2017 Topps UFC Chrome Hobby Box Break

The box containing my Gint-a-Cuffs box of Allen & Ginter arrived the other day, along with several other things I'd ordered. Most of the breaks were pretty good, but the Allen & Ginter box was pretty disappointing. I am having a hard time getting myself motivated to scan the cards and add up the points for the contest, but I will try to get it done by the deadline.

The product that held up the order (I placed the order in July) was 2017 Topps UFC Chrome, which got bumped back quite a bit from the original release date. I ordered a box of it, as Chrome is something that Topps hadn't done yet for UFC. The box has 24 packs in it, with 4 cards per pack and two autographs per box.

The pack design mirrors the box design, so there isn't much to talk about here.

Here are the odds from the back of a pack. Based on this, I am expecting 8 base Refractors, a Blue Wave Refractor, a Green Refractor, an X-Fractor, 4 each of the Top of the Class, Museum Collection, Tier One, and UFC Fire inserts, and the two promised autographs.

Here are the front and back of Neil Magny's base card. The design is pretty familiar to anyone who collected Topps Baseball this year. The backs feature social media handles and a paragraph about the fighter. The cards look pretty good overall, although I noticed a fair number of reused images.

I got 64 base cards total in the box with no doubles, so if collation is decent you could build a 100-card base set with two boxes. This is a selection of 8 base cards I chose to scan. Randa Markos and Jim Miller are two of my primary fighter collections. Jessica Andrade and Ovince Saint Preux put on quite a show in their fights last night. I kind of collect Liz Carmouche and Stipe Miocic's cards, although I don't usually chase them down specifically. Paige VanZant is popular and I thought the Derek Brunson card had a cool image, so I included them to fill up the scan.

I pulled the expected 8 Refractors from the box. The fighter selection on these is all right, with Rose Namajunas, Mickey Gall, Nate Diaz, and Amanda Nunes being the bigger names of the group, in my opinion.

I got the expected X-Fractor in Nate Diaz, a Green Refractor of Robbie Lawler, and a Bule Wave Refractor of Raquel Pennington. The extra parallel in the lower right is a Red Refractor parallel of Matt Hughes, numbered # 4 / 5. That's a 1:359 pack insert, so I did pretty well there. The Nate Diaz is not numbered, the Robbie Lawler is # 51 / 99, and the Raquel Pennington is # 44 / 75.

The UFC Fire inserts are based on an insert called Fired Up from a previous Topps UFC Fire internet-exclusive product, but they are given the Chrome treatment for this iteration. They are pretty cool. I especially like the way the American flag pops on that Frankie Edgar card.

Again, Mueseum Collection takes the design from this year's Museum Collection product and applies the Chrome treatment to it. These look all right, although that's a lot of silver on the front of them.

I pulled the expected four base inserts from the Tier One insert, and I also got a couple of extras in the form of parallels. The Cody Garbrandt card is a Refractor and numbered # 86 / 99. That's maybe a relatively high print run, but these are a 1:73 pack insert, so not extremely easy to pull. The Anderson Silva card is even harder, being essentially a 2 per case hit at 1:144 packs. That one is a Pulsar Refractor, numbered # 23 / 50.

Closing out the inserts are four Top of the Class cards, which again take a previous UFC product and make the design shiny. There was a lot of Arianny Celeste and Chuck Liddell in this box. I also pulled the insert of Conor McGregor, who may eventually return to the Octagon after his stint in boxing.

Finally, I got my two promised autographs. These are signed on-card. I guess I could have pulled better names, but at least my base autograph is a 1st Autograph of Thomas Almeida and I got a parallel autograph of a fighter from the Women's Division in Joanne Calderwood. Both fighters display some pretty good penmanship here.

I believe Green is the most common of the autograph parallels, seeded at 1:57 packs. The Joanne Calderwood card is numbered # 43 / 99, while the base autographs are not serially-numbered.

Overall, this was a pretty good break. The cards look really good, and I got some neat stuff like a Red Refractor and a 2 per case insert. If I had $800 to blow, I would totally love to bust a case of this stuff. I know there aren't a lot of UFC collectors on the card blogs, but if you're interested in a cool UFC product I would give Chrome a shot.

