The rookie
2025 Topps Knockout UFC #18
His rookie card, and the reason the 'Ruffy has no rookie' reading falls apart. Released 24 October 2025, seven months after the Topps Now card, it is the first Topps issue to carry his RC designation — and it does so under the name Mauricio Santos, which is why collectors searching 'Ruffy' conclude no rookie exists. The two RC-marked Finest tiers follow two weeks later and Royalty repeats it in February, so this is the head of a short group rather than a lone flag.
Sellers calling the 2026 Topps UFC Freedom 250 cards his rookies. They are neither rookies nor first cards: Freedom 250 carries no RC designation anywhere, and his RC-marked cards begin fourteen months earlier in 2025 Topps Knockout UFC. The deeper trap is the name — cards catalogued as 'Mauricio Santos' are his, and a listing or a saved search that only says 'Ruffy' will miss the Topps Now, Knockout, Finest and Royalty issues entirely.
- Earliest licensed card2025 Topps Now UFC #8 Probable
- First MMA card2025 Topps Now UFC #8 Probable
- First UFC card2025 Topps Now UFC #8 Probable
- First certified autograph2025 Topps Royalty UFC Rookie Autographs #RA-MS and Rookie Relic Autographs #RRA-MS /99, from the 6 February 2026 release High confidence
- Recognized rookie card2025 Topps Knockout UFC #18 High confidence
The evidence behind each
- 2025Earliest licensed card — The card is catalogued under his legal surname: item specifics give Set '2025 Topps Now', Card Number 8, Player 'Mauricio Santos', Event UFC 313, print run 1,630, and a second listing for a signed copy repeats the set, number and name. Topps files him as Mauricio Santos throughout its products, which is why a search on 'Ruffy' misses almost all of his cards. Topps' own Topps Now archive entry has not been located, so the detail rests on marketplace item specifics.
- 2025First MMA card — Same Topps Now item specifics. No pre-UFC or regional Brazilian card of him is documented.
- 2025First UFC card — Same Topps Now item specifics. The 200-card 2025 Topps Chrome UFC checklist (27 June 2025) and the 100-card 2025 Topps Midnight UFC checklist (8 August 2025) carry no Santos line, so nothing from the pack products precedes it.
- —First certified autograph — Checklist Insider's 2025 Topps Royalty UFC checklist lists Mauricio Santos at base #90 RC with Rookie Auto #RA-MS, Rookie Jumbo Relic #RJR-MS /99, Rookie Relic Auto #RRA-MS /99, Dual Fighter Relic Auto #DFA-PS /25 with Carlos Prates and Triple Auto #TA-RSP /25. No autograph of him appears in 2025 Topps Knockout UFC or 2025 Topps Finest UFC, the only earlier products that contain him. The subset carrying #RA-MS is Rookie Autographs, not Pursuit of Greatness Signatures.
- 2025Recognized rookie card — Checklist Insider's 2025 Topps Knockout UFC checklist prints '18 Mauricio Santos RC' in a 100-card base set that uses RC markers throughout. The next RC-designated cards are 2025 Topps Finest UFC #161 and #231 (7 November 2025) and 2025 Topps Royalty UFC #90 (6 February 2026), all also marked RC.
Key Ruffy cards
8 cards chosen for significance, not completeness; autographs and numbered cards follow below.
Card history
Ruffy went 8-1 on the Brazilian circuit without a licensed issue of any kind, then knocked out Raimond Magomedaliev on Dana White's Contender Series on October 3, 2023 and signed — just as Panini's UFC licence was running out and months before Topps' first product under the new one. The contract produced no card, and neither did his UFC debut: the 200-card 2024 Topps Chrome UFC checklist had closed on March 20, 2024, seven weeks before he stopped Jamie Mullarkey at UFC 301 for a Performance of the Night bonus. What breaks the pattern is not a checklist but a knockout, and it comes in March 2025.
