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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.

A pair of bouts between lightweight contenders have been announced as co-headliners for the final WEC event of the year, WEC 45 on Dec. 19 at the Pearl in Las Vegas.

Donald Cerrone, coming off an interim title loss to Ben Henderson earlier this month, will take on Ed Ratcliff, while former IFL standout Chris Horodecki will make his WEC debut against Anthony Njokuani.

Former WEC contender Jeff Curran has signed with Strikeforce to compete on the undercard of the Fedor Emelianenko vs. Brett Rogers event on Nov. 7 in Hoffman Estates, Ill.

Curran (29-12-1) was released after four consecutive losses with the WEC. But it's also important to note that the losses came against Urijah Faber, Mike Brown, Joseph Benavidez and Takeya Mizugaki -- arguably four of the toughest assignments for a lighterweight fighter, all in a 20-month period.

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.

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.

On this week's edition of The MMA Hour, MDS, Mike Chiappetta and I discuss the aftermath of Affliction canceling "Trilogy" and joining forces with the UFC. Where does Fedor Emelianenko go from here? How does this affect Strikeforce? What will be Afflction Entertainment's legacy? Those questions and more were answered.

Plus, we were joined by WEC bantamweight contender, Joseph Benavidez, to talk about his upcoming fight against Dominick Cruz on August 9. The winner of that bout looks to be the No.1 contender in the WEC's 135-pound division. Check out the show below.

It's not often that a fighter moves up in our MMA rankings after losing a fight, but then again it's not often that a fighter looks as impressive in a losing effort as Takeya Mizugaki looked in dropping a unanimous decision to Miguel Torres at WEC 40. So as we update our list of the Top 10 bantamweights in MMA, we've moved Mizugaki up -- ahead of everyone but Torres.

We're a few hours away from the 40th event in the history of World Extreme Cagefighting, and as I was looking at the fight card today, I got to thinking: Is this the best collection of bantamweights ever assembled at one MMA event?

Miguel Torres towers over the rest of MMA's 135-pound division -- and when I say that, I don't just mean he's the World Extreme Cagefighting bantamweight champion and by far the best 135-pound fighter in the world.

I also mean that Torres is much taller and has strikingly longer arms and legs than anyone else who fights at 135 pounds. That was very obvious on Friday, when the WEC brought together four of the best 135-pounders in the world for a press conference promoting Sunday night's WEC 40 event.

The height and reach difference between Torres and the other three -- his opponent, Takeya Mizugaki, plus Jeff Curran and Joseph Benavidez, who will square off in the co-main event -- was more apparent than their listed heights. Torres is listed at 5-foot-9, Mizugaki is listed at 5-7, Curran is listed at 5-6 and Benavidez is listed at 5-4.

As Joseph Benavidez prepares to fight Jeff Curran Sunday night in the co-main event at WEC 40, he's already given some thought to what a victory would mean.

Benavidez told me Thursday that he views his fight with Curran as one that could establish the winner as the No. 1 contender for the bantamweight title. Bantamweight champion Miguel Torres will defend his title against Takeya Mizugaki in the main event.

Benavidez also talked about the possibility of moving down to 125 pounds, about fighting in Japan and about his friendship with Urijah Faber. The interview is below.