The earliest card
No scan on file for Maurício Rua's earliest card. Own one? Contribute a scan.
2006 PRIDE FC #052
The card that actually starts his run, and it is Japanese. It comes from the year after he won the 2005 PRIDE middleweight grand prix by knocking out Ricardo Arona, when he was the best light heavyweight in the world and had never fought in North America. Anyone building a complete Shogun collection has to begin outside the Topps and Panini catalogue entirely, and his PRIDE-era cardboard begins and ends with this set.
- Earliest licensed card2006 PRIDE FC #052 Probable
- First MMA card2006 PRIDE FC #052 Probable
- First UFC card2009 Topps UFC Round 1 #70 High confidence
- First certified autograph2012 Topps UFC Bloodlines Autographs #A-MR Probable
- Recognized rookie cardNone documented Unconfirmed
The evidence behind each
- 2006Earliest licensed card — Sports Card Investor's 2006 Pride FC price guide lists 'Shogun Rua 2006 Pride FC #52 Base' among the twelve cards it tracks from the set, and Cardbase records the set's composition (142 base cards inside 583 across all variations). Only one source names his card number, so the number itself remains single-sourced.
- 2006First MMA card — Sports Card Investor's set page is the earliest Rua entry in any price guide reached; no pre-2006 card of him appears in Cardbase, Collectibles.com or SportsCardsPro.
- 2009First UFC card — SportsCardsPro's card page confirms '2009 Topps UFC Round 1 #70 — Forrest Griffin, Mauricio Rua' and records the rookie field as 'No'. Topps did not hold the UFC licence before 2009, so nothing UFC-licensed can precede it.
- 2012First certified autograph — SportsCardsPro's 2012 Topps UFC Bloodlines Autographs set list enumerates all 45 cards and includes 'A-MR Mauricio Rua'; Cardboard Connection's Bloodlines checklist gives the 45-card subset, the 7 December 2012 release date and the Red /8, Platinum 1/1 and Printing Plate 1/1 parallels. No Rua signature appears in the 2009 Topps Round 1 or Round 2 autograph sets, the 2010 Topps UFC Autographs set, the 2011 Topps UFC Title Shot or Finest autograph subsets, or the April 2012 Topps UFC Knockout release, where he is a base card only (#14). His 2011 Title Shot appearances (#FR-MR, #FM-MR) are unsigned relics.
- —Recognized rookie card — SportsCardsPro's rookie field reads 'No' on every Rua card checked, including 2009 Topps UFC Round 1 #70, Round 2 #82, 2010 Topps UFC #96, 2011 Finest UFC #74 and 2021 Panini Prizm UFC #153. The 2006 PRIDE set prints no rookie logo, and Collectibles.com holds no Rua register page that would flag one.
Key Rua cards
12 cards chosen for significance, not completeness; autographs and numbered cards follow below.
Card history
Shogun's cardboard opens in Japan. The 2006 Pride FC set, sold in packs there, catches him the year after he knocked out Ricardo Arona to win the middleweight grand prix, three years before Topps held a UFC licence, and it is the only PRIDE-licensed cardboard of him. He is listed at #52, though that number rests on a single set listing — the set runs 142 base cards and 583 with its Gold Foil Signature, Silver Foil Signature, Holographic and promo variations, and no checklist line confirms which of those exist for his number.
When Topps arrived in 2009 his first UFC-licensed card was a card of a defeat. Round 1 was built around UFC debuts, so #70 is a two-man bout card of the UFC 76 rear-naked choke loss to Forrest Griffin — catalogued as 'Mauricio Rua - Forrest Griffin' in one checklist and 'Forrest Griffin, Mauricio Rua' in another, which is why it goes missing in listings. Round 2, released 30 September 2009, gave him #82, his first solo card, from the portrait half of a 150-card checklist. Neither carries an RC flag, and that is the whole story of his rookie: nothing in his run is designated one, the Round 2 checklist leaves #82 unflagged where most portraits are flagged, and no register names a Rua rookie card at all.
2010 is his championship year — the UFC 113 knockout of Lyoto Machida — and Topps' Series 4 marked it with base #96, plus a 'Shogun' nickname variation of the same number with a print run of 250 that is the version worth chasing over the common base. The same product carried Pride and Glory #PG-3, one of fifteen insert cards covering fighters who came to the UFC out of PRIDE and the closest an American manufacturer ever got to acknowledging the grand-prix years.
