Recent UFC Pickups of All Kinds

I haven't watched the last couple of UFC events, just because I've been busy when they were on. I'll definitely be tuning in to the upcoming UFC 211, though, as there are some good names on the card, like Stipe Miocic, Joanna Jędrzejczyk, and Demian Maia. There are also some folks I like to watch lower on the card, like Jason Knight. I hope he wins his fight, so he gets some time on the microphone. This post is just a bunch of random UFC cards I've picked up recently, if you define recently pretty loosely.

Urijah Faber cards saw a little bit of a spike when he retired a few months ago, but you can get most of them now without spending much. I like this mat relic card from 2011 Topps UFC Finest because it lists the event the mat was used for. I think I may have looked up pictures from WEC 52 at some point to identify where in the mat this piece came from, but that was a long time ago and I'm not doing that right now.

I also got this Urijah Faber Atomic Refractor die-cut card from 2011 Topps UFC Finest, which lists some of his achievements on the back. It's too bad he never was able to get a belt in the UFC, although his understudy, Cody Garbrandt, managed the task against Faber's nemesis, Dominick Cruz. This card is numbered # 62 / 88.

I also have recently picked up a couple of 1st Autographs, including this Jessamyn Duke card from 2014 Topps UFC Champions. Part of the fun of my UFC collection is that I will pick up pretty much anything that is interesting to me, so there is plenty of variety. Autographs tend to be pretty cheap, too, outside of the really big stars.

The second autograph here is a Shayna Baszler signature from 2014 Topps UFC Bloodlines. This one is numbered # 036 / 225. Interestingly, Baszler also appears on a Japanese wrestling card I just picked up. She hasn't fought in the UFC since 2015, and has spent most of the time between then and now working for professional wrestling promotions, although she did have an MMA bout in Japan earlier this year. Her nickname is 'The Queen of Spades,' and this autograph has a Spade doodled alongside her name.

Another UFC collection of mine is low-numbered parallels. I am especially partial to these Gold parallels from 2015 UFC Champions, but I'll take any # / 25 or lower parallels I can find. This Carla Esparza card is numbered # 07 / 25. Her most recent fight was a split decision loss to Randa Markos in February.

Finally, I chased down this 2017 Topps UFC Fire autograph for my Neil Magny collection. Then I ordered a box of UFC Fire and pulled another copy. I guess it could be worse. This one is numbered # 002 / 199. Magny's most recent fight was a unanimous decision victory over Johny Hendricks in December.

Black November, Act II - 2016 Topps UFC Top of the Class

I started this post series off yesterday with the product that spurred me to order from the Blowout Cards Black November sale, 20 blaster boxes of 2014 Press Pass Total Memorabilia racing cards. After adding that to my cart I mixed in a few other things, including a couple of lottery ticket breaks and something predictable that I was going to buy eventually anyway in one form or another.

The first lottery ticket was a box of 2016 Topps UFC Top of the Class cards, which is one of those premium hit-driven products with a bottom-heavy checklist. There is no base set, but there is a 25-card insert set with parallels that might as well be called the base set. In each 5-card box you get one insert, one insert parallel, two autographs, and one jumbo relic. I think there is something in the small print that says at least one of your hits will feature Johnny Case, Johny Hendricks, Travis Browne, or Jared Rosholt.

My Top of the Class insert card is Georges St-Pierre. He's a big name, but pretty much everyone in this checklist is a big name. You have to get down into the really rare parallels or the really big names if you want your base card to be considered a great pull.

My parallel is the basic unnumbered Black parallel of Daniel 'Anderson Silva's Warm Blanket' Cormier:

He did what he had to do to win, but man was that a boring fight to watch. It was so boring that it was memorable. That's hard to do. This was about the worst pull I could get as far as parallels are concerned, combining probably the least-popular guy on the checklist with the lowest level of rarity.

My Jumbo Relic card is the base variety, a Jessamyn Duke relic numbered # 104 / 199. I like the design on these relic cards. Duke won her first UFC fight, but went on to lose three in a row. She then dropped down to Invicta to get more fight experience and lost two more fights in a row. I am not sure if she plans on continuing as a fighter, but her hype arrow is pointing down right now.

