FanHouse Bibiano Fernandes

Wednesday night's WEC 44 event is a featherweight showcase, headlined by Mike Brown defending his 145-pound title against Jose Aldo.

But the WEC's bantamweight division, which won't be represented in any of Wednesday night's live fights on Versus, might be even more stacked than the featherweight division. My list of the Top 10 bantamweights in MMA is topped by six WEC fighters, with champion Brian Bowles and former champion Miguel Torres clearly the class of the division.

A couple of Shooto fighters make my list, as does Dream's Bibiano Fernandes (whom I consider a bantamweight even though he's the promotion's featherweight champ), but there's no question that at the top, the division is dominated by the WEC.

At first glance, not much seems to have changed in the MMA bantamweight division in the last three months. All the top bantamweights in the WEC -- Brian Bowles, Miguel Torres, Dominick Cruz, Takeya Mizugaki, Rani Yahya and Joseph Benavidez -- fought on August 9, and since then they've just been biding their time for their next fight.

But I have a new name in my new ranking of the Top 10 bantamweights in mixed martial arts: Bibiano Fernandes. Yes, I know the title Fernandes just won is the Dream featherweight belt, not the bantamweight belt. But Fernandes weighed in at 138 pounds in the Dream tournament, and if he were ever to fight in the WEC, I think he'd be a bantamweight.

And so Fernandes is listed as a bantamweight in my new rankings, which are below.

On his way to winning the DREAM Featherweight Grand Prix, Bibiano Fernandes advanced past Joe Warren with an armbar 42 seconds into the DREAM.11 fight, but the semifinal win wasn't without controversy.

In the main event of a sometimes exciting, sometimes bizarre MMA event, Bibiano Fernandes defeated Hiroyuki Takaya by split decision to win the Dream Featherweight Grand Prix Tuesday at Dream 11 in Yokohama, Japan.

FanHouse has DREAM results of DREAM.11 taking place at the Yokohama Arena in Yokohama, Japan.

DREAM.11, the first of two DREAM events for October, will crown a featherweight champion between Hiroyuki Takaya vs. Hideo Tokoro and Joe Warren vs. Bibiano Fernandes. Also, Joachim Hansen returns to defend his lightweight title against Shinya Aoki.