Cyber Week Breaks: Day 11 - Knockout Steps in Again, and Hulkamania Runs Wild

Once again, I have a break that needs a little something extra to make it worth posting about. I guess if I were a better writer, I could make a good post out of anything, but that's just not going to happen today. The packs that were scheduled for today were 8 packs of Topps Star Wars: Jedi Legacy and a box of 2016 Topps UFC High Impact. I am adding a pack of 2017 Topps UFC Knockout to the post, too, as well as a surprise item that appeared on my doorstep this morning.

Not much came out of the Jedi Legacy packs. I guess the highlights were these die-cut inserts that fit together to make a circle. I think there was a promotion when this product was released that allowed collectors to obtain a disc card that fit in the middle when the puzzle was complete.

These Magenta parallels aren't that rare, but there wasn't much else to go with. I think you get four of these per box.

The High Impact box had a Felice Herrig Blue parallel in it, a Julianna Pena Femme Fighters insert that I already have at least one copy of, and an autograph of Al Iaquinta that I also pulled a copy of on Day 7 of Cyber Week Breaks.

With those breaks out of the way, here are the hits from the pack of Knockout that I opened. First up is a Fight Mat Relic of Ronda Rousey. Her last couple of fights didn't end well, but she is still pretty much responsible for the rise of women's MMA into the limelight. I am not certain, but this might be the first Rousey hit I've ever pulled. This is the base version, and it is numbered # 16 / 99. The mat relic piece is supposedly from UFC 157, where the first UFC Women's bout was held. That fight involved Rousey and Liz Carmouche, with Rousey coming out on top.

The next hit is a Fearless Fighters Autograph Copper Ink parallel of Matt Hughes. These are pretty tough to come by, as the Copper Ink autographs only fall 1:77 packs, or about 1 in 20 boxes. This one is numbered # 08 / 10. This box of knockout has been pretty amazing so far. It will be fun to see what else comes out of this product for me. And now it's time for the bonus item!

This is a terrible cell phone picture, but I couldn't scan this thing and it came rolled up in a tube and won't lay flat for a photo. Hulk Hogan's official storefront, Hogan's Beach Shop, was clearing out some stuff and I grabbed this poster featuring his signature x2, once as Hulk Hogan and once as Hollywood Hogan. He also added some nice inscriptions to the poster, with my favorite being the '12x Champion Brother!' on the right. It also included a Certificate of Authenticity with a little story about Hulk's rise to fame. I've been thinking about buying an autographed tear-away shirt from the shop for a while now, but I couldn't pass up an opportunity to get two signatures on a poster for the price of one. I'm pretty happy with this piece.

Also, Hulk Hogan retweeted my Tweet about the poster, so that's pretty awesome.

Cyber Week Breaks: Day 7 - Seeing Green

Today's break is kind of boring, at least for me. Maybe I should have scanned a recent mail day or something to go along with it. It's too late for that now, as I am tired and don't feel like doing anything extra now. I opened a box of 2016 Topps High Impact and 2 packs of 2015 Topps UFC Chronicles.

The Femme Fighters insert from High Impact was Liz Carmouche, whose card I already had. I collect her cards, so I guess I now have one for the PC and one for the set. The autograph is Al Iaquinta. I don't know much about Iaquinta. He's only had one fight since I started watching UFC events, and I don't remember if I watched it or not. A bunch of Green parallels came out of the Chronicles packs. They are numbered # / 288. Royce Gracie is a legend in MMA, but his heyday was well before I started watching. I saw his Bellator 'fight' with Ken Shamrock last year that was pretty sad. Julianna Pena is another fighter I collect, and I probably have a few copies of her Green parallel now.

Jessica Penne and Khabib Nurmagomedov are the other two Green parallels I pulled. I also pulled another of the hits from the Chronicles box, a base relic of Michael Bisping.

That's about all for today. Tomorrow's break is a box of 2017 Topps High Tek Baseball, so that should be a pretty exciting post.

