Everybody complaining about Tom being the interim champion are ignoring that the actual reason interim champions *usually* gets the next title shot is that they won the interim belt while either being the original challenger themselves or beating that challenger.
Thus of course they're next by default. They already had the title shot or they beat the person who did.
This never happened here because the UFC moronically pulled Stipe too after Jon was injured. If Stipe/Sergei had just happened as had already been agreed upon we'd have no reason not to give the winner the next title shot. Either Stipe wins and preserves his title shot or Sergei beats him and takes it. Instead Tom beat Sergei who was just another contender, not Stipe who had the title shot.
The UFC made things messier than it should've been and a lot of people are just pretending it's business as usual.