Zoro fight the righ-hand man of the guy Luffy fight, It was always like this, the only difference is that after TS Law was with the crew, so there need to be someone for him to.
But the only real Zoro fight after TS was King, who was Kaido right-hand like Zoro is to Luffy, what makes total sense, why he would fight BM if the whole ideia was New era captains vs Old era captains.
Also in DR Fujitora and Sabo were clearly stronger than Doffy, he fighting Pica made sense, as even If Trebol seems to be the right-hand of Doffy, Pica looked more like the second stronger.