has knockouts of Shawn Jordan, Derrick Lewis and Gabriel Gonzaga, the latter coming on the main card of UFC on FOX 13 in December.

Rothwell has back-to-back knockout wins over Brandon Vera at UFC 164 and Alistair Overeem at UFC Fight Night 50 this past fall – though his win over Vera also resulted in a lengthy suspension by the UFC when he tested positive for elevated testosterone levels. He has three wins in his past four fights, with just a submission loss to Gonzaga in Brazil keeping him from perfection in that stretch.

The latest UFC Fight Night 68 lineup now includes:

• Tim Boetsch vs. Dan Henderson
• Matt Mitrione vs. Ben Rothwell
• Derrick Lewis vs. Shawn Jordan
• Yancy Medeiros vs. Dustin Poirier
• Francisco Rivera vs. Alex Caceres
• Justin Edwards vs. Joe Proctor
• Ricardo Abreu vs. Daniel Sarafian
• Anthony Birchak vs. Joe Soto
• Omari Akhmedov vs. Brian Ebersole
• Leonardo Morales vs. Jose Quinonez

For more on UFC Fight Night 68, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.