by J. Alexander

A Successful night for the Youngsters on Versus

            With all the pressure in the MMA world on them to live up to their considerable hype, Junior dos Santos, Jon Jones, and John Howard came through with strong performances.  Howard and dos Santos were so tough to separate in the “Knockout of the Night” contest, that Zuffa decided to give a bonus to each.  Both men used powerful left hooks to add some footage to their next pre-fight highlight reel.  Jon Jones also received a KO bonus despite not actually scoring a KO in his fight.

            The affect of the Versus card on the trading card world may be somewhat debatable.  While I have discussed in this column before that Jon Jones and Dos Santos will certainly see a bump in the interest in and values of their cards, the defeated fighters that lost on Sunday night may be more interesting case studies.  Vera and Gonzaga were featured as base card, insert, and autograph cards in Round 1 and UFC 09.  The autograph cards for each do consistently well in the secondary market.  The question today is whether or not these cards will suffer from the losses.  Vera and Gonzaga have both been fairly popular fighters for the UFC, but did as much to fight themselves out of title contention as Jones and Junior did to fight their ways in.  I don’t see either fighter being dropped from the UFC’s roster immediately, but with more losses that fate might not be as far away as we might think.  Being a “former UFC fighter” has severely damaged the value of Round 1 autograph subjects.  Ed Herman and  Rich Clementi have become absolutely irrelevant to collectors since parting ways with the Octagon.

            John Howard may have helped his collectibles the most during last night’s UFC on Versus card with his vicious first-round knockout.  Howard first appeared in UFC 09 as a base card only and then again in Main Event with another base card.  While these two cards may garner some interest from collectors, the long term affects for Howard are far greater.  Barring a collapse in the coming months, there will be a large demand from the card buying public for Howard to be feature prominently in the next Topps release with Auto and Relic cards.  With that crushing left hand, John Howard just put himself into the collectible world.  Keep your eyes open!

 

 

Redemption Replacement Rant

 

            Redemption cards have been a part of the hobby for years now.  They often serve as a way to boost the roster of Auto or Relic cards in a product without putting delays on the release of that product.  Without them, we would not have seen a BJ Penn auto in Round 1.  There have been some complaints, however, about the replacements Topps has given out for the redemptions that never get made.

            In Round 1, Topps saw fit to replace a few different /25 dual auto and red auto cards with a /100 Sanchez/Machida dual autograph card.  The card lost much of its value by being 4 times as common as the card it was intended to replace.  Also, there were 2 different color inks used on the autographs.  This not only makes the cards look out of place, it makes it pretty clear to collectors that they were thrown together as an afterthought.  This is not the type of thing that typically creates buzz amongst collectors, at least not positive buzz.  Also included in the R1 redemption mess was a numbered Rich Franklin auto that was a replacement for an intended Roger Huerta.  This replacement card stood out as being the only auto card in all of Round 1 to be numbered.  Even the short printed autos failed to receive stamps.  If a relatively common blue auto was important enough to get numbered, then why not the red autos /25 that have the most likelihood of being counterfeited?  The number on Franklin’s auto highlights the error made in failing to number the others.

            In UFC 09 the redemption annoyance continued.  Three different Michael Bisping autos were replaced by a single Junior dos Santos.  While most of those who received dos Santos were pleased, the hobbyists who were expecting one of the two short-print autos were probably more than a little disappointed to find out that they received the same card as the holders of blue auto redemptions.  This redemption put the first JDS card as a part of the UFC 09 series from Topps, a fact that was sure to irk collectors who had just purchased auto cards of the up-and-coming fighter from the Main Event series.  At the time, it was reasonable to expect that the Main Event autos would be the first JDS cards available.

            Adding to the confusion is this week’s revelation that the Cheick Kongo redemption was replaced by a Shane Carwin auto that seems to fit in no particular series.  This one is particularly aggravating because there was already a Shane Carwin auto in the 09 series from which the Kongo redemption was pulled.   In addition, many collectors received their card just days before watching Kongo in an impressive performance on the UFC on Versus card.  Again, the replacement card looks clumsy and out of place.  If collectors take particular interest in the second Shane Carwin 09 auto, it will surprise this observer.

            When it was announced that there would be no redemption cards included in Main Event, most collectors took little notice.  After the frustrations of the recent redemption replacements, that may have been some of the best news surrounding Topps’ latest effort.

 

 

Off Topic:  Free Advice from Stacked Cards

 

            If you’re a married guy, or at least have a significant other, you probably value any opportunity to get some time out with the guys.  Usually, a night out watching some cage fighting will be the perfect chance to get away for awhile.  This week, Stacked Cards brings one “Get out of the house free” card.  It will only cost $.99.  Here’s how it works:  All you need to do is go to your local Redbox and rent the recently released “New Moon” on DVD.  Bring the disk home, pop it into your DVD player and press play.  As your woman’s eyes glaze over, mumble something about being back later and slip out the door.  You now have approximately 2 hours to consume as many alcoholic drinks as you can handle.  You’re welcome.  See you next week.