UFC 207 Topps Now

It seems like ancient history now, but the end of 2016 featured the much-anticipated return of Ronda Rousey to the UFC Octagon. It was so anticipated that Topps released a Rousey Now card just based on the announcement that Rousey would come back. That early preview card had a print run of 331 copies.

It's a good thing Topps featured Rousey on a card when they did, because she got absolutely rocked by Amanda Nunes, who earned the TKO finish in 48 seconds. This card had 214 copies ordered by collectors.

Maybe the most entertaining fight of the night was Cody Garbrandt's masterful defeat of Dominick Cruz for the Bantamweight belt. This card had 213 copies printed.

Like the back of the card says, TJ Dillashaw set himself up for a future title shot against Garbrandt by beating John Lineker. This card wasn't as popular, pulling in only 115 orders.

As of now, these are the latest UFC Now cards put out by Topps. I wasn't sure if Topps would put out cards for UFC 208, as the two main fights on that card ended controversially. In the main event, Germaine de Randamie beat Holly Holm by decision, mostly on the strength of several late hits that some argued should have cost her points on the scorecards. In the other headlining fight, Anderson Silva won a decision over Derek Brunson. I think just about everyone who saw that fight had Brunson winning it, but the judges went with the name brand over the fighter who seemed better on the evening. So Topps just ignored that mess, probably rightly so.

Tonight's UFC 209 has produced some decent fights so far, but I don't know if there's a lot of big-name draw here. I will be interested to see if Topps puts out some more UFC Now cards, or if they just let this branch of the Now tree dry up and fall off.

2016 Topps UFC NOW - UFC 205 + A Holiday Surprise from Topps

I got my Topps UFC NOW bundle of cards from UFC 205 a little while back, but haven't found time yet to post about them. I've got a lot of drafts in my queue, and I am trying to prioritize packages I've received from other bloggers over stuff from corporations and eBay sellers, but I also want to get some of the older stuff cleared out. It seems like half the time I am struggling to find material to post, and the other half I am considering posting twice a day so I can get to all of the many things I want to post about. I suppose I'm doing all right if that sort of problem appears on my list of worries.

UFC 205 was a pretty big deal, earning 5 Topps NOW cards. Card 205-A went to the big headline of the night, which was Conor McGregor winning the Lightweight belt in a dominant and rapid victory over Eddie Alvarez. The victory gave him both the Lightweight and Featherweight belts. After he held the belts for a couple of weeks, he gave up/was stripped of the Featherweight belt, which went back to Jose Aldo. Him winning the two belts was pretty impressive, but the UFC probably saw that there wasn't any more money in keeping two belts tied up by one guy, and gave back the belt to the weight division Conor was least likely to fight in again. That is my take on it, at least. This card had a print run of 474 copies, the 2nd-highest UFC NOW print run to date, trailing only McGregor's card from UFC 202.

Although Conor McGregor led the hype train that was the first UFC event in New York, the rest of the card had some good moments. Maybe the weirdest moment was at the end of the Tyron Woodley - Stephen Thompson fight for the Welterweight title. The bout was initially announced as a victory for Woodley, but then Bruce Buffer issued a correction, stating that it was instead a draw. Woodley looked confused and angry, and I really thought he was going to go after Buffer or anyone within reach. Luckily, someone explained to him that he would be allowed to keep his belt with a draw result, and he calmed down. The print run on this one was 108 copies.

Joanna Jedrzejczyk and Karolina Kowalkiewicz went the full five rounds in their battle for the Strawweight title. Jedrzejczyk was in control throughout, but Kowalkiewicz threatened a couple of times, especially in the 4th round, and gave it her all. She just couldn't beat the champion. I was kind of surprised that this one didn't sell more copies, but it came in just ahead of the Woodley card with 111 copies sold.

Yoel Romero's flying knee knockout of Chris Weidman was absolutely nasty. It was the kind of knockout that makes you jump out of your seat, but also wonder if you're a bad person for getting excited about this sport. Romero's upcoming title shot against Michael Bisping should be a good fight. This card got the smallest print run for the event, with just 82 copies ordered.

Finally, the fight between Raquel Pennington and Miesha Tate got a card. Pennington got the victory by decision in a very close and not particularly exciting bout, and then Miesha Tate stole the thunder by announcing her retirement during the post-fight interviews. This card got 103 orders, which is more than I would have expected for a Pennington card. I think Topps put these ones up for pre-order, so a number of copies may have been sold to collectors anticipating a Tate victory.