2016 Topps UFC NOW - UFC 205 + A Holiday Surprise from Topps

I got my Topps UFC NOW bundle of cards from UFC 205 a little while back, but haven't found time yet to post about them. I've got a lot of drafts in my queue, and I am trying to prioritize packages I've received from other bloggers over stuff from corporations and eBay sellers, but I also want to get some of the older stuff cleared out. It seems like half the time I am struggling to find material to post, and the other half I am considering posting twice a day so I can get to all of the many things I want to post about. I suppose I'm doing all right if that sort of problem appears on my list of worries.

UFC 205 was a pretty big deal, earning 5 Topps NOW cards. Card 205-A went to the big headline of the night, which was Conor McGregor winning the Lightweight belt in a dominant and rapid victory over Eddie Alvarez. The victory gave him both the Lightweight and Featherweight belts. After he held the belts for a couple of weeks, he gave up/was stripped of the Featherweight belt, which went back to Jose Aldo. Him winning the two belts was pretty impressive, but the UFC probably saw that there wasn't any more money in keeping two belts tied up by one guy, and gave back the belt to the weight division Conor was least likely to fight in again. That is my take on it, at least. This card had a print run of 474 copies, the 2nd-highest UFC NOW print run to date, trailing only McGregor's card from UFC 202.

Although Conor McGregor led the hype train that was the first UFC event in New York, the rest of the card had some good moments. Maybe the weirdest moment was at the end of the Tyron Woodley - Stephen Thompson fight for the Welterweight title. The bout was initially announced as a victory for Woodley, but then Bruce Buffer issued a correction, stating that it was instead a draw. Woodley looked confused and angry, and I really thought he was going to go after Buffer or anyone within reach. Luckily, someone explained to him that he would be allowed to keep his belt with a draw result, and he calmed down. The print run on this one was 108 copies.

Joanna Jedrzejczyk and Karolina Kowalkiewicz went the full five rounds in their battle for the Strawweight title. Jedrzejczyk was in control throughout, but Kowalkiewicz threatened a couple of times, especially in the 4th round, and gave it her all. She just couldn't beat the champion. I was kind of surprised that this one didn't sell more copies, but it came in just ahead of the Woodley card with 111 copies sold.

Yoel Romero's flying knee knockout of Chris Weidman was absolutely nasty. It was the kind of knockout that makes you jump out of your seat, but also wonder if you're a bad person for getting excited about this sport. Romero's upcoming title shot against Michael Bisping should be a good fight. This card got the smallest print run for the event, with just 82 copies ordered.

Finally, the fight between Raquel Pennington and Miesha Tate got a card. Pennington got the victory by decision in a very close and not particularly exciting bout, and then Miesha Tate stole the thunder by announcing her retirement during the post-fight interviews. This card got 103 orders, which is more than I would have expected for a Pennington card. I think Topps put these ones up for pre-order, so a number of copies may have been sold to collectors anticipating a Tate victory.

This was a pretty good UFC event, with plenty of big names on the card and a healthy dose of action. The upcoming UFC 207 promises to be a pretty huge event as well, and it will ultimately be judged by how the Amanda Nunes - Ronda Rousey fight plays out. I'm looking forward to it. A fighter whose cards I collect, Neil Magny, is also on the card for the Preliminaries, so I will be tuning in hoping for a victory out of him.

I've seen these popping up around the blogs, and I also received a Topps NOW holiday card. Rumor has it that anyone who directly ordered a card through the website during the 2016 season got one sent to them. You're probably out of luck if you only purchased them through re-sellers, although there are plenty listed on eBay if you need your fix. The greeting card is shown above...

...and down here is the trading card that was enclosed. It's got some of the most popular subjects from the 2016 Topps NOW set sharing one piece of cardboard. Most people seem to agree that Kris Bryant, Ichiro, and David Ortiz deserve a spot on the short list for this card, but question the inclusion of Yankees rookie Gary Sanchez. All I know is that people on the Blowout forums were going nuts for his cards every time another one was released. They couldn't get enough of this guy, and that is probably why he is included here.

