Another Batch of Nifty UFC Hits

I've picked up a decent number of UFC cards over the last little bit. I am pretty open when it comes to the UFC, so I will snap up just about anything I come across that seems interesting. I do have a couple of specific fighters that I collect with a little more purpose, but for the most part I will bid on cardboard that is 1) cheap and 2) cool.

This Jessica Penne autograph got a bid from me largely because she's got a cool signature, with a lot of loops at the beginning and an interesting back and forth line for the rest of it. I also don't think I had a Penne autograph in my collection yet. I am not officially chasing an autograph of every fighter who has one, but I do like adding new ones to my collection.

I think Topps has moved away from this entirely, but on older products they often listed which UFC event the mat relics came from. This Martin Kampmann 2010 Topps UFC Knockout fight mat relic came from UFC 108, where he defeated Jacob Volkmann by submission. I believe this is the Green parallel of the card, numbered # 41 / 88.

Here's another one for the interesting penmanship category. Liz Carmouche has a very minimalistic signature, as displayed on this 2013 Topps UFC Bloodlines autograph card. I still think it's pretty cool, though, much better than Wil Myers' 'WM' autograph. She's riding a two-fight win streak, with a victory at the recent UFC 205. It seems like I've bid on a hundred Carmouche autographs and lost, but I finally landed this one. edit: Commenter R Laughton has informed me that Carmouche's signature is in Japanese. Running the symbols リーズ C. through the Japanese-English translation device returns the name Liz C.

Raquel Pennington also had a win at UFC 205, beating Miesha Tate by decision in the first fight of the Main Card, after which Tate announced her retirement. This is the first of a trio of autographs out of 2015 Topps UFC Champions that I picked up from the same seller.

Carla Esparza was the first UFC Women's Strawweight Champion. She lost the belt in her first defense of the title to Joanna Jędrzejczyk, who has gone on to defend the title 4 times, including at UFC 205. Esparza went on to win her next fight after losing the belt, but hasn't fought again since April 2016.

I had a couple of Cat Zingano relics in my collection, but I hadn't picked up an autograph yet. Zingano has fought once per year since 2011, with her 2016 bout coming in the much-hyped UFC 200, where she lost a decision to Julianna Pena.

Here's another fight mat relic card that goes all the way back to UFC 57, where Randy Couture lost a title fight to Chuck Liddell. This card comes from 2010 Topps UFC. Randy Couture retired (twice) long before I ever got into watching fights, so I don't know a lot about him.

These last two cards feature a fighter I collect specifically, Jim Miller. He fought at both UFC 200 and UFC 205, winning his bouts at both events. He'd been on a pretty rough streak lately, losing 4 out of 5 fights at one point, but he's currently on a three-fight win streak. I don't know if that makes him a contender in the Lightweight division, as there are about a million guys in that weight class and Conor McGregor just complicated things with his big UFC 205 victory. Miller seems to be game for just about any fight, though, and hopefully he's got a few more in the tank. This autograph comes from the 2011 Topps UFC Title Shot product, and is some parallel of the Contenders Autographs set. I missed out on the base version, but I got this parallel numbered # 60 / 88. 

From what I can gather, these UFC Poker Chips were inserted into blaster boxes of 2010 Topps UFC trading cards, sort of like the various manu-patches and medallions you get in some blasters of Topps' baseball products. I thought it was a pretty unique item to get for my Jim Miller collection.

I completely missed out on last night's Fight Night: Mousasi vs. Hall event, and I missed most of the preliminary fights for tonight's Fight Night: Bader vs. Nogueira. I did get to see the last seven fights though, with the last two bouts being particularly good. Most of the Main Card was pretty entertaining, although it got a little painful at the end of the Almeida vs. Morales fight, as the ref let the fight go about ten punches too long when it was clear that Morales was out of it. It's too bad that Ryan Bader won't get a Topps NOW card out of his victory, but I also really don't want Topps to start pumping out cards for Fight Nights. It's hard enough to keep up with the cards they put out for the numbered UFC events.