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Michael Bisping

Bisping fought for a decade before he had a card: Topps' first UFC licence in 2009 is where his cardboard starts, and it starts twice in the same year. Round 1 #42 is a shared 'UFC Debut' card with Josh Haynes from the TUF 3 Finale, and Round 2 #43 seven months later is his first solo card — both get sold as the rookie, which is the argument worth knowing before you buy one. He also signed for Round 1, so unlike several of his 2009 classmates his first autograph is same-year, and the Red Ink /25 version of it is the hardest Bisping card there is.

2009Rookie year
#42Rookie card
12Key cards
  • UFC debutJune 24, 2006 · The Ultimate Fighter 3 Finale
  • DivisionsLight Heavyweight · Middleweight
  • FromNicosia, Cyprus
Rookie card#42
01

The rookie case

#42
Rookie card · working pick Rookie disputed

2009 Topps UFC Round 1 #42

Bisping's first card of any kind, in Topps' first UFC-licensed product. Like the rest of the Round 1 base run it is a 'UFC Debut' card, so it commemorates the TUF 3 Finale on 24 June 2006 where he stopped Josh Haynes to win the light heavyweight tournament — the fight that started the whole career. It is the card most of the market treats as his rookie, though it shares the front with Haynes.

Where sources disagree

Sellers apply 'RC' to both 2009 Topps UFC Round 1 #42 and 2009 Topps UFC Round 2 #43, and some collectors prefer #43 because #42 is a shared card with Josh Haynes. SportsCardsPro's structured 'Rookie Card' field reads 'No' for both, which is the same behaviour that site shows for other 2009 Topps UFC subjects, so it is not evidence against rookie status so much as evidence that the set was never given a formal RC designation. Beckett, which would normally settle this, is down site-wide and TCDB is not reachable this research, so no RC-flag database was consulted.

Commonly misidentified

The Silver /288 and Gold parallels of #42 get listed as 'the rookie card' without the parallel name; the base card is unnumbered. Listings also sometimes call the Victorious Debuts #VD11 Gold /88 a rookie card — it is an insert.

High confidence×1View sources & research
Rookie card case Card record
02

Key Bisping cards

12 cards chosen for significance, not completeness; autographs and numbered cards follow below.

2009 Topps UFC Round 1 Victorious Debuts #VD11
2009 Topps UFC Round 2 #43
2010 Topps UFC (Series 4) #15
2011 Topps UFC Moment of Truth #131
03

Card history

Bisping fought for five years before a card of him existed, because nothing before Topps' first UFC licence covered him — his cardboard starts in 2009, and it starts twice in the same year. Round 1, in February, built its base run as 'UFC Debut' cards pairing each fighter with his debut opponent, so Bisping's #42 is shared with Josh Haynes and commemorates the TUF 3 Finale of 24 June 2006. Round 2 followed in the autumn with #43, his first solo card. Both are sold as the rookie, which is the argument worth knowing before buying one.

Round 1 is the earlier card and the usual pick; the case for #43 is simply that it has him on it alone. Sources do not settle it — eBay catalogue titles and grader labels read 'RC' on both, while SportsCardsPro's rookie field reads 'No' on every 2009 Topps UFC Bisping card, which looks like the set never carrying a formal designation rather than a judgement on either. Two things to watch in listings: the Silver /288 and Gold versions of #42 get sold as 'the rookie' when the base card is unnumbered, and the Gold is often described as limited to 432 despite carrying no serial number at all. The /188 parallel of #43 is confusing in a different way, catalogued as Silver on one page and Onyx on another.

Unlike several of his 2009 classmates he signed in his rookie year: Round 1 Autographs #AMB came in the same product as the base card, with a Red Ink parallel capped at 25 that remains the scarcest Bisping card of the run. The same set also gave him the 40-card Victorious Debuts insert #VD11, whose Gold /88 is the graded chase, and which sellers sometimes mislabel as a rookie card. 2010's flagship — the set the market still calls Series 4 — carried him at base #15 with a Bronze /88, and the companion Fighter Autographs #FA-MB is the accessible early signature for anyone who cannot land the Red Ink.

The Topps middle years run deep while he was the promotion's biggest British draw. Moment of Truth #131 shipped alongside his TUF 14 coaching stint opposite Jason Miller, and that set is the one to mine for his British-event cards — it carries a Collision Course card pairing him with Miller and a Fight Poster card for the UFC 89 knockout of Chris Leben in Birmingham. The card actually chased from the stretch is 2012 Bloodlines' International Airmail Stamps #IA-MB, a British-stamp treatment numbered to 50 and the scarcest non-autograph Bisping card. 2015 Champions then put him in Scarlet Signatures #SSI-MB /25 — a set called Champions, a year before he was one — and 2016 Knockout added a Fight Mat Relic #FMR-MB /188 with Gold /88 and Ruby /8 tiers, though nothing ties the swatch to UFC 199 specifically.

