Cyber Week Breaks: Day 16 - Christmas Packs

There's not really much about today's packs that makes them fit the holiday, but today is Christmas and that makes these Christmas packs. I didn't get any cards for Christmas, but I was kind of expecting that because this Cyber Week order was pretty huge.

Two of my boys went to sleep pretty early on Christmas Eve, but the other one couldn't sleep because he was too excited about Santa's imminent arrival. Then he couldn't sleep because he was stressed out that if he didn't sleep, maybe Santa would skip our house. He finally nodded off, though, and Santa dropped off plenty of gifts. I was especially proud of my sons for their gift-giving this year. We took them to the LEGO Bricks & Minifigs store this week, and they all thoughtfully picked out gifts for each other. Then this morning they were all gracious in receiving those gifts, even though they weren't the big-ticket items under the tree. Sometimes it's hard to tell if the lessons we're teaching them are getting through, but days like today give me hope for them.

Today's breaks are 2 packs of 2015 Topps UFC Chronicles and 8 packs of 2017 Topps UFC Chrome. I decided to add another pack of 2017 Topps UFC Knockout to the break as well, because it's Christmas and a Christmas break deserves some hits. 

The Chronicles packs featured a handful of parallels and another buyback. None of them are extremely exciting to me. The Gold is # / 88, the Black & White is # / 188, and the Green is # / 288. I have toyed with the idea of building a complete set of the Black & White cards before, but the checklist is huge and it would take a lot of effort to do it.

Here is the non-horizontal parallel I pulled from the packs. It's a Green # / 288. Again, Jared Rosholt isn't really a guy I collect, so this card doesn't do a whole lot for me.

The Topps Chrome packs yielded a couple of box hits. Both the Blue Wave Refractors and X-Fractors are seeded one per box, but only the Blue Wave Refractors are numbered. The Jessica Aguilar card is # 49 / 75.

The Knockout pack was pretty good. The first hit was this Demian Maia Tier One relic card. This is the base version of his card, numbered # 07 / 99. He's a pretty popular fighter who has been around for a long time and won a lot of bouts.

The second hit in the pack would have been even bigger a couple of years ago, before he got over-matched by Mickey Gall, but this Red autograph parallel card of CM Punk is still a pretty good pull. These Red cards are pretty rare, and this one is numbered # 06 / 10.

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.