The Nickname That I Have Been Chasing

 

Last month I had posted about my decision to hold up on purchasing anything for my Ryan Bader personal collection until I could find his 2010 Topps UFC Nickname parallel. It was frustrating because they came around so infrequently on aBay and I just felt like this was the next card that I just had to have for my Bader pc.

After I posted about my frustration a fellow blogger came to my rescue. Raz from The Raz Card Blog pointed me in the direction of one of these cards that was available on COMC. I have never purchased anything on COMC so I hadn’t realized that it could be a useful tool for collectors. I purchased some credits and made an offer, which was accepted by the seller, and actually paid less than what the previous Bader nickname card had sold for on eBay.

Thank you Raz, I appreciate your help and I have now added a number of Griffey. Buhner and Bader cards to my COMC inventory. This Bader nickname parallel came in this afternoon with a number of other cards that I will cover soon.

My Pretty!

Have you ever had a card that you wanted to bad that you stopped working on your collection for the sole purpose of finding this one card?

My Ryan Bader collection has been put on hold while I am on the search for this card:

A 2010 Topps UFC #32 Ryan Bader "Darth" Nickname parallel

There were 25 cards in the Nickname parallel subset and they were exactly the same as the fighter’s base card version in the set but instead of the fighters name it had their nickname. There are 250 of each fighter’s nickname cards.

With 250 Ryan Bader nickname cards out there it is not seriously rare but they just do not show up. There was one sold late last year for just under $8, I lost out by.50 cents, and this year a guy posted one for $19.99, which I was not willing to pay. He posted it three times and I was hoping he would drop it to a more realistic $10, which I was willing to pay ,but no luck.

Filling In The Time With Packs Of Topps UFC

With the NFL lockout underway and the possibility of an NBA lockout looming my interests have been turned in new directions, mainly UFC and NHL releases. While waiting patiently for the upcoming 2011 Topps UFC Title Shot release I pick up packs of 2010 Topps UFC and 2010 Leaf MMA to help pass the time. My most recent pull is a Junior dos Santos 2010 Topps UFC Fight Mat Relic gold card #/188, not bad for 1:320 odds. The mat relic is from UFC 108 when he beat Gilbert Yvel. This definitely beats my last UFC relic that I pulled.

Junior is kick boxer/MMA fighter who is on top of the game. He has an 18-0 kickboxing record and a 12-1 MMA record. He has gone 7-0 in the UFC since 2008 including a surprise victory over Cro Cop in 2009 and he will be one of the coaches for The Ultimate Fighter Season 13 which begins at the end of the month. He will be going up against Brock Lesnar with the coaches meeting up at UFC 131 in June.

Random Blaster Box- Topps 2010 UFC Round 4

I find it appropriate that as I watch a replay of Strikeforce: Houston I write up the final random blaster box review of the year, Topps UFC 2010 Round 4.

Back in May when I wrote up a review of the Topps UFC 2010 release I was impressed. I love the look of the set and I think that Topps did an amazing job all around. The checklist is complete, the design works well with the UFC theme, the inserts are in line with what is expected and while there are some parallels they are not so intense that it is overwhelming. Rounding out the set is a nice selection of autographs and original relics including actual fight used tape.

I am very satisfied with my blaster box, I got a nice selection of fighters including old-time favorite; Royce Gracie. I pulled 4 gold parallels with my favorite being the Randy Couture. The gold parallels are a heavier stock then the base cards along with gold foiling. There are also Onyx (#/188), Ruby (#/8) and Diamond (1/1) parallels for each base card along with the unnumbered Gold versions.

The Bloodlines insert is very cool with each fighter shown with their countries flag; there is also an autographed version of this set. I pulled George Sotiropoulos, a Greek-Australian fighter who has a 14-2 MMA record and is a contender for the UFC Lightweight Championship. Additionally I pulled a Rashad Evans Octagon of Honor insert and a Quinton Jackson Pride and Glory insert. I find it funny that I found an Evans and Jackson insert in the same box, the reason being that they actually just fought this past May at UFC 114 with Evans coming out on top.