The single most useful thing to know about collecting him is that Topps does not file him as Ruffy. Every Topps checklist line reads 'Mauricio Santos' — his legal name, Mauricio de Lima Santos, with the Ruffy billing taken from the One Piece protagonist. Searched under Santos, his 2025 is full rather than empty: Topps Now #8 in March, Knockout #18 in October, Finest #161 and #231 in November, and Royalty #90 the following February. Searched under Ruffy, almost none of it appears, which is how a fighter with an RC-designated rookie card ends up described as having none. Two genuine absences survive the correction: the 200-card 2025 Topps Chrome UFC checklist of June 27 and the 100-card 2025 Topps Midnight UFC checklist of August 8 contain no Santos line.
His first card is 2025 Topps Now UFC #8, 'Lands Highlight Reel KO Via Spinning Heel Kick', sold through Topps' print-to-order window after the spinning heel-kick finish of Bobby Green at UFC 313 on March 8, 2025 and closing at 1,630 copies — the whole print run, with no pack version behind it. Topps Now issues carry no RC marker, so the rookie is the next one along: 2025 Topps Knockout UFC #18, released October 24, 2025, whose base line reads 'Mauricio Santos RC' inside a 100-card set that marks rookies throughout. Finest repeated the flag two weeks later across its Uncommon and Rare tiers, and Royalty did it again at base #90 on February 6, 2026 — three RC-marked base cards inside four months of checklists, none of them under the name on his shorts.
His signature first appears in 2025 Topps Royalty UFC: Rookie Autographs #RA-MS and Rookie Relic Autographs #RRA-MS /99, beside a Rookie Jumbo Relic #RJR-MS /99 and dual and triple signed cards numbered to 25 shared with Carlos Prates and Jean Silva. The 2026 Topps UFC Freedom 250 set that followed his first-round knockout of Michael Chandler on June 14, 2026 is his most visible product rather than his earliest — base #22, the autograph #22-A from a 22-card signed checklist, the UFC Dollar insert #UD-22 and Presidential Seal #SO-22, a 20-card insert inside a 30-card set, all on the same ladder from Blue /150 down to a FoilFractor 1/1. Nothing in Freedom 250 carries an RC marker, so the listings calling those four cards his rookies are wrong twice over: wrong about the designation, and fourteen months late.
Autographs
1 certified autograph in the archive.
Card eras
Ruffy knocked out Raimond Magomedaliev in the third round on Dana White's Contender Series on October 3, 2023 and was signed. Panini's UFC run was ending and Topps' first UFC product was still months away, so the contract produced no card.
He stopped Jamie Mullarkey in the first round at UFC 301 on May 4, 2024 for a Performance of the Night bonus, then outpointed James Llontop at UFC 309 in November. The 200-card 2024 Topps Chrome UFC checklist had already closed on March 20, 2024 without him, and no 2024 Topps product added him.
His first-round spinning wheel-kick knockout of Bobby 'King' Green at UFC 313 on March 8, 2025 was one of the year's signature finishes, and Topps marked it within days: 2025 Topps Now UFC #8, captioned 'Lands Highlight Reel KO Via Spinning Heel Kick', sold print-to-order and closing at 1,630 copies. Pack products followed that autumn — 2025 Topps Knockout UFC #18 on October 24 and 2025 Topps Finest UFC #161 and #231 on November 7, all carrying Topps' RC designation. Every one of them is catalogued under his legal name, Mauricio Santos, which is why the run reads as empty to anyone searching for Ruffy.
2025 Topps Royalty UFC, branded 2025 but released February 6, 2026, gave him base #90 with an RC marker and his first certified autographs — Rookie Autographs #RA-MS and Rookie Relic Autographs #RRA-MS /99 — alongside a Rookie Jumbo Relic #RJR-MS /99 and dual and triple signed cards /25 shared with Carlos Prates and Jean Silva. He then beat Rafael Fiziev by second-round TKO at UFC 325 on February 1, 2026, and the 200-card 2026 Topps Chrome UFC base set on May 8 carried him at #178 with a Future Stars Autographs #FSA-MS.