This was a pretty good UFC event, with plenty of big names on the card and a healthy dose of action. The upcoming UFC 207 promises to be a pretty huge event as well, and it will ultimately be judged by how the Amanda Nunes - Ronda Rousey fight plays out. I'm looking forward to it. A fighter whose cards I collect, Neil Magny, is also on the card for the Preliminaries, so I will be tuning in hoping for a victory out of him.

I've seen these popping up around the blogs, and I also received a Topps NOW holiday card. Rumor has it that anyone who directly ordered a card through the website during the 2016 season got one sent to them. You're probably out of luck if you only purchased them through re-sellers, although there are plenty listed on eBay if you need your fix. The greeting card is shown above...

...and down here is the trading card that was enclosed. It's got some of the most popular subjects from the 2016 Topps NOW set sharing one piece of cardboard. Most people seem to agree that Kris Bryant, Ichiro, and David Ortiz deserve a spot on the short list for this card, but question the inclusion of Yankees rookie Gary Sanchez. All I know is that people on the Blowout forums were going nuts for his cards every time another one was released. They couldn't get enough of this guy, and that is probably why he is included here.

This was a pretty cool move from Topps, and makes up somewhat for the practice of charging cardboard-addicted collectors to the tune of $9.99/card for their Topps NOW fix throughout the baseball season.

2016 Topps UFC NOW Breaks the Mold...Twice

A while ago Topps did something unprecedented in their UFC NOW line. They released a card for an event that hadn't occurred yet. In fact, the event still hasn't happened. That event was the announcement that Ronda Rousey would return for UFC 207.

It makes sense that Topps would be in a rush to roll out a UFC card at the slightest hint of a Rousey return to the Octagon, but to me it seems like a bit of a gamble from a credibility standpoint. Fighters drop out of events all the time, usually due to an injury sustained at training camp or maybe a failed drug test or something. There isn't really any guarantee that Rousey will actually come back for UFC 207.  But this card did have the third-highest sales of the 21 UFC NOW cards that have been released to date, with a print run that trails only two cards featuring Conor McGregor. If they waited until the actual event to print the card, there is a chance that Rousey wouldn't even appear on it, as they typically only print cards for the fight winners.

So far I have a complete set of the UFC NOW cards, so I bought one of the Rousey cards in spite of my misgivings about it. It's a decent-looking card. I just don't like that it's different from all the other cards in the set so far, which are all printed after numbered UFC events to commemorate the winners of key matchups.

Another thing that kind of bothered me recently about the Topps NOW UFC line is that Topps completely ignored UFC 206, which was last weekend. Topps had printed at least one card for each numbered UFC event from UFC 200 to UFC 205, but they didn't even acknowledge UFC 206. I asked about it on the Topps Facebook page and got ignored entirely, and when I asked on Twitter they said they'd get back to me and never did get around to giving me an answer. 16 JAN 2016 edit: This morning Topps sent me a message on Twitter, letting me know that no cards were made for UFC 206, but that they do plan to make cards for UFC 207.

It makes me wonder if they will continue to print UFC NOW cards. I don't think it is a print run thing, as the UFC print runs dwell in the same general area as the print runs for MLS, Premier League, and WWE NOW cards. It wasn't for a lack of good fights, either, as Max Holloway and Donald Cerrone had pretty good finishes to their fights, and Cub Swanson and Doo Ho Choi put on what might have been the Fight of the Year in their slugfest. It could be that they are just gearing up for UFC 207, but I was disappointed that Topps ignored the event completely. At least one fight should have received the NOW treatment.

This Rousey is a nice-looking card, and the announced print run for it was 331 copies.

2016 Topps UFC NOW - UFC 204

UFC 204 was kind of low on big names, so I wasn't surprised to see that Topps only released two 2016 Topps UFC NOW cards for the event. Any more would have been overkill, even though I thought many of the fights were pretty good. In the end, only the two matches at the top of the Main Card got represented on cardboard. I know I sound like a broken record, but I prefer to just have a couple of cards per numbered UFC event because I don't want to go bankrupt trying to collect the set. The baseball version of Topps NOW is up to 649 cards for 2016 as I type this, with various off-season and postseason cards not included in that number. With a cost of $5-$10 per card, that is $3,245-$6,490 for a complete set of the baseball version. I like the UFC, but I don't like it to the tune of a couple hundred dollars a month for one trading card product.

The first card for UFC 204 is for Gegard Mousasi's TKO of Vitor Belfort. My memory isn't that great, but I think Mousasi was in control for most of the fight.