2011 Finest gave him the deepest ladder of his Topps run: #74 with a Refractor, X-Fractor /388, Gold Refractor /88, Octa-Fractor /8 and a Red Refractor 1/1, plus Finest Moments #FM-MR and an Atomic Refractor #FAR-3 numbered to 25 — catalogued there under a misspelled 'Maurico Rua'. He appears in none of that product's autograph subsets, and in fact none of the 2009, 2010 or 2011 Topps signature checklists carry him. Bloodlines #BL-SR followed in 2013 with a Black /88, and Knockout #75 in 2015.
The scarcity is all in the signatures. Rua went through the 2009 Round 1 and Round 2 autograph checklists, the 2010 Topps UFC Autographs set, both 2011 signature products and the April 2012 Knockout release without a single signed card — in Knockout he is a base card, #14, and nothing else. His first certified autograph is 2012 Topps UFC Bloodlines Autographs #A-MR, from the product released on 7 December 2012: one of forty-five fighter signatures, unnumbered at the base tier, with a Red /8, a Platinum 1/1 and printing plates above it. Two years later 2014 Topps UFC Champions gave him the harder card — Championship Lineage Dual Autographs #CLDA-JR, one of five dual-signed cards numbered to 10, pairing him with Jon Jones. A PRIDE grand-prix winner and UFC champion whose first signed card arrives six years into his card run, and whose scarcest is shared, is the single most important thing about collecting him. Panini then used him as a legend: Prizm #153, an Origins autograph in Chronicles, and Immaculate dual autographs pairing him with Forrest Griffin at #DA-SRF and Dan Henderson at #DA-DHS, the two fights that bracket his UFC career. Since Topps returned he has shown up in Chrome's Allen & Ginter crossover insert at #AAG-20 and in Stadium Club and Knockout autograph subsets — common, everyday cards that make the contrast with his signed cardboard sharper still.
Autographs
3 certified autographs in the archive.
Card eras
Sports Card Investor's set page puts him at #52 in the Japanese 2006 Pride FC issue, the year after his grand-prix win over Ricardo Arona. It is the only PRIDE-licensed cardboard of him on record, and it predates every American card by three years.
Round 1 #70 is a two-man debut card with Forrest Griffin from UFC 76, and Round 2 #82 is his first solo UFC base card. Neither is RC-flagged — the archive's Round 2 checklist carries no RC on #82 and SportsCardsPro's rookie field reads 'No'.
He knocked out Lyoto Machida at UFC 113 in May and Topps' Series 4 gave him base #96, a 'Shogun' nickname variation numbered to 250, and the Pride and Glory insert #PG-3 — the rare Topps card that acknowledges his Japanese years.
2011 Finest UFC #74 gave him a full refractor ladder from X-Fractor /388 down to a Red Refractor 1/1, plus Finest Moments #FM-MR and an Atomic Refractor #FAR-3 to 25. Topps' Bloodlines insert #BL-SR followed in 2013 and Knockout #75 in 2015.
Topps UFC Bloodlines, out 7 December 2012, finally carries a signed Shogun card: Autographs #A-MR, one of 45 fighter signatures in the subset, unnumbered at the base tier with Red /8, Platinum 1/1 and printing plates above it. He is on none of the 2009, 2010 or 2011 Topps signature checklists and has no autograph in the April 2012 Knockout release either. Two years later, Championship Lineage Dual Autographs #CLDA-JR in 2014 Topps UFC Champions — Shogun with Jon Jones, sticker-signed and numbered to 10 — became his scarcest signed card rather than his first.
Panini used him as a retired name: Prizm #153, an Origins autograph in Chronicles and Immaculate dual autographs with Forrest Griffin and Dan Henderson. Since Topps returned he has shown up in Chrome's Allen & Ginter insert (#AAG-20) and in Stadium Club and Knockout autograph subsets.
Parallels of this card
Sets
Where Rua's key cards come from.