Museum Collection Mania

I think I've mentioned once or twice that I went a little overboard on 2016 Topps UFC Museum Collection. It just appealed to me, and I picked up quite a bit of it. This is going to be a picture dump, because I scanned a lot of stuff, but I don't have a lot to say about it at the moment because I want to get this written and posted so I can go to bed.

I kind of wanted to bust a box of the product, but I never could bring myself to pull the trigger on that. I did pick up a fair number of group break slots, though, which brought me a fair number of cards for certain fighters, like Rafael Dos Anjos here. Those are his base and Gold parallels. The Gold is # 05 / 75.

Cris 'Cyborg' Justino has finally been brought into the UFC, and I am pretty sure the new Featherweight division for women was created to give her a place to play, although Germaine de Randamie and Holly Holm are going to kick the division off in a couple of weeks, with the winner presumable getting Cyborg's next fight. I got her base and Bronze card here. The Bronze is numbered # 108 / 135.

I also got Cyborg's Gold parallel ( # 45 / 75 ) and this Rashad Evans Bronze parallel ( # 084 / 135 ), probably from the same group break.

I think these single-swatch Meaningful Material cards came from a mixture of group break slots and eBay purchases. I guess the foil color is different on these, which is pretty much the only difference I can see between parallels. It's pretty subtle. The Justino card is # 06 / 50, the Rafael Dos Anjos is # 01 / 10, and the Daniel Cormier is numbered # 12 / 35.

I think most of these Primary Pieces quad relics came from a single eBay lot. I got a good deal on it, maybe because it came from overseas. I think there are many bidders who have qualms about bidding on stuff from across the ocean. There are a couple that I purchased separate from that lot, though, probably the higher-numbered of the Stipe Miocic cards and the Carla Esparza. I can't read all of the serial numbers, but I'll give a go at saying what I've got here. The first Miocic is # xx / 99, the second one is # 10 / 10, the Chris Weidman looks to be # 04 / 25, the Carlos Condit is # xx / 99, and the Carla Esparza is # 69 / 99.

These Archival Autographs are all base versions. I am pretty sure the Antonio Silva card came from the previously-mentioned overseas lot. It is numbered # 40 / 99. The others were probably separate purchases, although at least one of them might have come from a group break. Anyway, the Jim Miller is # 02 / 99, the Julianna Pena is # 11 / 99, and Cat Zingano is # 13 / 99. Miller, Pena, and Zingano are all PC fighters for me.

These are all single-relic Signature Swatches cards of varying rarity. As opposed to the on-card Archival Autographs, these are all sticker autographs. Again, the parallels seem to be mostly denoted by small shifts in foil color. The Julianna Pena is # 107 / 149, which I believe is the highest of the print runs on these. The two Cat Zingano cards are # 07 / 25 and # 09 / 25, and the TJ Dillashaw card is # 02 / 25.

This Ovince Saint Preux card came from a group break. It is one of the dual-relic Signature Swatches cards, and is numbered # 04 / 25.

Closing things out, I've got a few triple-relic Signature Swatches cards. The Julianna Pena cards are numbered # 25 / 25 and # 23 / 50. The Anthony Johnson card probably came from the overseas lot, and is numbered # 134 / 149.

I would still like to open a box of this someday, but I just know the box I get will have three scrubs for hits and I will feel bad because I could buy three really nice hits I actually want for the price of the box. With new baseball cards coming out now, I imagine the urge to break a box of this will subside as it is pushed off my radar by newer releases.

A Couple of UFC PSA's

Nope, not a Public Service Announcement, just a couple of Professional Sports Authenticator-graded cards. I didn't really care one way or the other about the grading and the holders, but these were a couple of cards I wanted. The grades on these two cards probably wound up hurting their sales prices, as they aren't those Gem Mint 10's that everyone wants. They are, however, listed as each fighter's 1st Autograph, which is a big thing among MMA collectors.