This fight was pretty controversial, as Michael Bisping got the decision victory in his home country in spite of being knocked down and staggered a lot in the first couple of rounds. Dan Henderson just didn't have enough volume in the fight to earn the victory. He landed the bigger shots, but he got worn down and lost to Bisping's control and volume. Henderson really needed to finish the fight on one of those knockdowns if he wanted a chance to come away with the win. It was still an exciting fight to watch, though, and the card as a whole was a fun watch. Only the first and last fights (out of 11) went to decision, so there were lots of knockouts and submissions.

It will be interesting to see what Topps does for UFC 205. I am hoping for just a couple of cards, but there are some big names all through the lineup, so there is potential for them to go nuts on it. I don't know if the UFC trading card community can handle that, and I would hate to see myself get pushed out of pursuing this set by Topps going overboard on it. I can probably handle 1-3 cards per numbered UFC event, but any more than that will be too much.

2016 Topps UFC NOW - UFC 203

So far I have ordered all of the UFC cards in the UFC NOW set. I enjoy the cards, and so far Topps hasn't overdone it too much, although they did come pretty close to jumping the shark with the recent Ronda Rousey card, celebrating her announced return to the UFC in the upcoming UFC 207 event. The only reason I give them a pass on that is because Rousey is arguably still the sport's biggest star, and people have been waiting forever for them to set an actual date for her to come back. The problem with it is that fights get cancelled all the time due to injury, failed drug tests, and weight problems, so printing a card before the fight leaves you open to having a trading card commemorating an event that never occurs. I don't like it, but I will accept that Topps wanted to do something to bring some visibility to their UFC NOW program.

There were three NOW cards produced for UFC 203. This first one features the Main Event (of the evening!) between Stipe Miocic and Alistair Overeem. Miocic was able to retain his belt with a first-round knockout after surviving some offense and grappling from Overeem. UFC 203 was full of weird things happening after the fights were over. In this case, Overeem claimed that he had felt Miocic tap out during a choke attempt, so they ran the tape right there and it was obvious that Miocic hadn't tapped out. That made for an awkward finish to the interview as he was pressed to say exactly when he'd felt the tap, but couldn't point to a spot in the film where it had happened.

There was a bit of a post-fight battle after Fabricio Werdum defeated Travis Browne by decision. Browne's corner was talking some trash, so Werdum kicked one of the dudes in the chest, leading to some pushing and shouting that looked like it belonged on a baseball field. There was a weird moment during the fight, too, when Browne tried to call a timeout and the ref kind of allowed it. It was just a weird fight all around.

Finally, there was the much-anticipated debut of WWE star CM Punk in the UFC Octagon. He came out and just got manhandled by Mickey Gall before tapping out shortly after the fight began. It was obvious that he wasn't ready for this. After the fight he gave a little speech about following your dreams. Mickey Gall came off as a total douche-nozzle. Maybe he's a good fighter, but he's also an ass. I will gladly root against him if he gets the fight he asked for against Sage Northcutt.

This event's cards were the lowest print runs in the set so far. Miocic's card had 71 copies printed; Gall's card got 70 copies, and Werdum is the new set low with 62 printed copies. The previous low had been Cain Velasquez from UFC 200 with 87 copies. I wondered if maybe this drop in print runs signaled the end of the UFC NOW cards, but the print runs took a jump back up for UFC 204, so maybe this was just a blip on the radar for a card that wasn't all that exciting for casual UFC card collectors.

2016 Topps UFC NOW - UFC 202

I've been picking up the Topps NOW UFC trading cards for each numbered UFC event, but each time one comes up I find myself wondering just how many fights Topps will choose to make cards for. I like the idea of having the complete set, but I just can't justify buying four or five NOW cards for each one.

So far they've done a pretty good job of at least alternating the number of cards per event, with 5 for the big UFC 200 event, 1 for UFC 201, 4 for UFC 202, 3 for UFC 203, and 2 for tonight's UFC 204. It's a tough balance, and I've been keeping an eye on the explosion in cards for the baseball version of Topps NOW as people on the forums drop out of the chase for that set under the onslaught of new cards being printed each day. There are people out there basically bankrupting themselves trying to keep up with the baseball set. I hope that Topps will keep the numbers down for the UFC cards, sticking with only the key fights in numbered UFC events. If they start digging down into Fight Nights or printing cards for every single main card fight on the numbered events, I will have to drop out. And based on the print runs for most of these things, that's like 1 percent of their revenue from the UFC cards gone!

Like I mentioned earlier, they made four cards for August's UFC 202. The big one was the Conor McGregor / Nate Diaz rematch, which McGregor won by split decision. This was by far the most-printed UFC NOW card at 636 copies, almost doubling the previous high of 320 set by the Brock Lesnar card from the UFC 200 group.

