Fans read UFC divisional rankings as a queue. The fighter at the top of the contender list is next, the one below is after that, and any deviation looks like favouritism or politics. The rankings are not a queue, and they were never built to function as one. They are a published opinion poll that sits alongside a matchmaking process with a completely different objective function.
Once that distinction is clear, most of the decisions that look arbitrary stop looking arbitrary. They are the output of a business trying to fill a year of event dates with bouts that people will pay to watch, using a roster of self-employed athletes who get injured, whose contracts run out, and whose styles do not all combine into watchable fights.
