It's now official. Islam Makhachev will defend his lightweight title against Charles Oliveira in a rematch that will headline the upcoming UFC 294 pay-per-view event taking place Oct. 21 in Abu Dhabi. It was a bit of a surprise given that we were led to believe Oliveira was unavailable for that date. However, where there's a will, there's a way and the Brazilian will now get a chance at not only becoming a two-time lightweight champion, but also exacting revenge on Makhachev. And while there were certainly other options for Makhachev, here's why a rematch with Oliveira made the most sense for him as his next opponent at UFC 294.

For starters, while Makhachev was quite simply the better man when he fought Oliveira at UFC 280 last year, the fact remains that it wasn't the best performance from the latter. He looked off in more ways than one and simply never got going. “Do Bronx” admitted in the post-fight where he revealed he just had a bad night.

“Against Makhachev, I didn’t feel any pressure… He was just better than me,” he said. “I haven’t watched that fight back yet. It doesn’t make any difference to me. It wasn’t a bad night… just 15 bad minutes… 10 to 20 bad minutes. There’s nothing else to say. You know I always tell the truth. I already thought about it, but there’s no real explanation.”

It was later revealed by his coach Diego Lima that Oliveira didn't follow the game plan, but not because he wasn't listening to his coaches — Makhachev simply didn't allow him to get started.

“I know it’s hard to hear that, but it wasn’t Charles there,” Lima said. “He wasn’t alright. I don’t think it’s cool when someone loses and starts giving excuses. It wasn’t Charles’ day, it was Makhachev’s day. Congratulations to him. Nothing we had planned for him was done and it wasn’t because Makhachev was one step ahead, it just didn’t happen. We’ll train and go there to win [the rematch].

“I can’t say, ‘Look, we’ll change our strategy’, because we didn’t do our strategy. I believe in the strategies we have. I’m not taking anything away from Makhachev. Makhachev is a badass. All I’m saying is that Charles wasn’t on a good day, unfortunately.”

Oliveira looked much like the one we knew when he fought Beneil Dariush at UFC 289 last month. Despite entering the fight as an underdog with many believing Dariush would smother him on the ground, instead, Oliveira performed much better as he rocked his opponent with a head kick before getting the first-round TKO finish. He notably pulled guard against Dariush during the fight as well and managed to get back up to his feet which bodes well for his chances against Makhachev in a rematch. But more than anything, the performance was an exciting one and got fans clamoring to watch that Oliveira fight Makhachev — especially if this time, he's able to utilize the game plan he had in mind.

Now of course, given that Alexander Volkanovski just fought at UFC 290 earlier this month and recency bias is a real thing, many observers may have preferred for the Aussie to get a rematch with Makhachev over Oliveira. But while Volkanovksi can return to full contact training in six weeks following a recent arm surgery earlier this week, it's not ideal for him to have a camp of less than two months while potentially not being fully 100 percent. It's his only chance at exacting revenge and he'll need to be at his absolute peak which is something the fans should also want.

Makhachev did suggest a super fight with UFC welterweight champion Leon Edwards as an option, but as stated by Daniel Cormier, it's hard to see the the promotion giving the Dagestan native another super fight without defending against an actual lightweight contender first. Cormier also hinted at Makhachev possbly defending the title against someone lower ranked in the 155-pound division given the lack of availability (at least at the time). While a fight with Michael Chandler, Mateusz Gamrot or Arman Tsarukyan would still be something most MMA fans would watch, it wouldn't have been ideal by any means as any challenger will require a statement-making performance to generate excitement over a title fight. Neither of those three have one in the manner of Oliveira's last fight where he notably snapped the eight-fight winning streak of Dariush in impressive fashion.

So all things considered, things worked out for the UFC — they have a massive title fight scheduled for UFC 294, but most importantly, they have the right title fight scheduled for the Abu Dhabi event.