The UFC lightweight title is vacant. By all rights, former champion Charles Oliveira is should be one of the two fighters who will compete for the belt whenever the next championship bout is booked. Of course, ‘should’ is the key word, because there are no guarantees when it comes to UFC title fights—at least not until a fight date is set and the contracts are signed.
With every UFC title booking there are multiple X-factors that can come into play, eventually it always boils down to finding two fighters, a date, and a location. In 2022, the least important of those can often feel like the athletes.