This was a pretty cool move from Topps, and makes up somewhat for the practice of charging cardboard-addicted collectors to the tune of $9.99/card for their Topps NOW fix throughout the baseball season.

Another Batch of Nifty UFC Hits

I've picked up a decent number of UFC cards over the last little bit. I am pretty open when it comes to the UFC, so I will snap up just about anything I come across that seems interesting. I do have a couple of specific fighters that I collect with a little more purpose, but for the most part I will bid on cardboard that is 1) cheap and 2) cool.

This Jessica Penne autograph got a bid from me largely because she's got a cool signature, with a lot of loops at the beginning and an interesting back and forth line for the rest of it. I also don't think I had a Penne autograph in my collection yet. I am not officially chasing an autograph of every fighter who has one, but I do like adding new ones to my collection.

I think Topps has moved away from this entirely, but on older products they often listed which UFC event the mat relics came from. This Martin Kampmann 2010 Topps UFC Knockout fight mat relic came from UFC 108, where he defeated Jacob Volkmann by submission. I believe this is the Green parallel of the card, numbered # 41 / 88.

Here's another one for the interesting penmanship category. Liz Carmouche has a very minimalistic signature, as displayed on this 2013 Topps UFC Bloodlines autograph card. I still think it's pretty cool, though, much better than Wil Myers' 'WM' autograph. She's riding a two-fight win streak, with a victory at the recent UFC 205. It seems like I've bid on a hundred Carmouche autographs and lost, but I finally landed this one. edit: Commenter R Laughton has informed me that Carmouche's signature is in Japanese. Running the symbols リーズ C. through the Japanese-English translation device returns the name Liz C.

Raquel Pennington also had a win at UFC 205, beating Miesha Tate by decision in the first fight of the Main Card, after which Tate announced her retirement. This is the first of a trio of autographs out of 2015 Topps UFC Champions that I picked up from the same seller.

Carla Esparza was the first UFC Women's Strawweight Champion. She lost the belt in her first defense of the title to Joanna Jędrzejczyk, who has gone on to defend the title 4 times, including at UFC 205. Esparza went on to win her next fight after losing the belt, but hasn't fought again since April 2016.

I had a couple of Cat Zingano relics in my collection, but I hadn't picked up an autograph yet. Zingano has fought once per year since 2011, with her 2016 bout coming in the much-hyped UFC 200, where she lost a decision to Julianna Pena.

Here's another fight mat relic card that goes all the way back to UFC 57, where Randy Couture lost a title fight to Chuck Liddell. This card comes from 2010 Topps UFC. Randy Couture retired (twice) long before I ever got into watching fights, so I don't know a lot about him.

These last two cards feature a fighter I collect specifically, Jim Miller. He fought at both UFC 200 and UFC 205, winning his bouts at both events. He'd been on a pretty rough streak lately, losing 4 out of 5 fights at one point, but he's currently on a three-fight win streak. I don't know if that makes him a contender in the Lightweight division, as there are about a million guys in that weight class and Conor McGregor just complicated things with his big UFC 205 victory. Miller seems to be game for just about any fight, though, and hopefully he's got a few more in the tank. This autograph comes from the 2011 Topps UFC Title Shot product, and is some parallel of the Contenders Autographs set. I missed out on the base version, but I got this parallel numbered # 60 / 88. 

From what I can gather, these UFC Poker Chips were inserted into blaster boxes of 2010 Topps UFC trading cards, sort of like the various manu-patches and medallions you get in some blasters of Topps' baseball products. I thought it was a pretty unique item to get for my Jim Miller collection.

I completely missed out on last night's Fight Night: Mousasi vs. Hall event, and I missed most of the preliminary fights for tonight's Fight Night: Bader vs. Nogueira. I did get to see the last seven fights though, with the last two bouts being particularly good. Most of the Main Card was pretty entertaining, although it got a little painful at the end of the Almeida vs. Morales fight, as the ref let the fight go about ten punches too long when it was clear that Morales was out of it. It's too bad that Ryan Bader won't get a Topps NOW card out of his victory, but I also really don't want Topps to start pumping out cards for Fight Nights. It's hard enough to keep up with the cards they put out for the numbered UFC events.