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It was a big weekend for the lightweights in MMA, with Eddie Alvarez winning the Bellator lightweight tournament on Friday night (above) and Diego Sanchez beating Clay Guida by split decision in a fight of the year candidate Saturday at the Ultimate Fighter Finale.

So what's next for Alvarez and Sanchez? Bellator will have to work hard to attract some top-notch lightweights to challenge Alvarez in their second season (I'm hoping they sign Joachim Hansen), while Sanchez thinks he's earned a shot at the UFC lightweight belt (but I think he should fight Gray Maynard first). My list of the Top 10 lightweights in MMA is below.

Clay Guida and Diego Sanchez will step into the Octagon in the main event of the Ultimate Fighter Finale Saturday night, and Guida told me that he thinks if he wins, he deserves a shot at the UFC lightweight title. But Sanchez said today that he'd go further than that: He believes he's already the No. 1 contender for the lightweight belt.

"Kenny Florian is coming up on his second title shot, and this is a guy I walked through four years ago," Sanchez said. "I walked through him and it wasn't even a fight, and this is the No. 1 contender. So in my mind, I am the No. 1 contender right now."

After a weekend in mixed martial arts that saw big lightweight fights in both the UFC and Dream, it's time to revise our list of the Top 10 lightweights in MMA. Frank Edgar is new on our list after his impressive UFC 98 win over Sean Sherk, while Gesias "JZ Calvan" Cavalcante has dropped off the list after a disappointing loss to Tatsuya Kawajiri at Dream 9. The full Top 10 is below.

Four months after losing to Georges St Pierre at UFC 94, UFC lightweight champion BJ Penn is still angry that the Nevada State Athletic Commission didn't take action against St. Pierre for having grease rubbed on his body during the fight. In fact, Penn says he's so angry that he never wants to fight in Las Vegas again.

UFC President Dana White and fighters Forrest Griffin and Kenny Florian appeared on today's Dr. Phil to tell teenagers that getting into street fights is not the way to become a professional MMA fighter. Good to know.

Above, Kenny Florian appears on Good Day Philadelphia to promote his upcoming fight with BJ Penn at UFC 101. Anyone watching that video or any of Florian's other media appearances can see that he's just the kind of public face that the UFC likes to promote, but UFC President Dana White says he sees Florian doing more than just fighting.

UFC lightweight champion BJ Penn was soundly defeated by Georges St. Pierre at UFC 94, and then spent time filing a lengthy appeal that went nowhere, but it seems that Penn is finally looking ahead instead of backward.

A full three months before his UFC 101 main-event matchup against Kenny Florian, Penn is in San Clemente, Calif., training with Marv Marinovich at Sport Science Lab, according to a video he posted on his site, BJPenn.com.

Marinovich is a trainer who specializes in speed, power and functional training. He is also well known as the controversial father of ex-USC and Oakland Raiders quarterback Todd Marinovich, a one-time prodigy who saw his NFL dreams fall prey to substance-abuse issues.

A little over a week after UFC president Dana White said he was "embarrassed" by Anderson Silva's performance against Thales Leites at UFC 97 in Montreal, the current middleweight champion has been booked in an exciting light heavyweight fight against Forrest Griffin at UFC 101 in August, according to Yahoo! Sports.

"Forrest loved the idea and said he'd do it right away, and Anderson told me he would fight anyone I wanted him to fight, no matter who it is," White told Yahoo! Sports' Kevin Iole. "So we got the deal."

Although most fans and members of the media seem to think we saw Chuck Liddell fight for the final time at UFC 97, some of Liddell's fellow fighters disagree with the conventional wisdom that he's finished.

I spoke with Matt Hughes on Thursday, and he told me he doesn't believe Liddell is done.

"I don't think so," Hughes told me. "Chuck is still dangerous to anybody. Anybody that thinks that if Chuck Liddell hits them they won't go down is wrong. Chuck is a threat to anybody. As a friend I hope he doesn't leave the sport for two reasons: Number one, I like him and I like watching him. Number two, I still think he's good enough to do some serious damage to people."

Although hardly anyone in the United States saw the fights, two of the top five lightweights in MMA were in action this weekend, as Shinya Aoki lost at Dream 8 and Eddie Alvarez won in the debut of the new Bellator promotion. That means it's time to revisit our list of the Top 10 lightweights in MMA.

The first question is whether it's fair to drop Aoki on the lightweight list when he lost to a bigger opponent in the Dream Welterweight Grand Prix. I think it is fair. I'm not impressed with Aoki's performance, and I can't pretend the fight didn't happen just because it didn't happen at lightweight.