Brandon Moreno
Rookie Card

Which card is the rookie, how to tell it, and what gets mistaken for it.

The answer2021 Panini Prizm UFC #38
SubjectBrandon Moreno
Year2021
ManufacturerPanini
ConfidenceVerified
Print runUnknown — not estimated

Why this is the rookie

Moreno has no card before 2021, and three independent sources point at the same one. MMA Rookies names 2021 Panini Prizm UFC #38 his True Rookie Card, Collectibles.com's register flags it 'RC', and SportsCardsPro's card page flags it a rookie card. Release order agrees: Cardboard Connection dates Prizm to 28 April 2021, ahead of Select (30 July), Chronicles (6 October) and Immaculate (31 December), and confirms he is #38 in the 200-card base set. Nothing credible names a different card.

Moreno's first licensed card of any kind, from Panini's 'Debut Edition' Prizm UFC released 28 April 2021 — six weeks before he beat Deiveson Figueiredo to become the first Mexican-born UFC champion. Because Topps never issued him a card in five years of holding the licence, this is the whole of his pre-championship cardboard. It sits in the vertical half of the 200-card base set (100 vertical, 100 horizontal).

Commonly misidentified

Sellers routinely list Prizm #38 Silver and coloured parallels as 'the rookie' — they are parallels of #38, not separate rookie cards. Because all three 2021 base cards exist, a listing that says only 'Brandon Moreno rookie' without naming the product is ambiguous between Prizm #38, Select Concourse #96 and Chronicles #26. Select prints him at three tiers in one product — Concourse #96, Premier Level #160 and Octagonside #296 — so a Moreno card numbered in the 100s or 200s from that set is a different card, not a parallel.

Identifying it

Card #38, listed as Flyweight on the checklist
Vertical layout (cards 1–100 of the base set are vertical)
Base is a plain chromium card with no Prizm rainbow — the Silver is the entry-level parallel, not the base
First-year Prizm UFC design carries the 'Debut Edition' branding on the packaging, not the card

What gets mistaken for it

What you'll read	What's true
Silver and coloured Prizm parallels of #38 are separate rookie cards.	They are parallels of the one base card; the RC status belongs to #38 itself.

Parallels

Base

—

Unnumbered

Black

1/1

High confidence

Lucky Envelopes

High confidence

Octagon

High confidence

Gold

/10

High confidence

+11 more

…

down to /275 · 2 unnumbered

Card milestones

Five separate questions, kept separate. How these are defined.

Earliest licensed card2021 Panini Prizm UFC #38 High confidence
First MMA card2021 Panini Prizm UFC #38 High confidence
First UFC card2021 Panini Prizm UFC #38 High confidence
First certified autograph2021 Panini Select UFC Rookie Signatures #7 High confidence
Recognized rookie card2021 Panini Prizm UFC #38 Verified

The evidence behind each

2021Earliest licensed card — Cardboard Connection's checklist reads '38 Brandon Moreno - Flyweight' in the 200-card base set and dates the product 28 April 2021. He appears in no checklist in 2017 Topps UFC Knockout, and both MMA Rookies and Collectibles.com begin his card history in 2021.
2021First MMA card — Same card — the earliest Moreno card identified, in a UFC-licensed Panini product.
2021First UFC card — Cardboard Connection checklist and release date; nothing earlier exists on any list consulted despite his 2016 Octagon debut.
2021First certified autograph — Cardboard Connection lists '7 Brandon Moreno - Flyweight #/149' in the 10-card Rookie Signatures checklist. Moreno appears in none of the autograph checklists in 2021 Panini Prizm UFC (28 April 2021), so Select is his first signed card.
2021Recognized rookie card — MMA Rookies names it his True Rookie Card; Collectibles.com's register lists '2021 Panini Prizm UFC #38 RC'; SportsCardsPro's card page flags it a rookie card; Cardboard Connection's release dates make it the first of his three 2021 base cards.

Grading & population

Population figures will be taken directly from the grading companies and dated when they are. None are shown yet.

Sources & research Verified×2

Every factual claim on this page, the evidence behind it, and an honest confidence level. Where sources disagree the disagreement is kept, not quietly resolved.

Verified

Brandon Moreno's rookie card: 2021 Panini Prizm UFC #38 — Brandon Moreno.

Moreno has no card before 2021, so the rookie question is only about which 2021 Panini issue came first. 2021 Panini Prizm UFC released 28 April 2021 (Cardboard Connection), ahead of Select (30 July), Chronicles (6 October) and Immaculate (31 December). Cardboard Connection's base checklist has him at #38, SportsCardsPro's card page confirms #38 and flags it a rookie card, and MMA Rookies names '2021 Panini Prizm UFC #38' his true rookie card while listing Select #96 and Chronicles #26 as the secondary RCs.