My first autograph is the mandatory Case/Rosholt/Browne/Hendricks card of the bunch, an autograph card of Johny Hendricks. I do like the design of these cards, but this isn't a card that gets anyone excited.

My second autograph is an Autograph Relic card of Jake Collier, who is 2-2 (10-3 overall) in the UFC, against a bunch of guys I've never heard of. That makes this box a big dud. You'd be lucky to get a dollar out of each of these cards.

At this point I was feeling pretty bad about my Black November breaks. While the racing blasters weren't the worst ever, I probably wouldn't go back and spend that money on them again. This box of Top of the Class was about the worst box you could get from the product, though, from top to bottom. The one redeeming quality of this break was that I got a discounted price on the box, so I lost less money than I could have on it.

Pack of the Day 127: 2015 Topps UFC Chronicles

I bought a pack of the new UFC card product, 2015 Topps UFC Chronicles. It's a comprehensive set that explores the history of the UFC. Chronicles is packed out in a Jumbo-box format, with each box containing 10 packs of 40 cards each. A box contains 5 hits and various inserts, parallels, and stamped buyback cards. With 5 hits per box there is a 50/50 chance that a pack will contain an autograph or relic card. The checklist is 275 cards strong, so it's pretty big for a UFC product.

Here are the pack odds for those who are into that kind of thing. I don't see all of the parallels listed on the pack here. Sepia are # 1 / 1, Red are # / 8, Gold are # / 88, Black & White are # / 188, Green (unlisted) are # / 288, and Silver (unlisted) are unnumbered. Maybe it's assumed that you are going to get Silver and Green in each pack? I don't really know.

I didn't scan all the base cards in the pack, but I scanned a good number of them. One thing I noticed right away was that there are a huge number of repeat photos. One glaring example of this is that Shogun Rua card in the bottom row, as it was the first photo in the 2015 Champions product and sat on top of the stack on my desk while I was building that set.

The card backs are pretty typical of these products, with some demographic data at the top, the fighter's Twitter handle, and a biographical paragraph. I should have scanned some of them, but throughout the checklist there are cards highlighting landmark events in the UFC's history like their 1,000th fight, adding the Women's divisions, and the crowning of different champions.

There are a lot of horizontal shots in the checklist, which probably works better anyway for this sport. My one real complaint about the cards outside of the rampant reuse of photos is that it is sometimes unclear which fighter in the photo is the one named on the card. I guess a true fan would be able to see it right off, but someone learning about the UFC would have to look it up. I guess I did scan one of the 'event' cards, as that Hughes vs. Trigg II card features their fight from UFC 57. I pulled some pretty decent names among my base cards, like Conor McGregor, Jose Aldo, and Holly Holm.

I think I scanned that Ronda Rousey card thinking it was a Silver parallel. It's not, but it can sometimes be tricky to tell with these. The Rory MacDonald and John Dodson cards are Silver parallels, and the differences are minute. The borders on the Silver cards are just a little more silver and a little less transparent than the white borders on the base cards. The Black & White parallels are probably the best-looking cards in the product. It would be cool to build a whole set of them, but I can't be taking on projects like that.

I got two Black & White parallels in this pack, so I guess one of them bumped the Green parallel I might have gotten? I didn't pull a hit in the pack, but I did get three inserts. Victorious Debut is a set that celebrates fighters who won their initial fights. Most Topps UFC products have a fight poster insert set, and this one is no different. Finally there is a set that celebrates rising stars in the sport (by reusing photos from old inserts), Climbing the Ranks.

Here are the backs of the Victorious Debut and Climbing the Ranks inserts. The Victorious Debut set lists the date and circumstances of the fight and the Climbing the Ranks cards describe the fighter's career trajectory so far.

The Black & White parallels (and other numbered parallels) carry their serial numbers in foil on the back border and the Fight Posters discuss the results of the event pictured on the front.

There isn't a lot of new ground covered in this product. I guess the retrospective cards are a nice look at the history of the UFC, but this would have been so much better without all of the repeat photos. It might also be nice to have a little more differentiation between the base and the Silver parallels. 2015 Topps UFC Champions had a similar issue, with the difference between base and Silver parallels being a slightly darker patch in the border design. I guess I prefer flashy parallels over parallels I have to strain to see.

