Hear me out, see if this is all right.
Khabib's beaten everyone, he's at the top with no challengers, he might be retired, division's in a state of flux. You should keep in mind 3 things:
1) You book a division from the top fights, downward. You gotta assume the fights you want to make will get made and that people shouldn't be ducking the mutually best fight for them.
2) Not all ranking differences are equal. Sometimes you get bubbles/ranges of different trajectories. The jump from #5 - #4 might be bigger than the jump from #4 - #3.
3) You may want exciting fights, but you want to make sure you have matchups that create backups and shuffle these bubbles up.
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Dustin's already getting booked to fight
Conor. Conor shouldn't be ranked, but being 2 of the 3 most recent challengers isn't insane to match up. You can keep this fight. Dustin winning this puts him as the top guy. Conor winning cements himself as
a top guy, and defends his current ranking. It's basically the equivalent of the title match, even if that title is "Top lightweight not named Khabib." So let's just consider that the 'title' for now.
Now you want to set up next title challengers.
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Tony needs a STRONG rebound (Justin, Dustin, Conor) if he wants a title shot in 1 fight, but 2 are booked and a Justin rematch seems too soon, but 1 loss after his 12 fight win streak means he shouldn't be dropping hard to fight other guys on losing streaks, so give him the highest guy on a streak trying to break into the elite bubble,
Oliveira. Eating Charles would absorb a lot of the momentum from his own streak and would easily re-energize Tony's title callouts. Or Charles toppling Tony should easily earn him the respect of top consideration, and he could potentially fight the winner of Dustin/Conor
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Gaethje is fresh off his loss to Khabib. His distance from a title shot depends heavily on where Khabib goes from here, but in the meantime, you can basically book him against anyone to keep his consideration high.
RDA is new to the divisional rankings, but just got a big win over a #7 guy and would be looking for someone to continue his lightweight solidification. A win for either guy could see them against the Dustin Conor winner.
Now you want to arrange a large broad guys who should be able to fight themselves in an eliminator with 1 or 2 good performances.
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CDF needs someone on a winning streak, and I don't think
Chandler should be getting a super high introduction, but coming in with his hype and 2 KO streak last over Bendo, this fight is doable. Carlos winning at least gives him another piece of momentum to carry into a matchup with the top guys. Chandler winnings proves he's solid enough to be a big UFC lightweight.
A lot of the remaining fights aren't necessary, cuz there are guys in the 15-20 range who could get in, but there is a nice division between higher ranked guys who are losing vs lower ranked guys on good streaks.
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Kevin Lee has been falling, and needs to beat at least a fringe guy to right his ship. He's been the type of opponent to really earn respect off of with a win though, and
Islam would finally get the respect as a ranked contender if he beat him.
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Paul Felder probably doesn't want to come back for nothing especially against a grappling heavy opponent, but he doesn't have the best momentum and is surrounded in the rankings by grapplers. So if you tempt him into something, it'd probably need to be a fucking banger like
Drew Dober.
Just to round it off, you can throw together the last two ranked guys
Iaquinta & Gillespie, or they could fight some fringe guys. They're really ranked low enough and with enough stunted momentum that a win is all that matters.
