A Big Batch of Random UFC Cards

There's a pretty big fight today, so I thought I'd post some UFC cards I picked up at some point over the last few months. Technically, today's fight is a boxing match, but it involves arguably the biggest UFC star since Ronda Rousey, Conor McGregor. Topps actually has made a trio of cards available for pre-order under their UFC Now banner, one for each fighter's weigh-in and one for the weigh-in generally. If you buy the individual weigh-in card of the fight winner, you will also get a bonus card of that fighter. I went ahead and ordered a copy of all three cards. As of the time I am posting this, there are still about six hours left on the pre-order window. If that interests you, click here. 

I don't have any new McGregor cards, and I don't think I've got any Mayweather cards at all, so I'll be showing off some other stuff. It's mostly a grab bag of parallels and hits, with these first couple cards being relic cards of UFC Hall of Famer Urijah Faber. The card above is a Fight Mat Relic card from 2014 Topps UFC Champions.

This one is a Fighter Relic card from 2012 UFC Bloodlines. It looks to be a piece of t-shirt or something similar. This one's serially-numbered # 169 / 188. I wish Topps would bring back a good comprehensive base set to the UFC line, but I can understand that there's probably not much money in that. They are releasing a Chrome set soon, which might be as close as we're going to get to that in 2017. The UFC needs some more big stars to carry the brand, especially maybe some stars who don't pop hot on drug tests.

This Cung Le relic card is another Topps UFC Bloodlines relic card, but it comes from the 2013 version of the product. It also looks like a bit of t-shirt, and is numbered # 011 / 198.

Going back to mat relics, here is a bit of the mat from UFC 76 on a card featuring Mauricio Rua. This card comes from 2010 Topps UFC. At UFC 76 he lost to Forrest Griffin due to a choke submission.

The last relic card in this batch of scans is an Alexis Davis card from 2014 Topps UFC Knockout. The relic swatch looks to be a two-color bit of shirt. She won her last fight, in April of this year.

Jumping ahead to 2015 Topps UFC Knockout, I have an Autograph Relic card of Francisco Rivera. His last fight was in 2016, and the UFC site lists him as a former fighter, so he might be done. That loss marked the end of a stretch where he lost 5 out of six fights over three years, so maybe he just didn't have it anymore.

I may already have a copy or two of this Jessica Penne autograph from 2015 Topps UFC Champions, but she has a cool signature and I am a sucker for cheap UFC hits, so I picked up another. She's lost three fights in a row now, with her latest being a loss by decision to Danielle Taylor in April 2017. Around the same time, she was also the first female UFC fighter to be flagged for a potential doping violation.

This Vitor Belfort card is a parallel of an insert card from 2011 Topps UFC Moment of Truth. This is the Onyx parallel of his Elite Skills insert, numbered # 13 / 88.

I am having a hard time pulling up a decent checklist for 2010 Topps Knockout, but I am assuming this parallel looks Green to me. It is numbered # 19 / 88.

I don't know why I like Gold parallels so much for UFC cards, but I pick them up when I can. This is a Bethe Correia parallel from 2015 Topps UFC Knockout. It is numbered # 55 / 99. Sorry for the lack of real content in parts of this post. There are some days when I am just not feeling it.

The final card in this group is a Gold parallel from 2015 Topps UFC Champions. Gold parallels from this set are some of my favorite cards to pick up, so I will always try to get them if I can. This one is numbered # 07 / 25.

I am not really pulling for McGregor or Mayweather. I guess the most entertaining thing would be for McGregor to win, as that would potentially throw the boxing world into disarray. I don't know much about boxing, but I am guessing that Mayweather's wealth of experience in the sport will make this a one-sided battle in his favor.

Some Old Pick-Ups that are Surprisingly Relevant Today - UFC 212

I am compounding a bad decision by writing this post after I stayed up too late to watch UFC 212. I have to work in the morning, and I should not still be up. I just couldn't bring myself to miss out on Claudia Gadelha vs. Karolina Kowalkiewicz and Jose Aldo vs. Max Holloway. Those fights didn't disappoint, and neither did the ones earlier on the card. I was pulling for both winners of the two biggest fights on the card, although I missed on a lot of my earlier picks in the UFC Pick'em game.

I picked up these cards months ago, but most of them feature guys who were on tonight's fight card. I must have picked them up in late January, when Nate Marquardt last fought on the Valentina Shevchenko vs. Julianna Peña card. Marquardt lost his fight tonight via a decision that went to Vitor Belfort. I didn't see much of that fight, but the reaction on Twitter told me that there may have been some homer judges in Brazil voting with their hearts instead of their eyes. I guess that's why you don't let the decision go to the scorecards. This autograph comes from 2010 Topps UFC.

This relic card comes from the same set, and features a bit of the mat from UFN 8 in January 2007, where Marquardt defeated Dean Lewis by a unanimous decision. Judging by the scores (30–27, 30–25, 30–25), it was a pretty convincing victory.

Raphael Assuncao won his fight tonight, a decision victory over Marlon Moraes. Cardboard Connection says that this is a Blue parallel out of 2014 Topps UFC Champions, but it sure looks Purple to me. It's numbered # 56 / 88.