First up is this 2015 Topps UFC Knockout autograph of Julianna Pena. She is fighting Valentina Shevchenko tonight in the headliner for a UFC Fight Night event, with the winner probably getting a title shot against Amanda Nunes. I started a Pena collection recently, as the main fighters I've been collecting (Neil Magny and Randa Markos) haven't been showing up in many sets lately. Pena has been in most sets lately, so it gives me something to chase. She's a pretty decent fighter, too, and she is also relatively local. I went to school in Moscow, Idaho, for a while, which is just down the road from her hometown of Spokane, Washington. I now live a few hours south of there, but it's still considered pretty close in Western U.S. terms.

The second card I picked up in this lot is this 2013 Topps UFC Finest autograph of Liz Carmouche. She's a veteran, and that puts her on my list of folks who I will chase cards for. She also has a pretty cool signature, with the first part of it being "Liz" written in Kanji followed by her last initial. It was pretty nice to add her 1st Autograph to my collection.

I missed the first few fights in tonight's event, but I was able to start watching around the time the Main Card kicked off. I am hoping for a Julianna Pena victory, but my endorsement of her has probably guaranteed a loss. I guess I should have kept quiet. Hopefully she can overcome my unintentional hex and get the victory.

Combined Shipping Leads to Buying Stuff 10: Combined Shipping is a Powerful Drug

The first card in this post is the only card I meant to purchase, but things got a little out of hand when I saw that the seller offered free shipping with the purchase of  items. I am usually able to pass up on these offers because sellers often don't have enough cards I want. This time I did track down 10 items from the seller's inventory to purchase.

Here is the card that started me down this path. It popped up in my feed at a very low price for a low-numbered UFC card. It is the Gold parallel of Jessica Penne's 2015 Topps UFC Champions card, and it is numbered # 16 / 25. As a bonus, it features a cameo by one of my PC fighters, Randa Markos. Penne would win that fight by decision. I will pick up nearly any UFC parallel card that is # / 25 or less if the price is right.

The problem with my Randa Markos collection is that, to my knowledge, she doesn't have any relics or autographs out there. I am lucky if she gets into lower-tier products with a base card and some parallels or maybe an insert. She is absent from the checklists of most hit-driven products, so I have expanded my player collections to officially include Julianna Pena. As part of the combined shipping lot, I picked up this Fight Mat Relic Card from 2016 Topps UFC Knockout. It is numbered # 076 / 188, and you can see in tiny print under the disclaimer that this relic piece comes from the TUF 18 Finale, a tournament that Pena won.

Randa Markos' next opponent is Carla Esparza. They will fight at UFC Fight Night: Browne vs. Lewis in February. This card is Esparza's Gold parallel from 2016 Topps UFC Knockout, numbered # 44 / 99.

I also picked up this Green parallel of Leslie Smith from 2015 Topps UFC Chronicles. It is numbered # 088 / 288. Smith has had an up-and-down career in the UFC so far, last defeating Irene Aldana in December.

The last UFC card in this lot is this Silver parallel of Tecia Torres from 2016 Topps UFC Knockout. It is numbered # 022 / 227. Torres lost a fight to Rose Namajunas in April 2016, and has an upcoming fight against Bec Rawlings in February.

I closed out the order with a couple of Hakeem Olajuwon and Shannon Sharpe cards for those particular player collections. I think the top left Olajuwon is from 1999-00 Skybox E-X, and the top right Olajuwon is from 1997-98 Flair Showcase. On the bottom are a 1999 Topps Gold Label and a 1998 Flair Showcase card for Sharpe.

There are apparently only nine cards in this post. There is a 1997 Pinnacle Shannon Sharpe card that should be here, but I don't see the scan for it, and the Leslie Smith Green parallel was from another order and ought to be replaced by a Cat Zingano card that also isn't in the scans for this post. I was twisting my brain around trying to match the cards in that order to the cards in this post. That's what happens when you let cards pile up before you scan them. Either way, I originally went to buy the card at the top of the post and wound up ordering 9 more to go with it, including some of the cards pictured here.