Great night of fights. Here’s what I learned:

1. Cain Velasquez: WOW! That’s it in a nutshell. Cain withstood an early onslaught from Brock, then beat his face in on the way to becoming the first Mexican UFC Heavyweight champ. Not only did Cain come out and rock Lesnar, but what was more impressive to me was the fact that A) Lesnar took him down and Cain got back up fairly quickly (within a few seconds) and B) he landed a single leg takedown on Lesnar. Very impressive. Congrats Cain, well deserved.

2. Where does Brock Lesnar go from here? Now that Dana White’s hand-picked champion has lost, does Brock Lesnar even have the desire to fight anymore? When he lost his WWE title belt, he quit to try out for the Minnesota Vikings. When the Vikings told him he can play in NFL Europe or he can be a backup on the Vikings team, he quit that to pursue MMA. Now that he’s lost his belt, will he quit MMA, or is he willing to work his way up again? Time will tell.

3. Does Jake Shields really deserve a title shot? My take: no. In fact, I thought Kampmann should have won that fight. Shields looked highly unimpressive in his UFC debut. Sure, he did get out of several submission attempts by Kampmann, but did little in return to try to win. In fact, when Kampmann nailed Shields with the knee, Shields looked lost. And after the fight, he was stumbling around the ring, looking as if he didn’t know what happened. However, Dana said Shields is now next in line for the welterweight title. Prediction: GSP via decision. It will be a straight grappling match.

4. How can you not root for Matt Hamill? Being hearing impaired is hard enough on a person as it is. Being a hearing impaired fighter has to be even tougher. Hamill has led a tough life, and getting a win over Tito Ortiz, his coach on TUF and someone he looks up to was huge. Now that he’s won five straight fights, including a win over a former UFC light heavyweight champ, his name should start being thrown into the mix for top notch fights.

5. TUF alums came to work. Of the 11 fights, six were won by TUF alums: Jon Madsen, Tom Lawlor, Court McGee, Brendan Schaub, Matt Hamill, and Diego Sanchez. For those UFC or MMA fans who think TUF fighters are weak or subpar, think again. UFC 121 showed otherwise. As said in point #4, Hamill deserves better fights, as does Jon Madsen, who is now 4-0 in the UFC. And of course, more Diego Sanchez fights please (YES!) who did good work on Paulo Thiago. Plus Diego picking up Thiago, running him across the octagon and started screaming before slamming him on his back was just awesome (YES! YES!).

Those are my thoughts. Feel free to comment and add additional points.