Andrei Arlovski didn't fight tonight, but he is scheduled to fight in a couple of weeks at UFC Fight Night 111. He's lost four fights in a row after a six-fight win streak (4 of those were in the UFC), so he really needs to put a victory up against Marcin Tybura to remain as a contender. This is a Gold parallel from 2016 Topps UFC Knockout. I think this one is numbered # 80 / 99.

Some PC (FC?) Cards in a Random UFC Lot

I snagged some UFC stuff a while back. Judging by the names in this group of scans, I am guessing I won these auctions in mid-January. That's how far behind I am in my posting. I have scans in my Draft folder that will take me well into May. In theory, I could go over a month without buying a card and still have new stuff to post about. That's not likely to happen, though. I'll hit a slow spot at some point and get this queue reeled in.

The key pieces of this lot were a couple of Neil Magny autos for my PC (FC?)* of him. The most important was this autograph from 2015 Topps UFC Knockout, which has the 1st Autograph designation on the front.

I am torn as to what to call PC's of subjects who aren't ballplayers, like wrestlers, fighters, and NASCAR drivers. My understanding is that PC means Player Collection. I guess it could mean Personal Collection, but that doesn't sound right. If it's in my collection, it's automatically a Personal Collection piece. But a Player Collection refers to a subdivision of your collection made up of cards of that individual. So do I call my Magny collection a Player Collection? Or do I call it a Fighter Collection and use the abbreviated FC? Do I have PCs or DCs (Driver Collections) of Danica Patrick and Josh Wise? I guess my life is pretty good if I can sit here and consider these questions.

The other Magny card in this lot was a 2016 Topps UFC Top of the Class autograph relic card. Typically autographs and relics are serially-numbered in these products, but neither of these Magny cards have numbering that I can see in the scans. I could go look at the cards themselves, but it's been two months since I received them, and that means they are in a 5000-count box downstairs waiting for me to complete the sorting project I began a couple of years ago.

Even though the shine has come off her star a bit after losses in her last two fights, I'll still put in a bid on a Ronda Rousey parallel. There's no denying that she put Women's MMA on the map for most of the population. This Green parallel from 2015 Topps UFC Chronicles is numbered # 078 / 288.

I will also put in a bid on nearly any UFC parallel numbered to # / 25 or less. I especially like Gold ones. I lose a lot of them, but I win one every now and then. This Johny Hendricks card comes from 2014 Topps UFC Champions. I like these Predictor programs, but I have never won anything from one of them. They probably just make me feel some kind of nostalgia for the Collector's Choice brand from the mid-90's. This card is numbered # 22 / 25.

Urijah Faber prices have come down since his retirement. I've been able to grab some parallels and relics of his over the last couple of months. This Gold parallel from 2015 Topps UFC Chronicles is numbered # 52 / 88.

This Gold parallel from 2015 Topps UFC Champions is even better, as it's numbered # 13 / 25. I was pretty happy to get this one.

I have pretty much nothing to say about this card. I was scanning the other cards in the lot, so this one got scanned as well. I probably had the intent to at least put the pictures into the Trading Card Database. It looks like this is a 2011 Topps UFC Finest Gold parallel, and it is numbered # 57 / 88.

I also like picking up relic cards that featured relic swatches linked to a particular event. This swatch of green and black looks like it came from the Mickey's Fine Malt Liquor ad on the UFC 63 Octagon mat. It looks like the picture on the card actually comes from Lauzon's win against Jens Pulver at that event. The card come from 2010 Topps UFC. There were a couple of other cards in the lot, but nothing that was interesting enough for me to write about. I literally (not literally) fell asleep thinking about writing about them, so I just deleted the pictures from the post. It was freeing, in a way.

Darth Bader and Star Wars Sketches from Corky

Corky from the Pack War blog recently sent me a package full of some of my favorite things: UFC autographs and sketch cards.

I'll start off with the UFC autographs. Corky is one of the few bloggers I know of who collects UFC cards, and I believe his primary fighter collection is Ryan 'Darth' Bader. Apparently he's picked up some doubles over the years, and he sent them my way. This one is from 2010 Topps UFC.

The resemblance isn't really all that great when they are side by side, but whenever I see Ryan Bader, I think of Nick Frost, who played Simon Pegg's friend in Shaun of the Dead.

This one is from 2010 Topps UFC Knockout. It's on fancy thick stock, and also serially-numbered # 076 / 188. Even though Bader is the #4-ranked Light Heavyweight and has won 8 of his last 10 fights, he is currently looking at moving to Bellator due to the UFC refusing to renew his contract. There's always drama in the fight game.

Corky is an artist, and did up a Leia sketch for my collection. He even drew it on his own custom sketch card stock, with the artist's real name and blog link. It's always fun to add another sketch to my Leia collection.

He also included this Boba Fett sketch by artist John Soukup, whose work features heavily here on The Raz Card Blog. I remember seeing this sketch on eBay. I hope I didn't bid on it, as that would have been a bit rude on my part.

This was a pretty fun package to open, with plenty of good stuff for my various collections. Once again it is much too late for me to be awake, but I am trying to get through everything that other bloggers have sent my way. I don't want anyone to think I am ungrateful, because I am thankful to be surrounded (virtually) by so many generous folks. Thanks, Corky! I will try to get something decent put together to send back your way.