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.

Cyber Week Breaks: Day 5 - Uncle Creepy Makes an Appearance

I know that my UFC posts don't always get a lot of site visits, but I got a lot of UFC cards in my Cyber Week orders and there are going to be a fair number of posts with just fighting cards in them. These days the only sporting events I set time aside to watch are fights and baseball, so that's where my head is at when it comes to collecting. I'll try to mix in some other stuff from mail days when a break is slow. Today's breaks are 8 packs of 2017 Topps UFC Chrome and a box of 2016 Topps UFC High Impact.

The first 8 packs from the 2nd box of 2017 Topps UFC Chrome held quite a bit of good stuff. That Jose Aldo Museum Collection insert is the Refractor version, numbered # 94 / 99. The Green Refractor of Mickey Gall is numbered # 48 / 99. I almost flipped right past the Tyron Woodley card, but something about it looked a little different. You can see Refractors in this product from the side of a card stack, because they have white edges while the base cards have colored edges.

Those thick white lines are all Refractors. The Tyron Woodley card is a Black Refractor, numbered # 08 / 10. Black refractors fall only once per 7.5 boxes, so that's a pretty good pull. It will probably be the lowest-numbered Refractor I pull from this break. I also got another Demetrious Johnson autograph. This one is just a base autograph, though, unlike the insert autograph I pulled the other day.

The High Impact box had an autograph of Ian McCall and a Femme Fighters insert of Joanne Calderwood. You might notice that Ian McCall's signature doesn't say his name. His nickname is 'Uncle Creepy,' and it sure looks like that's the name he signed on his sticker. He hasn't fought since 2015, although he's been scheduled for several fights over the last couple of years. One fighter has always pulled out of all his scheduled bouts. He's now signed to the Rizin promotion out of Japan.

I needed the Femme Fighters insert of Calderwood for my set, too, so that's another one off the need list. I'm down to needing just two cards for that set. Hopefully the cards I need are somewhere in the stack of unopened High Impact boxes sitting on my desk.

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.