Under Panini he became a retired-legend autograph subject rather than a base-set fighter: Chronicles UFC Flux Autographs #FA-MBS, Immaculate Moments Autographs #MO-MBS, Select Signatures #SG-MBP and Prizm Legendary Signatures #LS-MBS, the last of which turns up dated both 2022 and 2023 in listings and exists in Green, Mojo /25 and other finishes under the same code. Topps' return in 2024 finally marked the July 2019 Hall of Fame induction: Chrome UFC put him back in a Topps base set at #13, with Embedded #EMB-7 and 1954 Topps #FFT-13 inserts, and gave him a Hall of Fame Autograph #HFA-MBI stepping through /150, /50, /25, /10, /5 and a Superfractor 1/1 — the only Bisping card with a confirmed one-of-one tier.

Sources for every paragraph

04

Autographs

5 certified autographs in the archive.

2009Topps UFC Round 1 Autographs #AMB Auto
2010Topps UFC Autographs #FA-MB Auto
2015Topps UFC Champions Scarlet Signatures #SSI-MB Auto/25
2023Panini Prizm UFC Legendary Signatures #LS-MBS Auto
2024Topps Chrome UFC Hall of Fame Autographs #HFA-MBI Auto
05

Numbered & parallels

Serial-numbered cards and parallels with their own record.

2012Topps UFC Bloodlines International Airmail Stamps #IA-MB /50
2016Topps UFC Knockout Fight Mat Relics #FMR-MB Relic/188
06

Card eras

2009
Topps licence, rookie year

Round 1 (February) gave him base #42 with Josh Haynes, the Victorious Debuts insert #VD11 and — unusually for a 2009 subject — an autograph, #AMB, with a Red Ink /25 parallel. Round 2 (autumn) added his first solo base card, #43.

2010
Flagship Topps UFC

2010 Topps UFC, the set collectors still call Series 4, carries him at #15 with a Bronze /88 parallel, and the companion 2010 Topps UFC Autographs set gave him #FA-MB. Main Event and Knockout ran parallel checklists the same year.

2011–2013
The deep Topps middle

Moment of Truth #131, Title Shot #49, Finest and Bloodlines all carried him while he was the UFC's biggest British draw. The one collectors actually chase from this stretch is the 2012 Bloodlines International Airmail Stamps insert #IA-MB, numbered to 50, which uses a British-stamp motif.

2015–2016
Champion

He beat Luke Rockhold at UFC 199 on 4 June 2016 to become the first British UFC champion. Topps had already put him in Champions Scarlet Signatures #SSI-MB /25 in 2015; 2016 Knockout added a Fight Mat Relic #FMR-MB /188 with Gold /88 and Ruby /8 tiers.

2021–2023
Panini's legend slot

With Panini holding the licence Bisping became a retired-legend autograph subject: Chronicles UFC Flux Autographs #FA-MBS, Immaculate Moments Autographs #MO-MBS, Prizm Legendary Signatures #LS-MBS and Select Signatures #SG-MBP.

2024
Topps returns, Hall of Famer

2024 Topps Chrome UFC put him back in a Topps base set at #13 and gave him a Hall of Fame Autograph, #HFA-MBI, refractor-tiered from /150 down to a one-of-one Superfractor — the card that finally marks the 2019 induction.

07

Rookie parallels

Base
—
Unnumbered
Silver
/288
High confidence
Gold
—
Probable
Red
/1
Uncertain
08

Sets

Where Bisping's key cards come from.

09

Buying & wanted

Wanted by FightCardboard
  • 012009 Topps UFC Round 1 Autographs #AMB Red Ink /25 — his scarcest signature and a same-year rookie auto
  • 022009 Topps UFC Round 1 #42 Silver /288, the serial-numbered version of the debut/rookie card
  • 032009 Topps UFC Round 1 Victorious Debuts Gold #VD11 /88
  • 042012 Topps UFC Bloodlines International Airmail Stamps #IA-MB /50 — the British-stamp insert

Offer one

Available here

Nothing from this archive in the vault right now. Selling one?

Sources & research High confidence×14Probable×4

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.

High confidence

Michael Bisping's rookie card: 2009 Topps UFC Round 1 #42 — Michael Bisping / Josh Haynes.

2009 Topps UFC Round 1 is Topps' first UFC-licensed product and the first set of any kind to carry Bisping. Card #42 is his entry in Round 1's 'UFC Debut' base run, sharing the card with Josh Haynes because Bisping's UFC debut was the TUF 3 Finale win over Haynes on 24 June 2006. Sellers and graders list it as a rookie card — the eBay listings for the base and the Gold parallel both read 'Rookie Card' — and it predates Round 2 by roughly seven months, Round 1 having shipped in February 2009 and Round 2 in the autumn.

