The earliest card
1997 Bandai K-1 Grand Prix #73
The earliest Filipović card anyone offers, and the only one that predates his MMA career: a Japanese Bandai carddass card from the 1997 K-1 Grand Prix series, printed under his early kickboxing name 'Mirko Tigar'. It is his first solo card, four years before he fought Kazuyuki Fujita in August 2001, and copies surface almost exclusively out of Japan.
There is no agreed Cro Cop rookie card. Four different cards are marketed as one: the 1997 Bandai #73 (seller's item specifics read '1st Edition, Rookie'), the 2001 Epoch #SPA-07 (eBay catalogue prints '(RC)'), and both 2010 Topps UFC issues (listing titles read 'RC', while SportsCardsPro's data field says 'No'). No source consulted reports an RC logo printed on any of them.
Listings sell the 2010 Topps UFC (Series 4) #6 Gold/Onyx/Ruby/Diamond and Bronze /88 parallels as 'the rookie' when they are parallels of the same base card. One eBay title bundles '#6 RC 137 115 110 99' as though those were all Cro Cop rookie numbers; #6 is his base card in that set and the rest are other cards in the lot.
Key Filipović cards
12 cards chosen for significance, not completeness; autographs and numbered cards follow below.
Card history
Cro Cop's cardboard begins in Japan and in kickboxing, four years before he took an MMA fight. Bandai's 1997 K-1 Grand Prix carddass series carries him at #73 as a solo card, with dual cards at #121 alongside Jerome Le Banner and #127 alongside Ernesto Hoost — all of them naming him Mirko Tigar rather than Filipović or Cro Cop, which is the usual reason collectors walk past them. The Hoost dual is the best-catalogued card of the series and the practical way to prove the Tigar cards are him.
Epoch took the K-1 licence from Bandai and put him in its 2001 K-1 Grand Prix set at base #108, the same year he debuted in MMA against Kazuyuki Fujita, with a Special-subset card #SPA-07 shared with Peter Aerts. There is no agreed Cro Cop rookie: no card in the run carries a reported RC logo, and four different ones get sold as one — the 1997 Bandai #73, the Epoch #SPA-07, and both 2010 Topps issues. Sources disagree openly, with eBay's catalogue printing '(RC)' beside #SPA-07 and beside 2010 Main Event #43 while SportsCardsPro's rookie field reads 'No' on the 2010 cards.
His only PRIDE-licensed cardboard is a single 2006 product. Dream Stage Entertainment's Pride FC Card Collection, issued the year he won the Open Weight Grand Prix, gives him base #55 — printed on the card as 055 — plus two 'Best Bout of GP' subset cards, #67 opposite Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and #70 opposite Kevin Randleman. PRIDE folded in 2007 and licensed nothing else, so those three cards are the whole official PRIDE output of the fighter most identified with the promotion.
The strangest gap is the UFC one. He headlined UFC 67 in February 2007, yet the 2009 Topps UFC Round 1 and Round 2 checklists — 102 and 150 base cards — omit him entirely, autograph subsets included. Everything then arrives at once in 2010: Main Event #43 and Fight Poster #FPR-UFC70, the 200-card Series 4 (Round 4) set with base #6 and its Gold, Onyx, Ruby and Diamond parallels plus a Bronze /88 and a nickname variation, the Pride and Glory insert where Topps led the fifteen cards with him at #PG-1, Bloodlines #BL-7, and the Tale of the Tape and Ultimate Gear relics. Which of the two 2010 products reached shelves first is unresolved.
December 2010's Topps UFC Knockout holds all of his certified signatures: base #66, Fighter Autographs #A-MC, Autographed Premium Pieces #APP-MC and Autograph Fighter Relic #AFG-MC. He signed almost nothing else for a card company, so that one release is effectively the entire supply. A year later 2011 Topps UFC Moment of Truth, out on 30 November 2011 weeks after the UFC 137 loss that ended the stint, carried him only in the 30-card Mat Relics subset at #MTMR-MC — not in the 220-card base set — and no later licensed issue is confirmed for him..
Autographs
1 certified autograph in the archive.
