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.

Just a Few UFC Autographs from eBay

I missed out on making a NASCAR post yesterday, as I spent the day traveling to some training I need for job certifications. I didn't feel much like doing anything after I got to my hotel. I guess I could make a NASCAR post anyway, but at the moment I am not inclined to do that. Danica Patrick finished the O'Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Texas Motor Speedway in 24th place. She was tied in the points standings with Michael McDowell going into the race, but he finished the race in 23rd place and moved ahead of her by one point. She's currently sitting in 29th place overall for the season.

In other news, UFC 210 happened on Saturday. I missed a lot of the event, as I was trying to get my bags packed for my trip. I did watch the weird ending of the Chris Weidman / Gegard Mousasi fight. Wow. Mousasi landed two knees that the referee decided were illegal, so he stopped the fight to probably warn Mousasi or take away a point. Then he discovered that the knees were legal, but told Weidman that he had 5 minutes to recover instead of returning the fighters to the original position they'd been in and restarting the clock. While that was going on, the doctors came in and called the fight off. The end result was a TKO victory by Mousasi, with both fighters angry about how the fight had ended. It appears that a rematch will be happening at some point.

Daniel Cormier also retained his belt against Anthony Johnson, who retired after the match was over. I always feel bad when a fighter retires after losing a fight, because it takes the spotlight away from the person who actually won the fight. In wrestling (like Undertaker retiring after WrestleMania) because wrestling is all about the story, but in fighting it just seems like a weak move. Hold a press conference or something.

I asked Topps on Twitter if they were planning on continuing the Topps Now line for the UFC after the low print runs on the cards for UFC 209, and here's what they said:

@chonk34 @ufc We are currently evaluating that.

— Topps Company (@Topps) April 11, 2017

So if you're waiting on news from Topps on the status of Topps Now for the UFC, there you go. That's not the most promising response in the world, but they responded pretty quickly and they are at least contemplating the continuation of the line.

These autographs don't have anything to do with UFC 210, but this was the oldest UFC draft in my post queue, so their turn is up. This Joanne Calderwood Archival Autographs card from 2016 Topps UFC Museum Collection was the original card I was chasing after in this lot. I went a little wild for the 2016 Museum Collection stuff, and I don't think I had a Calderwood autograph yet, so I bid on a few copies of this card and finally won this one. It's numbered # 11 / 99 and features a cool on-card signature with a heart in front of it.

I got a couple of other cards from the same seller, including this 2016 Topps UFC Top of the Class Autograph Relic card of Cat Zingano. It's not numbered or anything, and the relic swatch is relatively plain, but I have a small Zingano collection and this was a good addition.

Finally, I also got this Sarah Kaufman autograph from 2012 Topps UFC Bloodlines. It is marked as a 1st Autograph, so this is the first autographed card Kaufman had in a Topps product. It seems like fighters' first autographs always carry a premium for collectors, so I was happy to get this one for just a few dollars. This had kind of a high print run, as it is numbered # 406 / 449.

I went to an Antiques Mall today, looking for something to read or some kind of cool collectibles. I didn't find much, but I did get a nice Cincinnati Bengals jacket for my son and a 4-pack of Ginger Beer for me. I was planning on going to a card shop, but they weren't open today. Maybe tomorrow I'll go, if we get out of class early enough.