Each UFC 2010 blaster box contains an “exclusive” octagon chip card. The first series of 15 chips were included in the retail blasters of 2010 UFC Main Event and the second series of 15 chips were included in the UFC 2010 Round 4 blasters. I happily pulled Card #19 Randy Couture.

My last pack included an amazing surprise, an Ultimate Gear Gabriel Gonzaga T-shirt relic card. The Ultimate Gear relics are seeded at 1:82 in retail packs so this was totally unexpected. In a turn of unfortunate luck Gonzaga was just cut by UFC in October after going 1-3 since 2009 which is sad considering that he was 10-3 at the end of 2008 including a KO over Cro Cop at UFC 70 which made him the #1 contender for the Heavyweight title. I checked the original checklist for Ultimate Gear relics and Gonzaga was not even listed, I guess I shouldn’t complain because I beat the odds by pulling a very cool insert but when the Ultimate Gear relics checklist includes BJ Penn, Liddell, Evans, Hughes, Ortiz, Brock Lesnar and GSP I should be able to have a little to gripe about when I pull a down and out fighter not even on the checklist and no longer even in UFC.

Topps UFC Nicknames

Topps recently announced that in the 2010 Topps UFC release there are 25 short printed “Nickename” variation cards. These shot print cards are limited to 250 copies each. The other day I picked up some packs unfortunately I did not pull any of the short prints.

Here is the checklist of the 25 cards and the nickname on the cards:

5 The Irish Hand Grenade (Marcus Davis)

13 The Outlaw (Dan Hardy)

16 The Natural (Randy Couture)

20 The Prodigy (BJ Penn)

26 The Dean of Mean (Keith Jardine)

32 Darth (Ryan Bader)

34 The Phenom (Vitor Belfort)

43 Rampage (Quinton Jackson)

44 The Skyscraper (Stephan Struve)

46 Rumble (Anthony Johnson)

47 The Iceman (Chuck Liddell)

49 Bones (Jon Jones)

52 Ace (Rich Franklin)

59 The Dragon (Lyoto Machida)

64 Minotauro (Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira)

66 The Carpenter (Clay Guida)

72 The Hitman (Martin Kampmann)

77 Hands of Stone (Sam Stout)

78 The Huntington Beach Bad Boy (Tito Ortiz)

79 The Axe Murderer (Wanderlei Silva)

83 The Nightmare (Diego Sanchez)

96 Shogun (Mauricio Rua)

100 Rush (Georges St-Pierre)

106 The Spider (Anderson Silva)

147 Kevin Ferguson (Kimbo Slice)

2010 Topps UFC

Not long ago Topps released a preview of the 2010 Topps UFC set scheduled to be released later this summer. The design fits the package in this case; the coloring and designs work well together and evoke an energetic feel that you hope to get when you hold a UFC card in your hands.

Scheduled Release Date: August 20, 2010
Box Configuration: 8 cards per pack, 16 packs per box
SRP: $99.99

Box Break: 2 Autograph cards, 2 relic cards, 16 parallels and 16 inserts per box

An interesting set made up of 200 base cards total, including 135 UFC stars, 20 Highlight Reels, 30 UFC Debuts, 15 Personalities and then there are parallels consisting of Gold, Onyx (#/188), Ruby (#/8) and Diamond (#/1).

There are a total of 5 insert sets, not counting autographs and relics, and parallels of each insert. You will pull 1 insert per pack for a total of 16 per box. There are 9 different autograph inserts plus parallels on some of the inserts. One of the cooler autographs is a set called “Thoughts From The Boss” which contain an autograph of Dana White and various fighters. The relics sets are pretty cool too, there are 3 different relic sets made up of fight used tape, fight mats, gloves, shirts and shorts.

My Thoughts: As a UFC fan I am hyped about this set, I love the design and the insert sets are all pretty cool. I would love to pull a “Tale Of The Tape” relic card, this is an original idea all together, I have never seen tape used in any set ever.

Tito Ortiz Auto In Next UFC Release

Topps has just confirmed that a Tito Ortiz autograph card will be included on the checklist of their next UFC release scheduled for early 2010. As you can see, the downside is that the autographs are stickers and not hard signed cards.