UFC 162: What We Learned in Las Vegas

Everything we thought we knew before UFC 162 is wrong. 

Alright, so that's a little bit of hyperbole, but there were plenty of lessons to be learned from a great night of fights in Las Vegas. After all, it was a night that fight fans won't be forgetting anytime soon. 

We saw the dethroning of the UFC's longest-reigning king, the resurgence of a nearly forgotten middleweight contender and a former UFC champion finally get in the win column in a night that was everything a fight fan could ask for.

Here were the biggest takeaways. 

Even Anderson Silva Can Bleed (or Get Knocked out)

Anderson Silva's opponents have often treated him like a god-king in the past. Because he's the most accurate and dangerous counterstriker in the history of MMA, attacking Silva with his hands down has generally been avoided.

Forrest Griffin learned the hard way not to come forward when it appears Silva is asking you to hit him. The Spider created one of the best highlights of his career when he knocked out Griffin by goading him to come forward.  

However, Chris Weidman showed that you can only get away with those tactics for so long before you get caught. And it was a lesson that Silva learned the hard way. 

For years, Silva has had the greatest aura of invincibility since Fedor Emelianenko was knocking out everyone with a pulse. Saturday night we learned that not even Silva is invincible. 

Mark Munoz Is Back

Now that there's a new middleweight champion, the whole division just got a lot more interesting. Every contender should feel that they have an even greater opportunity to contend for the title. 

Consider Mark Munoz the first to make his statement that he's ready to climb the ladder. 

After nearly a year outside of the Octagon since his loss to the new middleweight champion Chris Weidman, Munoz returned looking as sharp as ever. Not only was he physically more impressive, noticeably in better shape than ever, his skills have never looked better. 

He was given a fairly equal opponent on paper in Tim Boetsch and dominated the fight en route to a unanimous decision victory. 

Yes, Munoz is coming off of a loss, but as Jeremy Botter of Bleacher Report noted, this version of Munoz looked much better than the one that lost to Weidman:

He still needs to win at least one more fight to really get into contention, but there's no doubt that Munoz is back in play as a contender.

Frankie Edgar Needs to Wait for Another Title Shot

In his first title fight since 2009, Frankie Edgar picked up a unanimous decision victory over Charles Oliveira in featherweight action. 

While it was important for Edgar to get back in the win column, he didn't do it in impressive fashion. 

Going into the fight, Oliveira was a considerable underdog. The 23-year-old was coming off of a loss himself against featherweight contender Cub Swanson and hasn't notched any victories in his career that would indicate he could beat Edgar. 

However, "do Bronx" came to fight and really held his own against Edgar throughout the fight. "The Answer" absolutely deserved to win the fight. He landed far more strikes and was able to take the jiu-jitsu specialist down on more than one occasion. 

The fight was even strong enough to be given Fight of the Night honors, per the UFC's Twitter page.

Was Edgar's win exciting? You bet. Did it make you think he should fight for another belt in his next bout? No.