No B.J. Penn? No problem: Bryan Caraway wants shot at Ricardo Lamas at UFC Fight Night 97

The UFC returns to the Philippines in 10 days, and right now the card has only half of its main event.

The promotion hasn’t made it official yet, but B.J. Penn (16-10-2 MMA, 12-9-2 UFC) is out of his comeback featherweight headliner against Ricardo Lamas (16-5 MMA, 7-3 UFC) at UFC Fight Night 97, a story first reported by MMAjunkie this past week.

There’s scant little time left, especially for a fight all the way across the world. But there’s one bantamweight contender who is throwing his hat into the ring for the short-notice opportunity.

Bryan Caraway (21-7 MMA, 6-2 UFC) said today on Twitter he wants the chance to fight Lamas in the main event.

“I’m ready to step up in place of the hall of famer @bjpenndotcom,” Caraway said. “@RicardoLamasMMA is a beast. I WANT THIS FIGHT!”

UFC Fight Night 97 takes place Oct. 15 at SM Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay, Manila, Philippines. The entire event streams on UFC Fight Pass.

Penn, who’s previously held the lightweight and welterweight titles, was hoping to fight for the first time since his July 2014 featherweight loss to Frankie Edgar, which marked a third straight defeat and prompted a retirement announcement. The UFC Hall of Famer decided to return to competition, and fights were booked with Dennis Siver and Cole Miller, but his return has been slowed by a six-month USADA suspension due to his disclosure of banned IV use, as well as a legal issue. Now injury is the cause for keeping him idle.

Lamas is a former featherweight title challenger and currently No. 6 in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA featherweight rankings. The 34-year-old was on a 3-1 run, which included victories over Diego Sanchez and Dennis Bermudez, before a recent unanimous-decision loss to surging contender Max Holloway that resulted in a nasty split shin. His only other UFC losses have come to then-champ Jose Aldo and perennial contender Chad Mendes.

Caraway is a former featherweight, but hasn’t fought at that weight in nearly five years. His bantamweight debut was a “Fight of the Night” submission of Mitch Gagnon. He’s been on a solid run of late with wins in four of his past five fights. But he fought just once in 2015 (a decision win over former WEC champ Eddie Wineland) and has fought just once so far in 2016 (a split call over Aljamain Sterling at UFC Fight Night 88 in May).

Earlier this year, before his girlfriend, Miesha Tate, lost the UFC women’s bantamweight title to Amanda Nunes, Caraway said he was primed to go on a run and win a title so he and Tate could hold belts simultaneously.

While a win over Lamas wouldn’t do anything for him in terms of the bantamweight division, moving up in weight on short notice to challenge a former title contender certainly could hold plenty of caché for getting fights against bigger-name contenders afterward at 135 pounds.

Caraway has never fought in a main event for the UFC. Lamas headlined UFC Fight Night 63 against Mendes in Fairfax, Va., in April 2015, but lost by first-round TKO.

The UFC has not yet made official Penn’s removal from the card official, and consequently hasn’t made official any potential replacement opponent for Lamas if he remains on the card.

The UFC Fight Night 97 lineup includes:

MAIN CARD (UFC Fight Pass, 10 a.m. ET)

• Ricardo Lamas vs. TBA
• Derrick Lewis vs. Marcin Tybura
• Jenel Lausa vs. Yao Zhikui
• Mizuto Hirota vs. Cole Miller

PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass, 6:45 a.m. ET)

• Sam Alvey vs. Alex Nicholson
• Jon Tuck vs. Alex Volkanovski
• Ryan Janes vs. Dongi Yang
• Seo Hee Ham vs. Danielle Taylor
• James Moontasri vs. Alex Morono
• Ali Bagautinov vs. Kyoji Horiguchi

For more on UFC Fight Night 97, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.