Yes and no. Technically yes, either way. They were both shots at the interim title. Basically a shot before an actual shot. And he didn't get either of those until Khabib was champ, making his chances of becoming the actual champ a hell of a lot less; it's easy to assume UFC took comfort in knowing that.
To be fair, I believe his second interim shot was originally an actual title shot, versus Khabib, but Khabib couldn't get a visa due to covid restrictions.
Regardless, they never gave him a shot at a time that he could've managed to be the champ for any length of time; Tony doesn't draw like the other two PR disasters.
I just think he had bad timing.
Tony beat Barboza in December 2015 to take his win streak to 7. Khabib was most of the way into his two year hiatus at this point, so it looked like Tony would get to the belt before Khabib.
Unfortunately for Tony, Conor also beat Aldo in December 2015.
We know what happened from there — Conor-RDA was supposed to happen that spring; RDA pulled out; Conor lost to Nate instead; Eddie got the title shot while Conor rematched Nate; and in November, when it might have been Tony vs Eddie for the belt, Conor got the title shot and Tony got RDA. (Khabib returns and beats Horcher and Johnson during this time, then misses another year).
Conor wins the belt, pursues the Floyd fight instead of defending, and Tony fights Lee for the interim title. Should they have stripped Conor and made that fight for the real belt? In hindsight, yes. But at the time I can understand why they didn’t — Conor was their biggest star, they didn’t know he’d be gone THAT long, Khabib was lurking, and Lee didn’t really belong in a title fight.
Regardless, Khabib returns and beats Barboza two months later and now the real title shot to determine the best lightweight is set for the following spring. But then sunglasses, bus, Raging Al steps in, Khabib is champ. Realistically Tony’s window is now closed.
Conor vs Khabib is the fight to make at that point since Conor hadn’t lost the belt, especially since Tony had such a bad injury. He miraculously makes it back to fight on the same card but they were never going to plan for that.
Tony is finally booked for the title again, but Khabib drops out, Justin beats the shit out of Tony, and that’s that.
The only fault you can potentially find with the UFC is (1) not making Tony vs Lee for the full belt (even though it wouldn’t have felt real until he fought Conor or Khabib anyway), (2) not choosing Tony over Eddie, which would have tough with Eddie having been an established name who had just beaten Gilbert and Pettis, or (3) not moving Tony up fast enough in general.
Personally I think it just was what it was. It’s unlucky to win that many fights in a row without getting the belt, but it’s lucky that Khabib wasn’t healthy the whole time. If they’re both healthy and unobstructed they simply meet sooner and Tony gets beat 50-45. In some ways this is the better outcome, because now Tony is the champ who never was instead of another in the line of really good contenders who got squashed by Khabib.