High confidence

Bisping fought for five years before a card of him existed, because nothing before Topps' first UFC licence covered him — his cardboard starts in 2009, and it starts twice in the same year. Round 1, in February, built its base run as 'UFC Debut' cards pairing each fighter with his debut opponent, so Bisping's #42 is shared with Josh Haynes and commemorates the TUF 3 Finale of 24 June 2006. Round 2 followed in the autumn with #43, his first solo card. Both are sold as the rookie, which is the argument worth knowing before buying one.

High confidence

Round 1 is the earlier card and the usual pick; the case for #43 is simply that it has him on it alone. Sources do not settle it — eBay catalogue titles and grader labels read 'RC' on both, while SportsCardsPro's rookie field reads 'No' on every 2009 Topps UFC Bisping card, which looks like the set never carrying a formal designation rather than a judgement on either. Two things to watch in listings: the Silver /288 and Gold versions of #42 get sold as 'the rookie' when the base card is unnumbered, and the Gold is often described as limited to 432 despite carrying no serial number at all. The /188 parallel of #43 is confusing in a different way, catalogued as Silver on one page and Onyx on another.

High confidence

Unlike several of his 2009 classmates he signed in his rookie year: Round 1 Autographs #AMB came in the same product as the base card, with a Red Ink parallel capped at 25 that remains the scarcest Bisping card of the run. The same set also gave him the 40-card Victorious Debuts insert #VD11, whose Gold /88 is the graded chase, and which sellers sometimes mislabel as a rookie card. 2010's flagship — the set the market still calls Series 4 — carried him at base #15 with a Bronze /88, and the companion Fighter Autographs #FA-MB is the accessible early signature for anyone who cannot land the Red Ink.

High confidence

The Topps middle years run deep while he was the promotion's biggest British draw. Moment of Truth #131 shipped alongside his TUF 14 coaching stint opposite Jason Miller, and that set is the one to mine for his British-event cards — it carries a Collision Course card pairing him with Miller and a Fight Poster card for the UFC 89 knockout of Chris Leben in Birmingham. The card actually chased from the stretch is 2012 Bloodlines' International Airmail Stamps #IA-MB, a British-stamp treatment numbered to 50 and the scarcest non-autograph Bisping card. 2015 Champions then put him in Scarlet Signatures #SSI-MB /25 — a set called Champions, a year before he was one — and 2016 Knockout added a Fight Mat Relic #FMR-MB /188 with Gold /88 and Ruby /8 tiers, though nothing ties the swatch to UFC 199 specifically.

High confidence

Under Panini he became a retired-legend autograph subject rather than a base-set fighter: Chronicles UFC Flux Autographs #FA-MBS, Immaculate Moments Autographs #MO-MBS, Select Signatures #SG-MBP and Prizm Legendary Signatures #LS-MBS, the last of which turns up dated both 2022 and 2023 in listings and exists in Green, Mojo /25 and other finishes under the same code. Topps' return in 2024 finally marked the July 2019 Hall of Fame induction: Chrome UFC put him back in a Topps base set at #13, with Embedded #EMB-7 and 1954 Topps #FFT-13 inserts, and gave him a Hall of Fame Autograph #HFA-MBI stepping through /150, /50, /25, /10, /5 and a Superfractor 1/1 — the only Bisping card with a confirmed one-of-one tier.

High confidence

2009 Topps UFC Round 1 #42 — Michael Bisping / Josh Haynes.

High confidence

2009 Topps UFC Round 1 Autographs #AMB — Michael Bisping.

High confidence

2009 Topps UFC Round 1 Victorious Debuts #VD11 — Michael Bisping.

High confidence

2009 Topps UFC Round 2 #43 — Michael Bisping.

High confidence

2010 Topps UFC (Series 4) #15 — Michael Bisping.

Probable

2010 Topps UFC Autographs #FA-MB — Michael Bisping.

High confidence

2011 Topps UFC Moment of Truth #131 — Michael Bisping.

Probable

2012 Topps UFC Bloodlines International Airmail Stamps #IA-MB — Michael Bisping.

Probable

2015 Topps UFC Champions Scarlet Signatures #SSI-MB — Michael Bisping.

High confidence

2016 Topps UFC Knockout Fight Mat Relics #FMR-MB — Michael Bisping.

Probable

2023 Panini Prizm UFC Legendary Signatures #LS-MBS — Michael Bisping.

High confidence

2024 Topps Chrome UFC Hall of Fame Autographs #HFA-MBI — Michael Bisping.