Why this is the earliest card
Rua has no designated rookie card. He was already a PRIDE grand-prix winner before any card of him existed, and by the time Topps held the UFC licence he was five years into his career, so no manufacturer ever treated him as a new fighter. The 2006 Japanese PRIDE issue is the earliest card of him anyone records, which is why it stands as his first card rather than as a rookie. Its number rests on a single price-guide listing, so the card's identification is less settled than the finding that no rookie card exists.
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.
Identifying it
- Sports Card Investor's set page lists the entry as 'Shogun Rua 2006 Pride FC #52 Base'; the archive writes Pride FC numbers with three digits, so #052
- Cardbase counts 583 cards across variations: Base (142), Gold Foil Signature (141), Silver Foil Signature (141), Holographic (140) and ten PR-1 to PR-10 promos
- A foil facsimile signature across the photo is the quickest way to tell a Gold or Silver Foil Signature copy from a plain base card
- PRIDE-licensed, Japanese-issued, sold in packs in Japan — DSE-era names fill the checklist (Fedor Emelianenko at #14, Alistair Overeem at #1, Anderson Silva at #003)
What gets mistaken for it
| What you'll read | What's true |
|---|---|
| Shogun's first card is a 2009 Topps UFC card. | Those are his first UFC-licensed cards. The Japanese Pride FC issue precedes them by three years. |
Parallels
Card milestones
Five separate questions, kept separate. How these are defined.
- 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.
Grading & population
Population figures will be taken directly from the grading companies and dated when they are. None are shown yet.
Sources & research Probable×2Uncertain×1
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
2006 PRIDE FC #052 — Maurício Rua.
The card number is single-sourced. Only Sports Card Investor's set page names a Rua card, and it tracks just 12 cards from the set, so #52 has no second confirmation; Cardbase's checklist table for the set returns 'There are no records to display', and no eBay listing or catalogue page for a Shogun card from this set has been found. Which variations exist for his number specifically — Gold Foil Signature, Silver Foil Signature, Holographic — is inferred from the set's composition, not from a checklist line. No card database entry for the card has been located.
Copies available
Nothing from the archive is currently available.
Go deeper
- The card record2006 PRIDE FC #052
- Maurício Rua archiveKey cards and eras
- 2006 PRIDE FCSet record