On the heels of Shane Carwin being scratched from UFC 104 to challenge Brock Lesnar for the division title in November, MMAmania.com (www.mmamania.com) has learned that former IFL and Affliction heavyweight standout Ben Rothwell has agreed to step in for "The Engineer" versus Cain Velasquez on Oct. 24.

Rothwell is coming off a dominating technical knockout win over Chris Guillen at Adrenaline II back in Dec. 2008. Prior to that, "Big" was riding a career high 13-fight win streak before running into former UFC heavyweight champion, Andrei Arlovski, during the inaugural Affliction event in July 2008 .

Before the loss, he had defeated former UFC champion Ricco Rodriguez, The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) 8 standout Krzysztof Soszynski, Roy "Big Country" Nelson and others.

The Miletich Fighting Systems (MFS)-trained fighter was on course to throw hands with Chase Gormley at the same event however, the UFC quickly shuffled the deck after Carwin's departure.

Velasquez is coming off the complete and utter destruction of Cheick Kongo at UFC 99 back on June 13. The talented wrestler out of American Kickboxing Academy pushed his perfect record to 6-0 in his first decision win after rattling off five straight technical knockout stoppages.

The experience and talent of Rothwell will provide him with perhaps his stiffest test to date.

UFC 104 will feature a main event between UFC light heavyweight champion Lyoto "The Dragon" Machida and challenger Mauricio "Shogun" Rua. It's expected that Velasquez will earn the next title shot with a win pending the outcome of UFC 106.

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