FanHouse Brian Bowles

Two days ago, I don't think anyone had Jose Aldo listed as one of the top 10 pound-for-pound fighters in mixed martial arts. But after what Aldo did to Mike Brown on Wednesday night, I don't think there's any way to exclude him.

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.

For the first time since his loss to Forrest Griffin more than two years ago, Shogun Rua can legitimately be called one of the top 10 fighters in MMA -- and it took a loss to get him there.

Rua's unanimous decision loss to Lyoto Machida in the main event at UFC 104 was a fight that most people thought he deserved to win, and a fight that makes one thing very clear: Shogun is back.

But where does Shogun fit in our list of the Top 10 pound-for-pound fighters in MMA? Find out below.

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.

Compare the tickets sold at WEC 42 to the amount sold at WEC 41, the Miguel Torres vs. Brian Bowles event brought in only 6.2% of what the Urijah Faber vs. Mike Brown rematch did.

Of course, WEC 41 was held at Sacramento's Arco Arena, which accommodated 12,706 fans as opposed to the Joint in Las Vegas, which has capacity of 4,000.

According to the official numbers released Tuesday by the Nevada State Athletic Commission, WEC 42 sold 1,640 tickets for a gate of $175,835. 442 tickets were given away and 870 were left unsold.

MMA Twitter universe had plenty to say about my interview with new WEC bantamweight champion Brian Bowles, who defeated Miguel Torres on Sunday at WEC 42. Questions and answers included the possibility of a Torres-Bowles rematch and the extent of the hand injury Bowles suffered during his final series of punches.

We then turn our attention to Fedor Emelianenko, and whether he needs to keep fighting top opponents to stay atop the pound-for-pound rankings. Your questions and comments, and my answers, are below.

Brian Bowles shocked the mixed martial arts world on Sunday night when he knocked out Miguel Torres to win the World Extreme Cagefighting bantamweight title. In an interview with FanHouse Thursday, Bowles said even he didn't think he'd knock Torres out less than four minutes into their fight.

But Bowles also said he followed a well-crafted game plan to get himself into position to knock Torres out, and he said he's going to keep training hard and fighting the same way now that he's the champion.

Bowles also said that he broke a bone in his hand punching an unconscious Torres, that he expects to make his first title defense against Dominick Cruz, and that he thinks the win should put him near the top of the pound-for-pound rankings.

For the first time in a very, very long time, Miguel Torres is not the best bantamweight in mixed martial arts. No, Brian Bowles, who dominated Torres in a first-round knockout Sunday night at WEC 42, is now the best of the bantamweights.

But while some might think it hurts the WEC to have a popular and famous champion go down, I think Bowles beating Torres has reinvigorated the bantamweight division. Bowles vs. Dominick Cruz, a rematch between Torres and Takeya Mizugaki and fights involving Rani Yahya, Manny Tapia, Akitoshi Tamura and Joseph Benavidez (who should move down to flyweight as soon as the WEC adds 125-pounders) are all on the horizon. That makes the bantamweight division more exciting than ever. The list of the top 10 bantamweights is below.

Despite the championship belt loss, Miguel Torres was the leading earner with a payday of $26,000 at Sunday's WEC 42 in Las Vegas.

Torres would have earned another $26,000 for a total of $52,000 had he successfully defended the bantamweight belt. The new champ, Brian Bowles, walked away with $28,000 with his disclosed purse at $9,000 to show, $9,000 bonus to win and his $10,000 bonus for the Knockout of the Night.

For the other performance awards, Rani Yahya won $10,000 for Submission of the Night and and Dominick Cruz-Joseph Benavidez each received $10,000 for participating in the Fight of the Night.

After a big win at UFC 101, Anderson Silva has moved up the mixed martial arts pound-for-pound rankings. But is he now the No. 1 fighter in the world? Not in my rankings, which are below.