Some WWE Hits and a Bonus from Puro Central Shop

Yesterday was a pretty good day for me. We finished up our work for the Federal fiscal year-end on Friday, so Saturday was my first day off in quite some time. In the afternoon I headed into Boise for a WWE book signing by Charlotte Flair, who was at the Barnes & Noble store autographing copies of 'Second Nature.' I had picked up my book and wristband on Friday, but once I got in line I saw that she was allowing photographs, so I had to run back out to my car and get my phone. One of the bookstore employees complimented me on my Cthulhu-inspired shirt, so that was pretty cool.

I was near the end of the line, so I had a little bit of time to wait, but it wasn't too bad. The line snaked past several discount shelves and I used the time to browse the books. Charlotte was really cool during the signing, making sure to converse and take pictures with everyone in the line. Overall it was a very cool experience, and I was glad that I decided to go. I put this picture on Twitter after I got out of the building and she re-Tweeted it, so that was pretty neat for me.

Here's the autograph I got. The employees at the store had everyone write their name on a Post-It Note so that she could personalize the autographs. The store staff were pretty helpful and personable. It made me feel a little bad for doing most of my shopping online these days.

Charlotte Flair wasn't just in town for the book signing, though, as there was a WWE Live event in Boise Saturday evening. I bought tickets soon after the event was announced, and soon after I got home from the book signing we headed for the arena. I was pretty entertained by the event, and my wife and one of my six year-olds enjoyed it a lot.

My other six year-old whined the whole time and wanted to go home, and my eight year-old was determined to have a bad time until Dolph Ziggler insulted the people of Boise and he started to get emotionally invested in the matches. I think that by the end of the show he was having an okay time. Really, the key to enjoying a wrestling show is to allow yourself to buy into the storyline and be a part of it. It's a lot more fun when you cheer for the faces and boo the heels.

Some of today's featured cards show wrestlers who appeared in last night's show. I got these from the eBay store of the now-closed Puro Central Shop, which until mid-September was one of the primary U.S. sources of Japanese wrestling cards and memorabilia. This is a 2017 Topps WWE Undisputed Green autograph of Natalya, who appeared as part of the losing team in a 6-woman Tag Team match just after the intermission last night. Carmella and Lana finished out her team, while the winning team featured Charlotte, Becky Lynch, and Naomi. This Green parallel autograph is numbered # 23 / 25.

The first match of the night included Big E as part of The New Day tag team defeating a team made up of Breezango and The Usos. It was a pretty entertaining battle. I know a lot of people don't like The New Day, but those same people probably don't like anything fun. This Bronze parallel of Big E's autograph is numbered # 24 / 99.

This TJ Dillashaw relic card from 2016 Topps UFC Knockout was included in the package as a bonus, as the owner of Puro Central Shop knows I collect UFC cards. I thought this was a pretty cool gesture. This mat relic card is numbered # 106 / 188.

After the opener between The New Day and The Usos/Breezango, Chad Gable and Rusev battled it out, with Rusev eventually gaining the upper hand. The match was all right, and Rusev got soundly booed after his victory.

Next up was another Tag Team match between The Hype Bros (Zack Ryder and Mojo Rawley) + Luke Harper and The Ascension (Konnor and Viktor) + Erick Rowan. The crowd was on the side of the Hype Bros, and they eventually delivered a victory.

Once that match was done, Sami Zayn came out and beat Mike Kanellis. Sami Zayn seems to be incredibly popular, so the crowd was pretty excited about this one. After losing, Mike Kanellis got the microphone and complained that Mike Kanellis never loses. He demanded another match, and someone whose name I can't remember ran out and beat him up again and pinned him.

The last match before the intermission was a Fatal Four-Way match for the WWE US Belt. The participants were AJ Styles, Baron Corbin, Kevin Owens, and Tye Dillinger. Most of these guys have pretty strong followings, so the crowd was pretty happy as the momentum swung between the different wrestlers. AJ Styles eventually won, and then the show went into a short break.

Following the intermission was the Women's Tag Team match between Charlotte-Becky Lynch-Naomi and Natalya-Carmella-Lana. Becky Lynch got easily the biggest response from the Boise crowd, so she's pretty popular here. Each wrestler got a little time in the spotlight during the match, and Charlotte finally closed it out with a submission victory.

One of the most entertaining matches came next, as Dolph Ziggler came out and turned the crowd against him with an insulting speech, and Bobby Roode put on quite a spectacle during his entrance. I hadn't watched many of Roode's matches previously, but he really seemed good at working the crowd. I always like it when a wrestler I've overlooked comes out and makes me a fan.

The Main Event was a bit of a dud, with Jinder Mahal defeating Shinsuke Nakamura in a battle for Mahal's WWE World Title. Mahal and the Singh Brothers riled up the crowd and made the event into kind of an India vs. the United States thing, but that didn't make a lot of sense as Nakamura is a wrestler from Japan. The crowd didn't seem to know what to do, and I thought it was awkward that, "U! S! A!" chants kept breaking out when Shinsuke Nakamura would get the upper hand. The match itself was pretty good, but the crowd never really figured things out and that really killed the energy, especially immediately following a couple of pretty exciting matches with a lot of crowd involvement.

