Pack of the Day 191: Three Boxes of 2018 Topps UFC Chrome

One of my favorite products to break from last year was 2017 Topps UFC Chrome, so this year I ordered in three boxes of 2018 Topps UFC Chrome to get a good look at it. I didn't take pictures of the packaging like I usually do for these posts. I anticipate that this will be kind of a bare-bones 'look at the pictures' kind of post, but sometimes I get unintentionally wordy. I started an MBA program recently and my brain is kind of fried. I took on a little too much in my first semester, with two 8-week courses at once. I won't be taking two courses at a time again, that's for sure. I don't know how I got through my undergrad while working full-time, but over the last three weeks I've realized that I can't pull all-nighters like I could in my twenties and earlier-thirties.

There are 100 cards in the base set, which covers most of the big names and rookies in the UFC. One notable name that is missing entirely from the checklist is Ronda Rousey, as she has moved over to the WWE. Rousey and Conor McGregor are both missing from the autograph checklist, so the primary drivers of UFC card prices over the last couple years are missing from the key draw in Chrome, on-card autographs on shiny stock.

You get about 70 cards from the base set in a box with no duplicates, so it will take two boxes to build the set. Demetrious Johnson was recently traded to another MMA organization, and UFC is shutting down their Men's Flyweight division.

Photo variations are one per box, with a 10-card checklist. One problem with my new method of photographing cards instead of scanning them is that my phone and hands are always reflected on the shiny cards.

The photo variations focus on UFC personalities with long-standing popularity and/or success. The only female on the variation checklist is Octagon Girl Arianny Celeste.

You get eight basic Refractors per 24-pack box. They are satisfyingly shiny. I took pictures of all 24 from my three boxes. At least it gives you a pretty good look at some more base cards from the checklist.

Most of the photography in this set is pretty good, with plenty of nice dynamic action photos. I guess it would be kind of weird (and weirdly awesome) if Topps did a 1992 Bowman Baseball throwback set featuring UFC fighters in dress clothing.

Just as I get done talking about the dynamic photography, here are three dudes just standing around, although Reyes is flexing pretty hard and Machida looks like he means business. We also get Aldo's flying knee for good measure.

These are all doubles from the first scan, so I guess I really didn't need to take this picture. I did anyway, and now you get to see it.

Doubles of Paulo Acosta and Dominick Cruz bookend a Refractor of Arianny Celeste, which is not a double.

Aldo's flying knee makes another appearance, this time on the one-per-box Xfractor. They are unnumbered. The Green Refractors are numbered # / 99, like that Anthony Pettis with the ghostly dude in the lower left.

The Brian Ortega card is a Gold Refractor, numbered # / 50, and the one-per-box Blue Wave Refractors are numbered # / 75. That's a pretty nice shot on Khabib Nurmagomedov's card.

Here we get into the second box's colorful Refractors. Out of this batch, I guess the Joanna Jędrzejczyk Green is the best card, although it has a larger print run than the Tatiana Suarez or the Anthony Pettis cards.

I also got a printing plate from this box, the Yellow plate of Ovince Saint Preux. It's cool to pull a Printing Plate, but Yellow is the worst color and Saint Preux isn't a huge name.

Box 3 produced five more colorful Refractor parallels, with the usual Green, Blue Wave, and Xfractor pulls, along with another appearance by Ovince Saint Preux, this time on an Orange Refractor with a # / 25 print run.

The Notable Knockouts inserts come one per box and the name of the set pretty much lets you know what it's about. It's too bad I got two of the Garbrandt vs. Dillashaw cards, as these actually look pretty cool. It would have been nice to get a look at one of the other cards on the checklist.

You get 2-3 1983 Topps Design inserts per box, with the usual cast of fighters represented on the checklist.

That shinier Tony Ferguson on the right is a Pulsar Refractor. They are numbered # / 50. All of the inserts have three parallel levels, the Wave # / 99, the Pulsar # / 50, and the Superfractor # 1 / 1.

I got two Tier One inserts per box, doubling up on Daniel Cormier. I'll probably set one of those aside for whenever I can get a package out to San Jose Fuji.

These are the UFC Knockout Chrome inserts. I got some nice Pulsar Refractors in this bunch, with 'Thug' Rose Namajunas and another appearance by Daniel Cormier.