- 20062006 PRIDE FC1 key card
- 20092009 Topps UFC Round 11 key card
- 20092009 Topps UFC Round 21 key card
- 20102010 Topps UFC (Series 4)1 key card
- 20102010 Topps UFC Series 4 — Pride and Glory1 key card
- 20112011 Finest UFC1 key card
- 20122012 Topps UFC Bloodlines Autographs1 key card
- 20132013 Topps UFC Bloodlines1 key card
- 20142014 Topps UFC Champions — Championship Lineage Dual Autographs1 key card
- 20212021 Panini Prizm UFC1 key card
- 20222022 Panini Immaculate Collection UFC Dual Autographs1 key card
- 20252025 Topps Chrome UFC1 key card
Buying & wanted
- 012006 Pride FC #052 Shogun Rua in Gold Foil Signature — the Japanese card that starts the run
- 022012 Topps UFC Bloodlines Autographs #A-MR, his first certified signature — and the Red /8 or Platinum 1/1 above it
- 032014 Topps UFC Champions Championship Lineage Dual Autographs #CLDA-JR /10 (Jones / Shogun), his scarcest signed card
- 042009 Topps UFC Round 1 #70 Griffin / Rua in Silver /288 or the Red 1/1
- 052011 Finest UFC #74 Octa-Fractor /8 or Red Refractor 1/1
Nothing from the archive is currently available.
Cards come and go one at a time. Selling one?
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Sources & research High confidence×12Probable×6
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.
Maurício Rua's earliest card: 2006 PRIDE FC #052 — Maurício Rua.
No Shogun Rua card on record carries an RC designation. SportsCardsPro's 'Is Rookie Card' field reads 'No' on 2009 Topps UFC Round 2 #82, 2010 Topps UFC #96, 2011 Finest UFC #74, 2015 Topps UFC Knockout #75 and 2021 Panini Prizm UFC #153, and the archive's own 2009 Topps UFC Round 2 checklist (TCDB-derived) records no RC flag on #82 either. Under the archive's earliest-card rule the key therefore points at the earliest significant card: the 2006 Pride FC issue, which Sports Card Investor lists as 'Shogun Rua 2006 Pride FC #52 Base'. That card's number rests on a single source, so its own confidence is 'probable' — the finding that he has no true rookie card is the firmer half of this judgement.
- Sports Card Investor2006 Pride FC MMA Cards price guide — 'Shogun Rua 2006 Pride FC #52 Base', accessed September 22, 2026
- SportsCardsProMaurício Rua #82 — 2009 Topps UFC Round 2, accessed September 22, 2026
- SportsCardsProMaurício Rua #96 — 2010 Topps UFC, accessed September 22, 2026
- Collectibles.comShogun Rua Cards — '2014 Topps UFC Champions Championship Lineage Dual Autographs #CLDA-JR Jon Jones / Shogun Rua', accessed September 22, 2026
- NSListsUFC Round 1 (Topps, 2009) checklist, accessed September 21, 2026
- Cardbase2006 Pride FC MMA Cards (lists #132 Dan Henderson and the variation counts), accessed September 22, 2026
Shogun's cardboard opens in Japan. The 2006 Pride FC set, sold in packs there, catches him the year after he knocked out Ricardo Arona to win the middleweight grand prix, three years before Topps held a UFC licence, and it is the only PRIDE-licensed cardboard of him. He is listed at #52, though that number rests on a single set listing — the set runs 142 base cards and 583 with its Gold Foil Signature, Silver Foil Signature, Holographic and promo variations, and no checklist line confirms which of those exist for his number.
When Topps arrived in 2009 his first UFC-licensed card was a card of a defeat. Round 1 was built around UFC debuts, so #70 is a two-man bout card of the UFC 76 rear-naked choke loss to Forrest Griffin — catalogued as 'Mauricio Rua - Forrest Griffin' in one checklist and 'Forrest Griffin, Mauricio Rua' in another, which is why it goes missing in listings. Round 2, released 30 September 2009, gave him #82, his first solo card, from the portrait half of a 150-card checklist. Neither carries an RC flag, and that is the whole story of his rookie: nothing in his run is designated one, the Round 2 checklist leaves #82 unflagged where most portraits are flagged, and no register names a Rua rookie card at all.