Breaking it Down 25: Some UFC Stuff from TeamBreaks.com

On the same night I got all the WWE Undisputed stuff I posted a couple of days ago, I grabbed a couple of fighter spots and a base card spot in some UFC breaks. I am not a huge UFC fan, but I follow some of the big stories and I am always looking for something new to add to my cardboard collections. The site for this breaker is TeamBreaks.com. It appears to be a one-man operation and he focuses mostly on UFC breaks, although he does a smattering of other stuff. I actually participated in one of his other breaks a long time ago, but hadn't really checked back in for a while until now. That card up top is a Francisco Rivera autograph relic card I got from a 2014 Topps UFC Bloodlines break. I got a random fighter slot, so the list was randomized and each slot got four fighter names assigned to them. If hits got pulled for any of those names, you got them. There was also a base card  /inserts slot available for any cards not considered as hits..

His site has a few draws for me. One is that he does cheap breaks. I am not sure how he makes any money, but maybe that's not his overall goal. He breaks stuff in small enough increments that you can get a random fighter spot for a couple of dollars and have a chance at something. I may not hit anything, but that's easier to justify on a $2 fighter slot than it is on a $20-80 team slot on most MBL / NFL / NBA / NHL breaks. At least I get to sit and watch cool cards get opened for half an hour or more. Second is that it seems like there aren't a lot of people busting the stuff he does. I can find a fairly large number of people busting any of the main sports, but I haven't run into a lot of UFC or wrestling breakers. They might be out there somewhere, but I haven't run into them. Third, he does quite a few giveaways and promotions, so even if you don't get a hit you might wind up with something. Fourth, he isn't super-annoying to listen to on his video feeds. My only complaint in that department is that he and / or the chat feed get a little off-color from time to time, so headphones are required when my kids are running around.

The other breaks I got into were all for 2015 Topps UFC Champions. In the bigger 6-box break I got a few fighter slots. My only hit card was this Jessamyn Duke autograph. There might have been more hits to go around, but most of the hits were doubled up across the boxes, so most of the autographs hit in the first half of the break were pulled again in the second half of the break. I've got a couple of other Duke cards, so I guess you can call it a PC now.

I also got this Black parallel of Sara McMann. Most of the parallels in Topps UFC products feature serial numbers with a lot of 8's in them, because UFC fights happen in an octagonal cage. So instead of being numbered out of # / 200, these Black parallels are numbered # / 188. This one is copy # 061 / 188. Some of the rarer parallels are # / 8.

There are also serial-numbered cards with more traditional numbering, like this Jessamyn Duke Gold numbered # 08 / 25. It's probably the best card I got in the break. The card backs are pretty light on statistics, instead usually including a brief write-up of how the fighter's 2014 went. They also include height, weight, training location, weight class, and the fighter's Twitter handle. I would be happier if they included at least win-loss records or titles held or Bowman-like graphics of wins by type or strike percentage or something.

I also had the base card slot from one box of 2015 UFC Champions. I got 170 / 200 base cards toward a complete set, with 7 doubles. That's pretty decent collation. While flipping through the stack I saw something interesting on Stephen Thompson's base card. I cropped the picture down a little on the right for a better look. It's the Blowout Cards store logo! The only online mentions I could find about Blowout sponsoring fighters come from the 2010-2012 time frame, but this picture is from a bout in July of 2015 so they must have continued the practice. The UFC has a (relatively) new sponsorship deal with Reebok now which did away with most / all of the individual fighter sponsors in favor of a large agreement with payouts based on fighter rankings and official merchandise sales. I am not sure when it took effect, though, or whether it covers t-shirts worn after a fight.

I'm not sure where this little foray into MMA cards will take me. I've been digging around on the UFC website a bit lately, learning about the fighters and weight classes and whatnot. I got a free trial to their online streaming service and watched the Fight Night card last night, which had twelve different fights. I don't know a whole lot as far as technical details, but the fights were interesting and it was usually pretty apparent to me who was in control at any given time. There were some pretty dramatic reversals, though, so you couldn't always tell who would win in the end. It just takes one or two good hits or a grappling mistake for things to get turned around. I found it pretty entertaining. The main event between Rose Namajunas and Paige VanZant was pretty epic, but there weren't really any fights that didn't hold my interest except for one that ended within a few seconds due to an accidental eye poke that required medical attention.

