What's next for UFC 121 winners?

"UFC 121: Lesnar vs. Velasquez is in the books and it's time to take a look at what's ahead for the winners of each of Saturday's main card fights.

Cain Velasquez — This one is the most obvious of all because it's already all but set in stone. Velasquez will defend his newly won UFC heavyweight championship against Junior dos Santos (12-1 overall, 6-0 UFC) in spring of next year. This will be an interesting fight for a variety of reasons. Will Velasquez stand and trade with the dangerous dos Santos? Will he take him down? And for dos Santos, can he stop Velasquez's takedowns? If he does get taken down, can he get back up? This will be another great heavyweight fight.

Jake Shields — A lot of people weren't impressed with Shields' performance on Saturday. I'm on the other side of the fence here. The word on the street is that he cut 20 pounds in one day for this fight and even though that's something within his control, it's still a credit to him that he was able to overcome this completely killing his conditioning. Shields, despite being dog tired, still pressed forward and ended his fight with Martin Kampmann in a dominant position. Yes, Kampmann completely let him off the hook by doing next to nothing offensively when Shields was a dead man walking, but, credit to Shields, he never gave up trying to be offensive. That earns points in my book. As for what's next, I think he earned a shot at the welterweight title, whether that comes against Georges St. Pierre or Josh Koscheck. He's now won 15 in a row, hasn't lost since December 2004 and fought through some (self-inflicted) adversity to win his UFC debut. That impresses me.

Diego Sanchez —Sanchez simply set a pace Paulo Thiago could not keep up with Saturday. This was "the old" Diego Sanchez in this fight and it was a sight to see. Easily the best fight on the show. There's been some talk whether Sanchez will continue to fight at 170 pounds or if he will move back down to lightweight. In light of this performance, I think it would be in Sanchez's best interest to stay at 170 pounds. I would like to see Sanchez fight either Carlos Condit or Jake Ellenberger. Either of those fights (especially the Condit one) would be very exciting fights.

Matt Hamill — Hamill had a great performance Saturday against Tito Ortiz, but his upward mobility is severely limited. It wouldn't shock me if this ends up being the biggest win of his career. Hamill will beat everybody he's supposed to beat and will lose to everybody he's supposed to lose to. Dana White said Hamill will get a top-10 opponent in his next fight, and being the winner of five straight, that probably is appropriate. Ideally, I'd like to see him fight Jason Brilz next. He would not be competitive against fighters at the top level, so I'm going to discount them (and they're all booked anyway). Potentially a fight with Phil Davis should he win at UFC 123? He also could face the winner of the Jan. 1 UFC 125 fight between Thiago Silva and Brandon Vera. 

Brendan Schaub — Schaub said following UFC 121 that he would like to fight Frank Mir. That's all well and good, but Mir has a one-way ticket to a third fight with Brock Lesnar in my mind. Plus, that's too much of a step up in competition in my mind for Schaub. If I were Joe Silva I'd look to book Schaub in a fight against Cheick Kongo or Mike Russow. Either of those would be prudent fights.

SBN coverage of UFC 121: Lesnar vs. Velasquez