- NSListsUFC Round 1 (Topps, 2009) checklist, accessed September 21, 2026
- SportsCardsProMaurício Rua #82 — 2009 Topps UFC Round 2, accessed September 22, 2026
- Collectibles.comShogun Rua Cards — '2014 Topps UFC Champions Championship Lineage Dual Autographs #CLDA-JR Jon Jones / Shogun Rua', accessed September 22, 2026
2010 is his championship year — the UFC 113 knockout of Lyoto Machida — and Topps' Series 4 marked it with base #96, plus a 'Shogun' nickname variation of the same number with a print run of 250 that is the version worth chasing over the common base. The same product carried Pride and Glory #PG-3, one of fifteen insert cards covering fighters who came to the UFC out of PRIDE and the closest an American manufacturer ever got to acknowledging the grand-prix years.
2011 Finest gave him the deepest ladder of his Topps run: #74 with a Refractor, X-Fractor /388, Gold Refractor /88, Octa-Fractor /8 and a Red Refractor 1/1, plus Finest Moments #FM-MR and an Atomic Refractor #FAR-3 numbered to 25 — catalogued there under a misspelled 'Maurico Rua'. He appears in none of that product's autograph subsets, and in fact none of the 2009, 2010 or 2011 Topps signature checklists carry him. Bloodlines #BL-SR followed in 2013 with a Black /88, and Knockout #75 in 2015.
The scarcity is all in the signatures. Rua went through the 2009 Round 1 and Round 2 autograph checklists, the 2010 Topps UFC Autographs set, both 2011 signature products and the April 2012 Knockout release without a single signed card — in Knockout he is a base card, #14, and nothing else. His first certified autograph is 2012 Topps UFC Bloodlines Autographs #A-MR, from the product released on 7 December 2012: one of forty-five fighter signatures, unnumbered at the base tier, with a Red /8, a Platinum 1/1 and printing plates above it. Two years later 2014 Topps UFC Champions gave him the harder card — Championship Lineage Dual Autographs #CLDA-JR, one of five dual-signed cards numbered to 10, pairing him with Jon Jones. A PRIDE grand-prix winner and UFC champion whose first signed card arrives six years into his card run, and whose scarcest is shared, is the single most important thing about collecting him. Panini then used him as a legend: Prizm #153, an Origins autograph in Chronicles, and Immaculate dual autographs pairing him with Forrest Griffin at #DA-SRF and Dan Henderson at #DA-DHS, the two fights that bracket his UFC career. Since Topps returned he has shown up in Chrome's Allen & Ginter crossover insert at #AAG-20 and in Stadium Club and Knockout autograph subsets — common, everyday cards that make the contrast with his signed cardboard sharper still.
- Cardboard Connection2014 Topps UFC Champions, accessed September 21, 2026
- Collectibles.comShogun Rua Cards — '2014 Topps UFC Champions Championship Lineage Dual Autographs #CLDA-JR Jon Jones / Shogun Rua', accessed September 22, 2026
- eBay2025 Topps Chrome UFC - Allen & Ginter Shogun Rua #AAG-20, accessed September 22, 2026
2006 PRIDE FC #052 — Maurício Rua.
2009 Topps UFC Round 1 #70 — Maurício Rua / Forrest Griffin.
2009 Topps UFC Round 2 #82 — Maurício Rua.
- SportsCardsProMaurício Rua #82 — 2009 Topps UFC Round 2, accessed September 22, 2026
- Trading Card Database2009 Topps UFC Round 2 — MMA Checklist, accessed September 20, 2026 Volunteer-maintained. Complete base checklist with card numbers and RC flags. Crawl-permitted per tcdb.com/robots.txt.
2010 Topps UFC (Series 4) #96 — Maurício Rua.
2010 Topps UFC Series 4 — Pride and Glory #PG-3 — Maurício Rua.
2011 Finest UFC #74 — Maurício Rua.
2013 Topps UFC Bloodlines #BL-SR — Maurício Rua.
2014 Topps UFC Champions — Championship Lineage Dual Autographs #CLDA-JR — Maurício Rua / Jon Jones.
2021 Panini Prizm UFC #153 — Maurício Rua.
2022 Panini Immaculate Collection UFC Dual Autographs #DA-SRF — Maurício Rua / Forrest Griffin.
2025 Topps Chrome UFC #AAG-20 — Maurício Rua.
2012 Topps UFC Bloodlines Autographs #A-MR — Mauricio Rua.