Leaf Metal MMA Finally Arives

Leaf Metal MMA has finally hit shelves and singles are showing up on eBay. After a number of delays and product changes it is good to see it arrive. The final checklist contains 42 base autographs, 5 Champions, 11 National Pride and 14 Nicknames plus a Jon Jones Buyback auto card (from last year’s preview cards).

There are some huge fighters signing for this set (every autograph is on-card too) and there are some up and coming fighters. Unfortunately some of the biggest names are not included due to UFC/Topps licensing, we will not see GSP, Junior dos Santos, Ben Henderson, Carlos Condit or Nick Diaz among others. Leaf did get fan favorite Octagon Girl Arianny Celeste in to the base autograph checklist.

The base set contains 42 cards and each card (minus the Jon Jones) has 4 prismatic parallels; Silver (#/50), Blue (#/25), Red (#/5) and Gold (1/1). The Jon Jones Buyback auto has 3 versions #/32, #/7 and #/5.

Aldo Base- Silver

The Champions set has only 5 cards on the checklist, each a current or former champion. Silver (#/25), Blue (#/10), Red (#/5) and Gold (1/1). The checklist is made up of: Alistair Overeem, Cris Cyborg, Dominick Cruz, Gegard Mousasi and Megumi Fuji.

Overeem Champions- Blue

I find it interesting that Leaf released a preview image of a Champions Alistair Overeem Blue parallel and he signed his last name. Overeem is known for having an autograph that challenges Chis Johnson’s chick-scratch auto, he usually signs just “AO” so if this is an actual autograph I would expect it to fetch a premium.

The National Pride set has 11 fighters and features the fighter in front of their country’s flag. This subset was included in the original Leaf MMA set and was so loved that Leaf decided to continue it in Metal. There are 4 versions Silver (#/25), Blue (#/10), Red (#/5) and Gold (1/1).

Werdum National Pride- Red

Famous Nicknames contains 14 fighters along with their nickname and again there are 4 versions Silver (#/25), Blue (#/10), Red (#/5) and Gold (1/1). The set contains one of the most famous fighters, Jon “Bones” Jones, but also includes Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos, Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva and Shane “The Engineer” Carwin among others.

Jones Famous Nicknames

Some of the highlights already found:

Rory MacDonald National Pride

Alistair Overeem Silver #/50

Jon Jones Famous Nicknames Silver#/25

Any Arianny Celeste

If you are interested in watching a Beckett box break of the product you can see it on Beckett's blog. No surprises, the boxes are loaded.

Update II: 2011 Leaf MMA Metal

The last time there was any substantial news regarding 2011 Leaf MMA Metal was back in November, since then the revised release date of December 5^th has come and gone and no major news has come out since until yesterday. In a release from Leaf president Brian Gray, MMA Metal will finally see the light of day by the end of March.

He went on to discuss some serious changes since the last announcement. In November the set was scheduled to include a 55 fighter base card checklist, there were 3 autograph insert sets and boxes were supposed to run around $50-55/box and 300-500 total cases were going to be printed. The set now will contain only autographs, no base set and no relics, the price will be set at $120/box and will contain 8 on-card autographs with only 150 cases printed. There will only be the base autograph metal card (there will be parallel versions) and the National Pride autograph set only.

Rory MacDonald, Gilbert Melendez and Jon Jones have all been announced to be included in the set and Cris Cyborg, Fabricio Werdum, Gegard Mousasi and Megumi Fujii were originally announced back in November so I would hope they are still scheduled to be included.

Apparently all the cards are signed and in Leaf’s hands, the boxes are printed and ready to go and they are just waiting for the final orders from distributers before shipping the product out.

No updated images or sales sheets have been released so we can only guess as to what the final product will look like. Brian has made it clear that the future of Leaf’s MMA product line is based on the collector’s interest in this set. He was disappointed with the returns on the 2010 Leaf MMA set and basing all his decisions on this set.

Update On 2011 Leaf Metal MMA

Some recent updates about the upcoming 2011 Leaf Metal MMA release:

-Expected release date is now December 5, 2011.

-Base set is scheduled to include 55 fighters.

-All cards will be on-card autographs and they will all be inserted in to packs, according to Brian Gray there will not be any redemption cards.

-First Autographs will include Cris Cyborg, Fabricio Werdum, Gegard Mousasi, Megumi Fujii and Rory MacDonald.

-The Champions Autographs will be a completely new checklist from the original Leaf MMA release.

-National Pride Autographs will return but there will not be an international version.

-A new autograph set will be introduced, AKA (Also Known As) Autograph set will include fighter’s nickname autographs.