Overall I had a great time and enjoyed most of the matches and the pageantry of the event. I hope the WWE comes back to Boise sooner rather than later, but there was a lot of empty space in the arena. I was hoping there would be a better turnout, as it would provide more motivation for them to bring more shows to the area. I did my part by attending Charlotte Flair's book signing and filling up five seats in the arena.

Pack of the Day 158: A Box of 2017 Topps UFC Fire

The online-only releases from Topps are pretty much irresistible for me. I really try not to buy them because the MSRP plus shipping makes them a little more expensive than my impulse-buy threshold. Really, a hanger pack or discount blaster is about the limit of my impulse-buy threshold, and these online only things run $24.99 plus $7-8 in shipping (for the slowest shipping you can imagine. Seriously, it takes well over a week to get from them to me. This one took 10 days, shipping out on 22 MAR and arriving on 01 APR.). But I'm a sucker, so I'm usually good for at least one box of whatever UFC or WWE products they put out there.

In this case, it was 2017 Topps UFC Fire. Topps has partnered with an artist named Tyson Beck on the Fire concept, which has been used for sets and inserts across several sports. The UFC Fire product comes in the form of a 50-card base set with parallels, a 20-card Fired Up insert set, and autographs of 39 different UFC personalities. The autographs also have parallels.

Each pack/box has 20 cards in it, which I think are universally broken out as 16 base cards, 2 parallels, 1 insert, and 1 autograph. The more common parallel in the set isn't listed in the odds up there, but it is called Red Hot and numbered # / 142.

Here's a look at some of the base cards. It looks like there are three different base card designs. Some of the photo editing looks a little weird. I purchased a full base set on eBay, and Holly Holm in particular looked like she had a nasty skin infection. Many of the other fighters look weird, too. Octagon girl Arianny Celeste gets a card in the set, as well as a spot on the autograph checklist. Now that the UFC has a robust set of weight classes for women, it seems a little weird and outdated to have the Octagon Girls parading around. I guess it is tradition and a hallmark of fighting, but I think it's weird. Also, my wife or my sons seem to look over at the screen every time I'm watching fights and the cameras pan across the Octagon Girls. The UFC probably isn't going to hire Octagon Guys to hold the round cards when females are fighting, so they should probably just do away with the eye candy between rounds thing (in my opinion).

The base checklist has pretty much all the people you'd expect to see in a checklist like this. With Conor McGregor and Ronda Rousey both being away from the sport for a while, it's hard to see who the UFC has on the roster with mass appeal that will get eyes on their product. People who are already fans will have a deeper roster of fighters or matchups that they want to see, but that won't grow the popularity of the sport much. A lot of the current belt-holders aren't exactly dynamite on the microphone, or dominant enough to catch the interest of Joe Public.

My two parallels were both of the most basic Red Hot variety. That Dominick Cruz card wouldn't stay in place on the scanner bed. He was probably protesting against being right next to the guy who took his belt at UFC 207. I'm not really a fan of either guy. Garbrandt is numbered # 032 / 142 and Cruz is # 038 / 142. Neil Magny is a guy I collect, and his autograph would probably be pretty exciting if I hadn't already purchased a copy of it on eBay. Now I have two of them. This one is numbered # 104 / 199. My Fired Up insert features Tyron Woodley, the guy who has just barely retained his belt in two straight fights against Stephen Thompson.

This is a pretty cool product. I don't know if it's worth the asking price (to me). There are some pretty big names on the autograph checklist, but in all likelihood my box is pretty typical of what you're going to get. I may or may not grab another box at some point. Every so often, Topps will hold a holiday sale and blow out their online products at 40-50% off. If you can beat the re-sellers to the punch, that's probably the way to go. Getting two boxes of this or a box of this and a box of NXT for the asking price feels like a more reasonable deal for what you're likely to pull.

UFC 207 Topps Now

It seems like ancient history now, but the end of 2016 featured the much-anticipated return of Ronda Rousey to the UFC Octagon. It was so anticipated that Topps released a Rousey Now card just based on the announcement that Rousey would come back. That early preview card had a print run of 331 copies.

It's a good thing Topps featured Rousey on a card when they did, because she got absolutely rocked by Amanda Nunes, who earned the TKO finish in 48 seconds. This card had 214 copies ordered by collectors.

Maybe the most entertaining fight of the night was Cody Garbrandt's masterful defeat of Dominick Cruz for the Bantamweight belt. This card had 213 copies printed.

Like the back of the card says, TJ Dillashaw set himself up for a future title shot against Garbrandt by beating John Lineker. This card wasn't as popular, pulling in only 115 orders.

As of now, these are the latest UFC Now cards put out by Topps. I wasn't sure if Topps would put out cards for UFC 208, as the two main fights on that card ended controversially. In the main event, Germaine de Randamie beat Holly Holm by decision, mostly on the strength of several late hits that some argued should have cost her points on the scorecards. In the other headlining fight, Anderson Silva won a decision over Derek Brunson. I think just about everyone who saw that fight had Brunson winning it, but the judges went with the name brand over the fighter who seemed better on the evening. So Topps just ignored that mess, probably rightly so.

Tonight's UFC 209 has produced some decent fights so far, but I don't know if there's a lot of big-name draw here. I will be interested to see if Topps puts out some more UFC Now cards, or if they just let this branch of the Now tree dry up and fall off.

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.