Anthony Johnson got the second card for UFC 202, and this one had a print run of 90 copies, which seems to be a little below average for these cards. If you count all 13 of the cards for UFC 200 through 203, the average print run is 168, but I think Lesnar and McGregor really skew those numbers. Taking out those two, the remaining 11 cards have an average print run of 112.

I kind of wondered why Cody Garbrandt's fight got included in Topps NOW, because it wasn't even on the Main Card. It was in the preliminaries. Someone at Topps must know that he has a hobby following, because this card had a print run of 214. Who knew?

The last card features Donald Cerrone's win over Rick Story. This one had a print run of 91 cards. It will be interesting to see what the print runs do for the two cards from UFC 204, because the ones from 203 really took a step down from the previous events. It kind of looks like someone who was buying in bulk for resale stepped out of the game after 202, because the print runs dropped by about 20 for 'regular' cards that don't feature big names (McGregor, Garbrandt), people with celebrity outside the UFC world (Lesnar), and female fighters (Nunes).

Not a whole lot to say about the card backs. They have a little write-up about the fight and that's about it. I enjoyed watching UFC 204 this evening. There were plenty of good fights. I was hoping that Bisping or Henderson would earn the finish in the last fight, but it went to a decision, with Bisping retaining his belt. As far as UFC Pick 'Em goes, I picked the first five fights wrong, then got the last six correct, ending up 6 / 11 on the night.

2016 Topps UFC NOW - UFC 201

I missed out on this Topps NOW card for the main event of UFC 201 when it was first offered, as Topps didn't offer these for several days prior to the event like they did for UFC 200, and they even pulled the UFC NOW tab from their site for a while in between the events. So I missed the 24-hour window of availability for the card showcasing the Main Event fight between Robbie Lawler and Tyron Woodley, which Woodley won in a pretty quick beatdown. 

The eBay card flippers didn't miss the window of opportunity, though, and there were a few of the 123-card print run available on the auction site. I had to decide if I wanted to pay their prices and continue my attempt at a complete Topps UFC NOW set. I am glad they only printed a card for one fight on the UFC 201 card, as I don't think I could handle aftermarket prices for 4 or 5 cards. I almost didn't pay the aftermarket price on this one, but one seller kept bouncing his price around and I eventually caught him at the lowest price I've seen so far.

As far as the fight goes, it was a pretty quick one. Woodley came in hard and landed one good punch that knocked Lawler down, then he finished him off in short order. Pretty wild stuff.

2016 Topps UFC NOW - UFC 200

I posted back in July that Topps had expanded their Topps NOW line into the UFC with trading cards for the five Main Card matches of UFC 200. I don't have much to add to that post, except that I have the cards in hand and I've scanned the fronts and backs for this post. I don't have any hope of keeping up with the Topps NOW baseball set (up to 422 different cards and counting!), but it seems like a complete UFC set might be possible. They seem to be releasing cards only for key fights from numbered UFC events, which I think is a good move. If Topps released cards for every Fight Night and every bout from numbered UFC Main Cards, it could get out of hand quickly.

This card had a print run of exactly 100 cards, and featured Daniel Cormier's decision victory over Anderson Silva. It's kind of surprising that they found a picture of actual striking for the front of this card, as it seemed like Cormier spent 90% of the fight lying on top of Silva without a whole lot of anything going on.

This one had the 2nd-highest print run of the event, with 214 copies being made. Based on their relative hobby popularity I think there were a lot of buyers hoping for a Miesha Tate victory, but Tate got hit early and often before Amanda Nunes finished her off with a submission and took the Women's Bantamweight Belt.

This Jose Aldo and Frankie Edgar card had a print run of 110. From what I remember of the fight, it seemed to last forever without a lot of action. Jose Aldo did just enough to win the decision, but it looked like both fighters were concentrating more on not losing the fight than on trying to win. Jose Aldo was probably still running from the specter of Conor McGregor's one-punch knockout. Either way, it made for an awful long 25 minutes, especially since it led right in to 15 minutes of Cormier - Silva rolling around on the mat.

This was a decent fight, probably one of the better fights of the evening, as Cain Velasquez and Travis Browne came out swinging. It was hard to say whether the stoppage was great, as I would have liked to see the fight go into Round 2, but Browne was clearly getting mauled when the ref waved Velasquez off. Unfortunately I don't think there is a lot of hobby demand for Velasquez or Browne, so one of the better fights of the evening had the lowest print run to date for a UFC Topps NOW card, with 87 copies ordered.

