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.