Light heavyweight is a very messy division right now especially now that Carlos has ruptured his ACL and will be out for around 9-12 months. Here’s what I’d book to fix it. Carlos Ulberg - OUT (1) Magomed Ankalaev vs Paulo Costa - Paulo just had a dominant win over a rising contender which puts him right into the title picture with one more setting him up for a title shot him vs a former champ makes sense. Hopefully with the move up in weight he’ll be more active and the timelines match up possibly for the Abu Dhabi card later this year. (2) Jiri Prochazka vs Blachowicz/Guskov Winner - Jiri will probably take a good portion of the year away which gives the perfect opportunity for him to return on a European card later this year in a massive event vs whoever wins in may. (4) Khalil Rountree Jr. vs (NR) Robert Whittaker - An incredible stylistic matchup that would be an absolute firefight and a great introduction for Rob to get into the 205 division. (5) Jan Blachowicz vs (8) Bogdan Guskov - Already confirmed. (6) Azamat Murzakonov vs (7) Jamahal Hill - Azamat as inactive as he has been probably won’t be back for a while considering he just lost by finish for the first time in his career. I’d expect him to return at the very end of this year if not the start of 2027 at the latest which is around about when Jamahal will return. (9) Volkan Ozdemir vs (10) Dominick Reyes - At first I wasn’t sure if the timelines would matchup which if you agent noticed is a big thing for me when considering who to book but Dominick took very little damage so we could see a late summer return since he’s fairly active regardless. Volkan is a good step up too if he wants a rebound performance against a proper veteran after that awful fight. (11) Aleksander Rakic - MOVING UP - Rakic is very set on going up to HW but honestly I have no idea who he’ll fight, obviously he’s too skilled to fight someone outside the rankings but there’s not many names that seem great to me. Maybe Texeira? (12) Johnny Walker vs (14) Dustin Jacoby - Just like Reyes I expect Johnny to return pretty quickly since he took very little damage, admittedly he is in a pretty weird place right now and it’s a matter of do you throw him to a prospect outside the top 15 or put him against a veteran which doesn’t do much for either. I decided on the latter since the only deserving prospect in Navajo has already called for Cuteleba which is fine. Jacoby deserves to go up to from that nasty finish. (13) Nikita Krylov vs (NR) RDR - Would be a great matchup to see how RdR fairs in the LHW division later this year. (15) Zhang Mingyang vs (NR) Alonzo Menifield - Already booked, should be a banger.