After the first-round spinning wheel-kick-and-punches TKO of Michael Chandler at UFC Freedom 250 on June 14, 2026, Topps' 30-card commemorative Freedom 250 set gave him four slots — base #22, the on-set autograph #22-A, Presidential Seal #SO-22 and UFC Dollar #UD-22, all on the same Blue /150 through FoilFractor 1/1 ladder. It is the one Topps product that bills him as Ruffy rather than Santos, which is why it is the part of his catalogue collectors reach first, and why it is so often mistaken for the beginning of it.
Rookie parallels
Sets
Where Ruffy's key cards come from.
- 20252025 Topps Knockout UFC1 key card
- 20252025 Topps Now UFC1 key card
- 20252025 Topps Finest UFC1 key card
- 20252025 Topps Royalty UFC1 key card
- 20262026 Topps UFC Freedom 2501 key card
- 20262026 Topps UFC Freedom 250 Autographs1 key card
- 20262026 Topps UFC Freedom 250 UFC Dollar1 key card
- 20262026 Topps UFC Freedom 250 Presidential Seal (Stamp of Approval)1 key card
Buying & wanted
- 012025 Topps Knockout UFC #18 — his RC-designated rookie card, catalogued under Mauricio Santos
- 022025 Topps Now UFC #8, the 1,630-copy print-to-order card of the Bobby Green knockout — his first card of any kind
- 032025 Topps Royalty UFC Rookie Relic Autographs #RRA-MS /99 or Rookie Autographs #RA-MS — his first certified signatures
- 042026 Topps UFC Freedom 250 #22-A autograph, particularly the low-numbered Gold /50, Orange /25, Black /10 and Red /5 parallels
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×10Probable×3
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.
Mauricio Ruffy's rookie card: 2025 Topps Knockout UFC #18 — Mauricio Ruffy.
Topps printed an RC designation on him and it landed in 2025 Topps Knockout UFC #18, released 24 October 2025: Checklist Insider's checklist for the product prints the base line as '18 Mauricio Santos RC' in a 100-card set that marks rookies throughout. It is easy to miss because of the name — Topps files him as Mauricio Santos rather than Mauricio Ruffy, which SportsCardsPro's catalogue confirms across its UFC products. His first card of any kind is earlier still, the print-to-order 2025 Topps Now UFC #8 from March 2025, but Topps Now issues carry no RC marker, so his earliest card and his rookie are different cards. RC-designated cards of him continue through 2025 Topps Finest UFC #161 and #231 on 7 November 2025 and 2025 Topps Royalty UFC #90 on 6 February 2026, so the Knockout card heads a group rather than standing alone. SportsCardsPro's item-details panel on the later 2026 Topps UFC Freedom 250 #22 page reads 'Is Rookie Card: No', which is consistent: that card is not the rookie.
- 2026 Topps UFC Freedom 250, accessed September 22, 2026
- SportsCardsProMauricio Ruffy #22 — 2026 Topps UFC Freedom 250, accessed September 22, 2026
- SportsCardsPro2026 Topps UFC Freedom 250 set listing (variants excluded), accessed September 22, 2026
- WikipediaMaurício Ruffy, accessed September 22, 2026
- Checklist Insider2025 Topps Knockout UFC Checklist, Set Info, accessed September 22, 2026
- SportsCardsProMauricio Santos catalogue listing — confirms Topps files him under Santos across its UFC products, accessed September 23, 2026
- eBay2025 Topps Now UFC 313 Mauricio Ruffy Santos #8 — item specifics: Set 2025 Topps Now, Card Number 8, Player Mauricio Santos, Event UFC 313, Print Run 1630, accessed September 23, 2026
Ruffy went 8-1 on the Brazilian circuit without a licensed issue of any kind, then knocked out Raimond Magomedaliev on Dana White's Contender Series on October 3, 2023 and signed — just as Panini's UFC licence was running out and months before Topps' first product under the new one. The contract produced no card, and neither did his UFC debut: the 200-card 2024 Topps Chrome UFC checklist had closed on March 20, 2024, seven weeks before he stopped Jamie Mullarkey at UFC 301 for a Performance of the Night bonus. What breaks the pattern is not a checklist but a knockout, and it comes in March 2025.