Card eras
Bandai's 1997 K-1 Grand Prix set is the earliest Filipović cardboard anyone offers: a solo card at #73 plus dual cards with Ernesto Hoost (#127) and Jerome Le Banner (#121), all naming him Mirko Tigar. It is a kickboxing issue printed years before his first MMA bout.
Epoch took over the K-1 licence and put him in the 2001 K-1 Grand Prix set at base #108, with a Special subset card #SPA-07 shared with Peter Aerts that eBay's catalogue tags (RC). This is the run that overlaps his August 2001 MMA debut against Kazuyuki Fujita.
DSE issued the Pride FC Card Collection in 2006, the year he won the Open Weight Grand Prix. He gets base #55 plus two Best Bout of GP cards, #67 with Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and #70 with Kevin Randleman — the only licensed PRIDE cards of a fighter who defined the promotion.
He debuted at UFC 67 in February 2007, but the 2009 Topps UFC Round 1 (102-card base) and Round 2 (150-card base) checklists both omit him entirely — three years of UFC fights with nothing printed.
All of his UFC cardboard lands in one year: Main Event #43, the 200-card 2010 Topps UFC (Series 4) base #6 with Gold, Onyx, Ruby and Diamond parallels, the Pride and Glory insert #PG-1, Bloodlines #BL-7, Knockout base #66 and his first certified autographs in Knockout (#A-MC, #APP-MC, #AFG-MC).
2011 Topps UFC Moment of Truth (30 November 2011) carries him only in the 30-card Mat Relics subset as #MTMR-MC. He fought his last UFC bout of that stint in October 2011 and no later licensed issue turned up in any reachable source.
Sets
Where Filipović's key cards come from.
- 19971997 Bandai K-1 Grand Prix2 key cards
- 20012001 Epoch K-1 Grand Prix1 key card
- 20012001 Epoch K-1 Grand Prix — Special subset1 key card
- 20062006 PRIDE FC3 key cards
- 20102010 Topps UFC Main Event1 key card
- 20102010 Topps UFC (Series 4)1 key card
- 20102010 Topps UFC Series 4 — Pride and Glory1 key card
- 20102010 Topps UFC Knockout — Fighter Autographs1 key card
- 20112011 Topps UFC Moment of Truth — Mat Relics1 key card
Buying & wanted
- 011997 Bandai K-1 Grand Prix #73 'Mirko Tigar' — his earliest card, graded copies barely exist
- 022001 Epoch K-1 Grand Prix Special #SPA-07 Peter Aerts / Mirko Filipović, the card eBay's catalogue calls his RC
- 032006 DSE Pride FC Card Collection #55 in PSA 10 or SGC 10 — the only PRIDE-licensed solo card he has
- 042010 Topps UFC Knockout Fighter Autographs #A-MC, his first certified signature
Nothing from this archive in the vault right now. Selling one?
Sources & research High confidence×6Probable×8
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.
Mirko Filipović's earliest card: 1997 Bandai K-1 Grand Prix #73 — Mirko Filipović.
Filipović has no card carrying an RC logo. His first three card eras are Japanese kickboxing and PRIDE issues, and by the time Topps put him in a UFC-licensed product (2010) he had been fighting professionally for nine years — SportsCardsPro's 'Is Rookie Card' field reads 'No' on both 2010 Topps UFC (Series 4) #6 and 2010 Topps UFC Main Event #43. Under the archive's earliest-card rule the key points at the earliest significant card: 1997 Bandai K-1 Grand Prix #73, his first solo card, issued under his early kickboxing name Mirko Tigar. Two independent eBay listings and an ebay.co.uk catalogue entry establish the set (1997 Bandai K-1 Grand Prix) and that Mirko Tigar is Filipović; #73 itself is confirmed by a single PSA 6 listing, which is why the card's own confidence is 'probable'.