The last insert set before I get to the autographs is Museum Collection. Stipe Miocic makes three appearances here, although one of them is the Wave Refractor # / 99. I also got a base and a Wave Refractor of Georges St-Pierre. I came pretty close to pulling an Arianny Celeste card from every insert set, only lacking the 1983 Topps Design.

As promised, I got two autographs per box from my breaks. Supposedly there are Hot Boxes out there with special parallels and a third autograph in them. The Daniel Cormier signature was the only colored Refractor autograph I pulled. It's an Orange # / 25, which is pretty cool.

Tyron Woodley is the current Welterweight Champion, and Dominick Cruz is a former Bantamweight Champion. He's still ranked as the #2 contender at Bantamweight, but in another month it will be 2 years since he last fought.

It wouldn't be one of my UFC breaks without a Demetrious Johnson autograph, although I guess that might change now that he and the UFC have parted ways. Paul Felder is currently the #15-ranked Lightweight, and this is his 1st Topps autograph, which is something that usually carries a premium.

That does it for this break of 2018 Topps UFC Chrome. I like the product, and it is always a fun break. This year it just lacks a little of the excitement that came from chasing Rousey and McGregor autographs. No one has quite stepped up yet and been as universally popular as those two, although there is still plenty of star power for people who follow MMA a little more closely than the general populace. I'm not sure yet if I'll buy more boxes on the hunt for rare stuff or just cherry-pick singles online. You can get boxes pretty readily for $55, and if you buy a few at a time you can get that down to $50 per box. You're not likely to get your money back in cards, but there's some fun stuff in here.

The Real Main Event of UFC 223

There was a lot of crazy news in the UFC this week, mostly centering around Conor McGregor going crazy after a press event, attacking a bus with a group of friends, which resulted in a couple of fighters being injured to the point where they had to pull out of UFC 223. Conor McGregor also got arrested in connection with the incident. Max Holloway also had to pull out of the main event due to complications with his weight cut, eventually leading to Al Iaquinta stepping in to face Khabib Nurmagomedov instead. Maybe that will be a good fight, but the one I'm looking forward to is Rose Namajunas defending her title against the fighter she took the belt from, Joanna Jędrzejczyk. 

Here are a couple of cards I've added recently, a 2016 Topps High Impact autograph of Namajunas, and a Tier One relic card of Jędrzejczyk from 2017 Topps UFC Knockout. I got both of these on eBay during the last few months. The High Impact autograph is unnumbered, while the relic card is numbered # 040 / 125.

Here are the backs of the cards. I guess when it comes to the main event, I can hope for Al Iaquinta to win so I can make huge money off the five Iaquinta autograph cards I pulled during my big Cyber Week breaks last year.

Cyber Week Breaks: Day 21 - Baseball Fighting and a Good Deal on a Danica Autograph

I skipped a day of posting yesterday. I'm sure I had a good reason for it. Like the title says, today's post features baseball fighting, and the least expensive Danica Patrick autograph in my collection. Also some UFC cards. The breaks for today are 3 packs of 2012 Topps Baseball Series 2, a box of 2016 Topps UFC High Impact, and a pack of 2017 Topps UFC Knockout.

First up is the 2012 Topps Baseball. I got the last hit of the box in this batch of packs, a Golden Moments Gold parallel relic card of Jonathan Papelbon, numbered # 54 / 99. I promised baseball fighting in this post, and here it is:

He famously went after Bryce Harper in 2015 after they exchanged words about Harper not running a ball out. More exciting to me from this batch of packs was the Coco Crisp Black parallel card, which is a nice addition to my rather dormant Crisp player collection.

The Crisp card is numbered # 25 / 61. Pretty good stuff. He didn't sign anywhere after the 2016 season and took a job as a high school baseball coach, so I think he's probably done with pro ball.

The High Impact box finally dropped something other than an Al Iaquinta autograph, which I was pretty happy to see. Even better was that the autograph is from a decent name in the UFC, Amanda Nunes, who is the current Women's Bantamweight champion. My Femme Fighters insert was Tecia Torres, which is a duplicate for me. Still, the Nunes autograph makes this box a winner.

The Knockout pack was pretty good as well. First up is this Tier One Autograph card of Joanna Jędrzejczyk, who only recently lost the Women's Strawweight title to Rose Namajunas after successfully defending it 5 times. This is the base version, numbered # 018 / 199.

