FanHouse Leonard Garcia

Wednesday night's Jose Aldo vs. Mike Brown fight shook up the featherweight division in mixed martial arts. When I interviewed Brown last week it looked like he was close to clearing out the featherweight division, but now that Aldo is the World Extreme Cagefighting featherweight champion, the division is a lot more interesting.

Who will get the first shot at Aldo's title? I think it'll be the winner of the WEC 46 bout between Urijah Faber and Rafael Assuncao, and I think Manny Gamburyan's win over Leonard Garcia on Wednesday night makes him a player in the featherweight division, too.

My featherweight rankings are below.

The Ultimate Fighter 5 finalist Manny Gamburyan won his second straight fight for the WEC, defeating Leonard Garcia by unanimous decision after three rounds Wednesday at WEC 44 in Las Vegas.

After three rounds, the judges rendered the fight in favor of Gamburyan with scores of 30-27, 29-28 and 29-28.

"When Rashad Evans said he hits the hardest. Guys, he does hit really hard!" Gamburyan said. "I survived today. He's a good fighter and hopefully we can meet up one more time."

World Extreme Cagefighting is home to the best featherweights in MMA. Mike Brown is the undisputed champion of the world, he should have a great fight with Jose Aldo late this year, and Urijah Faber, the man Brown beat twice, is still probably the WEC's biggest draw.

But there's one problem with the WEC's featherweights: They're not doing enough to promote Wagnney Fabiano. You could make a case that Fabiano is more deserving of a title shot against Brown than Aldo is, and Fabiano certainly deserves to be heavily promoted as a future title contender. Instead, Fabiano's fight with Erik Koch next month isn't even on the live TV portion of the card.

Above, 1976 Olympic boxing gold medalist Howard Davis speaks with great confidence about World Extreme Cagefighting champion Mike Brown's chances of beating Urijah Faber Sunday at WEC 41. Davis and Brown have worked hard at developing Brown's boxing skills, and after recently watching Brown's last three fights, I'm amazed at how much more skillful he is as a boxer than he was even a year ago.

On today's conference call to promote WEC 41, World Extreme Cagefighting featherweight champion Mike Brown and former champ Urijah Faber both insisted that they don't care about rankings. And for the two of them, that makes sense: They're fighting on June 7, and whoever wins is, without a doubt, the No. 1 featherweight in MMA. But rankings are still fun for fans and useful for identifying the top fighters in the rest of the featherweight division, and my own featherweight Top 10 is below.

Now is a great time to be a fan of small fighters. We just witnessed the best bantamweight card ever at WEC 40, and my list of the Top 10 featherweights in MMA features a whole lot of guys who either won over the weekend or are about to get big tests.

The featherweight division in MMA right now consists of Mike Brown, Urijah Faber and everyone else.

Who's the third best featherweight in MMA? I don't know. I just know that after Brown destroyed Leonard Garcia on Sunday night to retain his World Extreme Cagefighting championship at WEC 39, he's definitely the No. 1 featherweight in the world, and that former champion Faber will give Brown a great fight when they have their rematch this summer.

I have questions about everyone at positions 3-10, but my full list of the top 10 featherweights in MMA is below.

Mike Brown's first title defense as the World Extreme Cagefighting featherweight champion was a successful one, as he defeated Leonard Garcia by first-round submission and retained his title Sunday night at WEC 39.

Brown floored Garcia with a brutal right hand just seconds into the first round, and Garcia was never able to recover. Brown pounced and dominated Garcia on the ground, and although Garcia showed a lot of heart just by staying in the fight, he had no chance: Brown eventually got Garcia to tap with an arm triangle choke at 1:57 of the first round.

Mike Brown	vs.	Leonard Garcia
20-4	Record	12-3
No. 1 featherweight, No. 10 pound-for-pound	Rank	No. 3 featherweight
4-0	(T)KO Record	4-0
11-4	Sub. Record	8-0
5-0	Dec. Record	0-3
W-8	Streak	W-2
144.5	Weight	145
5-6	Height	5-10
70"	Reach	70"
33	Age	29
American Top Team	Camp	Jackson's MMA

Mike Brown will defend his WEC featherweight title against Leonard Garcia Sunday at 9 PM ET on Versus. The full preview is below.

Leonard Garcia will fight for the World Extreme Cagefighting featherweight title on Sunday night, and in an interview on Monday night he said the opportunity to fight champion Mike Brown "excites the s**t out of me."

The 29-year-old Garcia also talked about his desire to fight nothing but the best opponents -- including former featherweight champ Urijah Faber and current bantamweight champ Miguel Torres -- and explained why he thinks MMA is about to blow up among Mexican fans. The full interview is below.