The single most useful thing to know about collecting him is that Topps does not file him as Ruffy. Every Topps checklist line reads 'Mauricio Santos' — his legal name, Mauricio de Lima Santos, with the Ruffy billing taken from the One Piece protagonist. Searched under Santos, his 2025 is full rather than empty: Topps Now #8 in March, Knockout #18 in October, Finest #161 and #231 in November, and Royalty #90 the following February. Searched under Ruffy, almost none of it appears, which is how a fighter with an RC-designated rookie card ends up described as having none. Two genuine absences survive the correction: the 200-card 2025 Topps Chrome UFC checklist of June 27 and the 100-card 2025 Topps Midnight UFC checklist of August 8 contain no Santos line.
His first card is 2025 Topps Now UFC #8, 'Lands Highlight Reel KO Via Spinning Heel Kick', sold through Topps' print-to-order window after the spinning heel-kick finish of Bobby Green at UFC 313 on March 8, 2025 and closing at 1,630 copies — the whole print run, with no pack version behind it. Topps Now issues carry no RC marker, so the rookie is the next one along: 2025 Topps Knockout UFC #18, released October 24, 2025, whose base line reads 'Mauricio Santos RC' inside a 100-card set that marks rookies throughout. Finest repeated the flag two weeks later across its Uncommon and Rare tiers, and Royalty did it again at base #90 on February 6, 2026 — three RC-marked base cards inside four months of checklists, none of them under the name on his shorts.
His signature first appears in 2025 Topps Royalty UFC: Rookie Autographs #RA-MS and Rookie Relic Autographs #RRA-MS /99, beside a Rookie Jumbo Relic #RJR-MS /99 and dual and triple signed cards numbered to 25 shared with Carlos Prates and Jean Silva. The 2026 Topps UFC Freedom 250 set that followed his first-round knockout of Michael Chandler on June 14, 2026 is his most visible product rather than his earliest — base #22, the autograph #22-A from a 22-card signed checklist, the UFC Dollar insert #UD-22 and Presidential Seal #SO-22, a 20-card insert inside a 30-card set, all on the same ladder from Blue /150 down to a FoilFractor 1/1. Nothing in Freedom 250 carries an RC marker, so the listings calling those four cards his rookies are wrong twice over: wrong about the designation, and fourteen months late.
2025 Topps Knockout UFC #18 — Mauricio Ruffy.
2025 Topps Now UFC #8 — Mauricio Ruffy.
- eBay2025 Topps Now UFC 313 Mauricio Ruffy Santos #8 — item specifics: Set 2025 Topps Now, Card Number 8, Player Mauricio Santos, Event UFC 313, Print Run 1630, accessed September 23, 2026
- eBay2025 Topps Now UFC Mauricio RUFFY Santos signed PSA 10 #8 — second listing carrying the same set, number and name, accessed September 23, 2026
2026 Topps UFC Freedom 250 #22 — Mauricio Ruffy.
2026 Topps UFC Freedom 250 Autographs #22-A — Mauricio Ruffy.
2026 Topps UFC Freedom 250 UFC Dollar #UD-22 — Mauricio Ruffy.
2026 Topps UFC Freedom 250 Presidential Seal (Stamp of Approval) #SO-22 — Mauricio Ruffy.
2025 Topps Finest UFC #161 — Mauricio Ruffy.
2025 Topps Royalty UFC #90 — Mauricio Ruffy.