One thing that helped keep me engaged in each fight was the UFC Fantasy Pick 'Em game, which has you pick the winner, the round in which the victory was won, and the type of victory. There are different bonus points that can be won, too, like picking an underdog that wins or for picking a title fight correctly. I didn't do too well in the game, but I got 5 / 12 fights right, with 1 bonus for an underdog and 2 perfect picks (getting the round and type of win right in addition to picking the winner).

I've found a few fighters who I might start small PCs for, so we'll see how that goes. There doesn't seem to be a huge market for UFC trading cards, but there must be a few people out there buying this stuff. The speculators come out in droves whenever a big event goes down, and there are a few fighters who seem to be popular no matter what. Combat sports are a different animal than the usual sports that people collect cards from. The major sports leagues all have a pretty consistent schedule, with each team playing a certain amount of games per year against a specific group of opponents. That means that a fan can count on seeing their favorite players / teams a certain number of times in a given year. Fighters, whether in UFC or boxing, don't have that predictability. A fighter might have 5 bouts in a year or they might go many months or more than a year between fights. It is all so political that even a really good fighter might never have a chance at a title belt depending on what the promoters want to schedule. In other sports you know that if you win enough games to win your division you are going to get a shot at a championship in the playoffs. A fighter doesn't get that guarantee, because the promoters are looking to make the most money, not necessarily to give the best fighters a shot at a belt. Winning all your fights doesn't necessarily guarantee a shot at a belt, unless the promoters feel they can sell tickets to that show.

I've been a little hesitant to get into this stuff, in large part because most of the real-life people I know who are fans of MMA are not people I get along with. I don't really want to associate myself with them. What really pulled me into it in the end was the meteoric rise of Ronda Rousey, which kind of spear-headed a public acceptance of the sport. I guess that makes me a bandwagon fan, but if you really stick to a strict definition of bandwagoning there can only be one original fan of anything, and that makes everyone a bandwagoner of one kind or another. I'll stick with it for a while and see where it goes. At the very least it adds a little more variety to my card collection.

2014 Topps UFC Bloodlines Group Break

Late last year I joined a  UFC group break to see if I could add anything interesting to my collection. I don't follow MMA very closely, but usually if there is a big fight I hear about it because I follow a lot of sports blogs and news sites. One of the fighters I got in the break was Cat Zingano, the fighter who got beaten in 14 seconds by Ronda Rousey in UFC 184. I don't see much news about her recently outside of commentary leading up to UFC 190. Allison Glock wrote a pretty good ESPN article about Zingano earlier this year. The Zingano card I got in the break was this relic card with a single-colored red swatch of fabric embedded in it.

The back of the card contains the usual message congratulating the card's owner for obtaining the card. If I remember right, this break featured a box or two each of several different products. This relic card came from 2014 Topps UFC Bloodlines. It is numbered # 012 / 208.

This Jessamyn Duke New Guard card is also from 2014 Topps UFC Bloodlines. Duke had a 3-0 record after her first four fights (one loss was overturned due to illegal moves by the other fighter), but has lost her last three fights, including one about a week ago, to fall to 3-3 in her UFC career.

Also included in the package was a pack of 2014 UFC Champions cards. I don't know most of the UFC fighters, but it was essentially a free chance to open a pack of something new.

These were the only two vertically-oriented cards in the pack. Jacare Souza is 22-3 on his career and according to Wikipedia is ranked #2 in the Middleweight division. Ovince Saint Preux is 18-6 and rated #6 in the Light Heavyweight division.

The horizontal cards feature seven more fighters' individual cards and a Fight Nights Highlights card of the UFC 157 match between Ronda Rousey and Liz Carmouche, which was the first women's fight in UFC MMA history.

Ronda Rousey is in the news right now for her fight tonight against Bethe Correia in UFC 190. She defeated Correia in 34 seconds by knockout, which is kind of notable because 9 of her 12 professional wins so far have come by armbar submissions. I don't know if anyone is going to be able to beat her. Everyone who tries gets embarrassed. You can watch the entirety of her last three fights in just over a minute.

I don't see myself really going out of my way to start an MMA collection, but it was fun to dabble in the cards a little bit.