What We Pulled:
Cards Per Pack: 10
Packs Per Box: 24
Cards Expected: 200
Cards Received: 190
Base Set Completion: 76% (152 out of 200)
Duplicates: 8
Inserts:
Fight Night Highlights: (7) Lesnar vs. Carwin, Garcia vs. Jung, Liddell vs. Silva, Mir vs. Lesnar, Guillard vs. Miller, Silva vs. Franklin, Whittaker vs. Thompson
Octagon Greats: (6) Chuck Liddell, Demetrious Johnson, Jose Aldo, Johny Hendricks, Renan Barao, Rich Franklin
Topps Parallel Black #/188: (6) Jake Ellenberger, Jason High, Liz Carmouche, Issac Vallie-Flagg, Rodrigo Damm, Ross Pearson
Topps Parallel Blue #/88: (4) Francis Carmont, Bobby Green, Alex White, Raquel Pennington
Topps Gold Champions Predictor #/25: (1) Brandon Thatch
Topps Parallel Platinum #1/1: (1) Ricardo Lamas
Topps Autograph Red Ink #/15: (1) Stipe Miocic
Topps Autograph Relics: (1) Zach Maxovsky
Topps Relics: (2) Cain Velazquez, Rafael Dos Anjos
Topps Mat Relics: (1) Chris Weidman
I like the design of the front of the cards. The name of the fighter is close to the edge of the card, the Champions logo is in the corner and the pictures are of the fighters in the octagon. Some during the fight, some before or after a fight. The fighters that have been newly signed to the UFC are also annotated on the front of the cards. The back of the cards have basic personal stats for the fighter, their twitter handle, and a blurb about the fighter.
The value from this box is there. Getting over 70% of the base set is a pleasant surprise. There are at least 10 parallels in each box. I don't like runaway parallels, but they weren't a distraction in this set. The mat cards are good, and I hope there are some out there that show actual use. The material cards aren't worth much, and Topps might want to put some multi-colored swatches in for more variety. If I were in charge of the product, there would be more autographs. If you have 200 fighters, you can get more fighters than 49 to sign cards. The rest of the inserts are more of the garden variety type.
Even though I know that I will not get all my money back from selling these cards, I feel like it was a good product. I didn't pull the big hits and that is part of card collecting.
Overall Judgment:
If Topps and the UFC continue to produce products like this, it will help with the popularity of UFC. The monetary value isn't there, but the 5 pulls that you receive in each box, combined with the parallels will make you want to see what else is in the box. You want to build a set of base cards, then two boxes is probably what you will need. The small amount of duplicates helps me with feeling good with this product. The inserts are OK. you might need to do more hunting than hoping you can pull the ones you need in a box to complete those insert sets. I would make the parallels stand out a little more than they do but that is a minor thing. I would say get yourself a box and see if you can get that big hit and also enjoy these cards.
Rating: 4 out of 5.