- eBayMirko Tigar (Crocopp) 1997 BANDAI #73 PSA6 K1 Rookie Card, accessed September 22, 2026
- 1997 Bandai K-1 Grand Prix, accessed September 22, 2026
- 2001 Epoch K-1 Grand Prix, accessed September 22, 2026
- SportsCardsProMirko Cro Cop #6 | 2010 Topps UFC, accessed September 22, 2026
- SportsCardsProMirko Cro Cop #43 | 2010 Topps UFC Main Event, accessed September 22, 2026
- NSListsUFC Round 1 (Topps, 2009) checklist, accessed September 21, 2026
- NSListsUFC Round 2 (Topps, 2009) checklist, accessed September 21, 2026
- eBayMirko Tiger rookie card K-1 1997 cro cop MMA, accessed September 22, 2026
Cro Cop's cardboard begins in Japan and in kickboxing, four years before he took an MMA fight. Bandai's 1997 K-1 Grand Prix carddass series carries him at #73 as a solo card, with dual cards at #121 alongside Jerome Le Banner and #127 alongside Ernesto Hoost — all of them naming him Mirko Tigar rather than Filipović or Cro Cop, which is the usual reason collectors walk past them. The Hoost dual is the best-catalogued card of the series and the practical way to prove the Tigar cards are him.
Epoch took the K-1 licence from Bandai and put him in its 2001 K-1 Grand Prix set at base #108, the same year he debuted in MMA against Kazuyuki Fujita, with a Special-subset card #SPA-07 shared with Peter Aerts. There is no agreed Cro Cop rookie: no card in the run carries a reported RC logo, and four different ones get sold as one — the 1997 Bandai #73, the Epoch #SPA-07, and both 2010 Topps issues. Sources disagree openly, with eBay's catalogue printing '(RC)' beside #SPA-07 and beside 2010 Main Event #43 while SportsCardsPro's rookie field reads 'No' on the 2010 cards.
His only PRIDE-licensed cardboard is a single 2006 product. Dream Stage Entertainment's Pride FC Card Collection, issued the year he won the Open Weight Grand Prix, gives him base #55 — printed on the card as 055 — plus two 'Best Bout of GP' subset cards, #67 opposite Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and #70 opposite Kevin Randleman. PRIDE folded in 2007 and licensed nothing else, so those three cards are the whole official PRIDE output of the fighter most identified with the promotion.
The strangest gap is the UFC one. He headlined UFC 67 in February 2007, yet the 2009 Topps UFC Round 1 and Round 2 checklists — 102 and 150 base cards — omit him entirely, autograph subsets included. Everything then arrives at once in 2010: Main Event #43 and Fight Poster #FPR-UFC70, the 200-card Series 4 (Round 4) set with base #6 and its Gold, Onyx, Ruby and Diamond parallels plus a Bronze /88 and a nickname variation, the Pride and Glory insert where Topps led the fifteen cards with him at #PG-1, Bloodlines #BL-7, and the Tale of the Tape and Ultimate Gear relics. Which of the two 2010 products reached shelves first is unresolved.
December 2010's Topps UFC Knockout holds all of his certified signatures: base #66, Fighter Autographs #A-MC, Autographed Premium Pieces #APP-MC and Autograph Fighter Relic #AFG-MC. He signed almost nothing else for a card company, so that one release is effectively the entire supply. A year later 2011 Topps UFC Moment of Truth, out on 30 November 2011 weeks after the UFC 137 loss that ended the stint, carried him only in the 30-card Mat Relics subset at #MTMR-MC — not in the 220-card base set — and no later licensed issue is confirmed for him..
1997 Bandai K-1 Grand Prix #73 — Mirko Filipović.
1997 Bandai K-1 Grand Prix #127 — Mirko Filipović / Ernesto Hoost.
2001 Epoch K-1 Grand Prix #108 — Mirko Filipović.
2001 Epoch K-1 Grand Prix — Special subset #SPA-07 — Mirko Filipović / Peter Aerts.
2010 Topps UFC Main Event #43 — Mirko Filipović.
2010 Topps UFC Series 4 — Pride and Glory #PG-1 — Mirko Filipović.
2010 Topps UFC Knockout — Fighter Autographs #A-MC — Mirko Filipović.
2011 Topps UFC Moment of Truth — Mat Relics #MTMR-MC — Mirko Filipović.