UFC 136 Results: Who Is Now the Biggest Threat to Frankie Edgar?

Frankie Edgar has put the curse of Gray Maynard to bed for the first and last time in his career. He retained his lightweight title in the process with a stunning and sweet knockout at 3:54 of the fourth round. Edgar again needed to show the heart of a champion as Maynard had him badly hurt in the first round, it was almost a carbon copy of round one on the last meeting between them.

Edgar came pecking back with precision in round two and three as Maynard seemed a bit low on gas again and Edgar had things evened up heading into round four. The two exchanged again and Edgar hurt Maynard with a right upper cut as they scrambled, knocking Maynard down and hurting him in the process. Edgar let Maynard up and hit him with three more precision shots to knock Maynard down to the canvas again. He closed out with punches and the fight was halted at 3:54 of the fourth round.

Now that the trilogy has been put to bed, whom can we look to as first in line and the biggest threat to the new champion? The lightweight division is a stacked one, and there are a myriad of guys with the pedigree and style to make things tough for the champion.

With knockout artist Melvin Guillard derailed tonight, and Jim Miller losing to Ben Henderson not too long ago, I think we can narrow down the biggest threat to the winner out of Clay Guida vs. Ben Henderson on the UFC on Fox 1 show coming up in November. There are some out there who want Strikeforce champion Gilbert Melendez to parachute in and challenge Edgar, but I feel that either Guida or Henderson is a more deserving and dangerous challenger.  

If you really want to narrow it down to one of the two, I feel that Guida would be a much tougher pill for Edgar to swallow with his mauling and relentless style. Henderson is elusive, but let's not forget that Anthony Pettis beat Henderson in the WEC, while Guida beat Pettis not long ago in the UFC.

Unless Guida-Henderson is a snoozer with neither fighter stamping their place as the top contender, I see the winner of that fight being the next and biggest threat to Edgar's crown.

Dwight Wakabayashi is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report MMA and (also a Correspondent for MMACanada.net)

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