Rich coming from the guy who handed Colby title shot after title shot on a silver platter
Genuinely hate that he is doing this btw, ruins the integrity of the sport. Makes it more like WWE than an actual sport when you’re influencing fighters game plans
At the end of the day it's a business before it's a sport, it's the entertainment business. If Ankalaev fights Rakic the way that he fought Błachowicz, then why on earth would Dana give him a shot? It's a horrible business decision.
Ankalaev is coming off one win in over two years, with one no contest and one horribly fought draw in his interim title fight. He has virtually no hype behind him after his last few performances, all his previous wins have fallen out of the top 5 in the division. Dana has a huge draw right now in Pereira, and he risks losing that for a guy that flopped his only PPV main event to date. Ankalaev's biggest selling point is that he's from Dagestan. If he can't perform in a way that's marketable, he doesn't earn a title shot. There's more to a title shot then where you are in the rankings.
With #11 Murzakanov matched up with #6 Krylov and #10 Ullberg matched up with #8 Volkan and #14 Guskov taking on #9 Johnny Walker. There's a lot of fresh talent that could be introduced in the top 10/5 in the near future. Dana probably doesn't want to risk losing his card saving big draw for a guy that lay and prayed the last two rounds of his only PPV main event. We just saw that matching Pereira up with someone further down the rankings can be a successful and exciting PPV main event that builds up both guys, especially if their styles compliment eachother. If you have Ankalaev vs Pereira and Ankalaev wins in a similar fight to his Błachowicz fight, then you just devalued the LHW champion and devalued one of your bigger bell cows.
Maybe that isn't loyal to the rankings but it is loyal to the shareholders.
Edit: Sorry for the rant, I just think it's about more than rankings.