The second hit in the pack was this Fight Mat Relic Card of Lyoto Machida. This is the base version, numbered # 69 / 99. I still think it's funny that Topps puts 'FIGHTER-WORN MEMORABILIA' on the front of these mat relic cards. The mat is an important part of the action, but it's not really worn by the fighters. You wouldn't sell a piece of basketball court as player-worn.

A while back I saw that Danica Patrick had a new book, Pretty Intense, coming out, and there were autographed copies available for pre-order through Barnes & Noble. I missed out on it because it was one of those things I just kept putting off for a while.

Then on release day I went back to the Barnes & Noble site and saw that signed copies were available again, so I ordered one. It was like $24 including shipping. I thought it was pretty cool, and they sold out again pretty fast, so I'm glad I checked when I did. It's too bad it wasn't an in-person signing like the one I went to in September for Charlotte Flair, but Boise isn't exactly a hot spot for celebrity appearances. I think Danica did a signing in New York City, which is a little bigger than Boise. Actually, New York City probably has more people than the whole state of Idaho, and maybe a couple of our surrounding states as well.

I flipped through the book a little bit. It looks like a decent look into Danica's personal workout, nutrition, and mental health regimen / philosophy. I may eventually pick up an unsigned copy to actually read through.

That does it for today, and I guess for this year.

Cyber Week Breaks: Day 10 - Red Racing Cards and Some Punchy Folks

Today's breaks are pretty good. I'm starting things off with a 2 packs of 2016 Panini Certified Racing and 8 packs of 2017 Topps UFC Chrome. Also, I'm excited about the boxes of 2017 Topps UFC Knockout I got in the mail yesterday, so I'm opening one more pack of that product. Tomorrow I might take a breather and post about something other than my Cyber Week Breaks. We'll see.

Here are the hits from my 2 Panini Certified Racing packs. On the left is a Mirror Red Certified Signatures autograph of Justin Allgaier. This one is numbered # 43 / 75. He spent 2014 and 2015 at the highest NASCAR level, then dropped back to the Xfinity Series for 2016 and 2017, finishing 3rd in the standings both years. As with the quad autograph card I showed off a few days ago, the certification hologram isn't as obtrusive in-hand.

The other hit in these packs was a Complete Materials Mirror Red parallel of Ryan Blaney, numbered # 22 / 75. It's got four swatches of material, including red and white firesuit pieces, a gold chunk of sheet metal, and a bit of tire. Blaney is doing pretty well for himself in NASCAR's top circuit, finishing 9th in the standings this season with one win.

Neither of these hits really matches up with my personal collections, but they are still pretty decent pulls. Both are names that I recognize, which is a step up from many of my racing breaks.

Here are the biggest cards out of the 8 packs of 2017 Topps UFC Chrome I opened today. The Arianny Celeste Topps Fire insert is the Refractor version, numbered # 48 / 99. The Luke Rockhold Blue Wave Refractor is a one-per-box insert, numbered # 59 / 75. The autograph is a base auto of Mickey Gall. He had a couple of big fights in 2016 and 2017 that rocketed him into popularity, a win against WWE wrestler CM Punk and a defeat of the a fighter the UFC was pushing pretty hard, Sage Northcutt. He lost a decision last month to Randy Brown, so he's still got some work to do before he's a real contender.

That closes out the second of four UFC Chrome boxes from this order. So far I am still pretty happy with the product. It seems like there are enough Refractors, inserts, and autographs to make it a fun break. People complained that the autograph checklist is relatively weak, but I haven't felt ripped off by this product yet.

I got two numbered parallels in the second pack of 2017 Topps UFC Knockout. Again, I pulled a Green and a Blue. The Green Aldo is numbered # 055 / 215, while the Blue Werdum is # 13 / 99. Neither really moves the needle for me, but they're all right.

As far as hits go, I pulled a Knockout Autographed Relic of Jim Miller, a fighter I collect. This is the base version, numbered # 056 / 149. I've already got a copy of this card, but now I have another. I also got a Knockout Relic card of Joanna Jedrzejczyk. It's a Red parallel, though, so it's numbered # 01 / 10. The Red parallels only show up about once in thirteen boxes, so this is a pretty good card. It probably would have been even better if she still had the championship belt, but some other # / 10 relics of hers have still sold north of $30 recently, so I still 'made' money on this pack.