Finally, the return of Brock Lesnar to the UFC resulted in the biggest print run for UFC 200, with 320 cards printed. He defeated Mark Hunt by decision, and was pretty dominant throughout. It wasn't the most exciting fight in the world, but it was okay. Lesnar failed drug tests surrounding the fight and Mark Hunt complained long and loud about it, but I don't know how that sort of thing is handled. I don't imagine Lesnar is too bothered by it unless they can take his paycheck away. He already got a pretty huge boost in media coverage for his big return to the Octagon. The thing I find most interesting here is that Topps released a WWE Topps NOW program with WWE SummerSlam, and the Brock Lesnar card from that release only had a print run of 132 cards, almost 200 fewer than his UFC card. I think the UFC cards were advertised a little more heavily than the WWE cards, and Brock Lesnar's return to the UFC was probably a bigger storyline than his inclusion in SummerSlam.

There's not much more to say about this batch of cards. I think the Topps NOW concept is cool, but the baseball set has way too many cards for me to keep up with. I might be able to keep up with the UFC set, but only if Topps sticks with the primary fights from numbered events. If they start doing every fight from every card, I think they will lose their audience.

Click Here to View Cart 13: Topps UFC Now Kicks Off with UFC 200

So I watched UFC 200 on Saturday and for the most part I thought it was decent, but there was a long dead spot right in the middle of the Main Card that started with the Aldo - Edgar fight, hit rock bottom during the Cormier - Silva Snuggle Match, and finally started picking back up with the return of Brock Lesnar to the UFC.

The thing that really interested me about UFC 200, though, was the introduction of the Topps Now program to UFC trading cards. During the week before the event, Topps opened the cards up for sale, announcing that the cards would feature the winners of the Main Card bouts, with art being revealed on Monday and sales lasting for 24 hours past that point. I ordered all five cards, one from the Topps site and the other four from eBay sellers. I don't have them in-hand yet, but I was really curious to see today what the print runs would be once sales ended. I anticipated that they would be much lower than the baseball print runs just because the UFC market isn't that big.

For the most part my expectations were accurate. The Cain Velasquez card was the lowest print run of them all, with only 87 cards ordered. I don't know how popular Velasquez is, but I know most of the people in the chat rooms pan Travis Browne cards when they get pulled. The Jose Aldo card was third out of the five when it comes to print run, although it was closer to the bottom two than it was to the top two. His card got up to 110 orders, probably because both he and Frankie Edgar have decent followings.

The Daniel Cormier - Anderson Silva fight was a real snoozer, and people in the arena booed throughout as Cormier kept taking Silva down to the ground, holding on to him and preventing any kind of striking from going on. It was probably a smart strategy for winning the fight, but it was horrible to watch. As expected, the next two cards had significantly higher print runs. Brock Lesnar's card had the highest of all at 320 cards, probably due to his celebrity reaching beyond the UFC and the fact that his return was the most exciting storyline of the event. The fight could have been more exciting, but Lesnar was at least active in his wrestling and the size of the dudes involved in the fight meant that at any point a solid punch could lay one of them out. The fight went the distance and Lesnar won in a decision, but I was entertained in spite of the lack of fireworks. His post-fight speech was a little weird, but that's okay. I think he meant well.

The Main Event (of the Evening!) was a title match between Miesha Tate and Amanda Nunes for the Women's Bantamweight title. Nunes came out fast and absolutely rocked Tate early, which led to a quick choke submission in the first round and the crowning (belting?) of a new Champion. It was pretty exciting after all the slow-moving Men's bouts, and I was happy for the early finish because I had to be up early Sunday morning for work. The Women's divisions are extremely popular among card collectors, so this card wound up with a print run of 214, which is good for second-highest among these five cards. If this were a baseball card, it would be second-lowest, just above an Evan Gattis card with a print run of 212. I think the print run might have been higher if Miesha Tate had won, but that's just speculation because she got her nose broken and looked absolutely lost before the submission that ended the fight. I thought the ref could have ended the fight a little earlier because she was clearly running away and dazed, but I guess he saw enough fight in her to let it continue.

So there are the first five Topps UFC Now cards. I am interested to see them in-hand, and also whether Topps sees fit to continue the program after these low print runs. Topps had to expect that they wouldn't sell as well as the baseball cards, but I wonder what their threshold is as far as sales needed to turn an acceptable profit? Is 100 cards enough? What about 87? The price goes down as individuals order more cards, so a 100-card print run only generates between $400 and $1000 in sales, while an 87 card print run only brings in $348 to $870. It that enough to warrant designing and producing a unique card? Anyway, I wanted to get in on the ground floor of this one. We'll see if Topps saw enough good out of it to continue the line.