An announced season-two opening round lightweight tournament bout between Ferrid Kheder and Toby Imada has been scrapped from next week's Bellator 15 after Kheder came down with a bout of appendicitis.

Replacing Kheder in his bout against Imada will be WEC veteran James Krause, which will now take place at this Thurday's Bellator 14 event.

Apparently, the Krause vs. Imada bout will be switching places with a planned Bellator 14 featherweight tourney bout between Patricio "Pitbull" Freire and William Romero, which has now been moved to Bellator 15 on April 22.

Krause (11-2) is coming off a win over Kalel Robinson at Titan Fighting Championships 15 in December. Prior to the win, he was released from the WEC after suffering back-to-back losses in the organization to Donald Cerrone at WEC 41 and Ricardo Lamas at WEC 44.

Krause has been competing professionally since November 2007, fighting for other notable promotions such as International Fighting Championship and World Cage Fighting Championships. He has finished all of his 11 career wins including nine coming by submission.

Imada (23-13) is 9-1 in his last 10 bouts, most recently defeating Daisuke Hanazawa at KOTC: "Toryumon" in January. His lone loss over the successful stretch came in his previous bout against Eddie Alvarez in the Bellator season-one lightweight tournament finale at Bellator Fighting Championships 12 last June.

Imada is perhaps best known for his very impressive third round inverted triangle choke submission win over Jorge Masvidal at Bellator 5 in April 2009. Many proclaimed it the "Submission of the Year" and he even earned the "Submission of the Year" trophy at the 2009 World MMA Awards.

During his 10-year career, Imada has fought for other notable promotions such as Neutral Grounds, Total Combat, Extreme Challenge and the WEC. He has scored stoppages in 21 of his 23 career wins and holds other notable career wins over the likes of Jason Von Flue, Akbarh Arreola, David Gardner and Zach Light.

Bellator 14 takes place on April 15 at the Chicago Theatre in Illinois and will air live on FOX Sports Net. The featured attraction of the event is an opening round welterweight tournament bout between NCAA Division I national restling champion Ben Askren and UFC veteran Ryan Thomas.