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True rookie
2010 Topps UFC Main Event #144 Urijah Faber — front
#144
Rookie card guide

Urijah Faber
Rookie Card

Which card is the rookie, how to tell it, and what gets mistaken for it.

  • The answer2010 Topps UFC Main Event #144
  • SubjectUrijah Faber
  • Year2010
  • ManufacturerTopps
  • ConfidenceHigh confidence
  • Print runUnknown — not estimated
High confidence×2Uncertain×1View sources & research

Why this is the rookie

Faber's first card sits in the WEC Fighter subset of 2010 Topps UFC Main Event, which is why his rookie predates his UFC debut by a year. The designation no longer rests on listing titles alone: Collectibles.com's card register carries the card as '#144 RC' and dates his rookie season to 2010, and eBay's catalogue entry names the same card and subset. Nothing earlier exists — Jeff Allender's checklist for the 2010 Topps UFC flagship has no Faber, and neither does the 2010 Leaf MMA base list.

Faber's earliest confirmed trading card, and the reason he is a Topps-WEC case rather than a Topps-UFC one. Main Event was Topps' third UFC product and the first to carry a block of WEC fighters; Faber lands in that WEC Fighter run at #144, roughly a year before he ever fought in the Octagon and two years after he had already lost the WEC featherweight title. He is absent from the 200-card 2010 Topps UFC Series 4 (Round 4) checklist, so there is nothing of his from between his 2003 pro debut and this card.

Commonly misidentified

Sellers sometimes describe the 2011 Finest UFC #32 as a 'Finest Debut' card and price it as a rookie; the checklist shows it as a plain base card. Gold and Red parallels of the 2011 base cards are also listed as 'the rookie' — they are parallels.

Identifying it

  • Base-set card #144, catalogued under the 'WEC Fighter' subset heading — the first block of WEC fighters in any Topps UFC product
  • Collectibles.com's register carries it as '2010 Topps UFC Main Event #144 RC Urijah Faber'
  • Shown as a WEC fighter, not a UFC fighter — he had no UFC bout until UFC 128 in March 2011
  • eBay pick-lists for this product simply read '#144 Urijah Faber'; the WEC/RC wording appears only on the catalogue entry

What gets mistaken for it

What you'll readWhat's true
Faber's rookie is a 2011 Topps UFC card, because that is when he joined the UFC.Topps had already put him in the 2010 Main Event base set as a WEC fighter at #144, more than a year before UFC 128.
Faber is in 2010 Topps UFC Series 4 / Round 4.Jeff Allender's full Round 4 checklist has no Faber card at all — that set ran 200 base cards of UFC fighters and personalities.

Card milestones

Five separate questions, kept separate. How these are defined.

The evidence behind each
  • 2010Earliest licensed card — Collectibles.com's register carries the card as '2010 Topps UFC Main Event #144 RC Urijah Faber', and eBay's catalogue page titles it '2010 Topps UFC Main Event - WEC Fighter Urijah Faber #144 (RC)' with WEC Fighter recorded as the subset in its item specifics. Jeff Allender's complete checklist for the 2010 Topps UFC flagship has no Faber card, and no Faber row appears in SportsCardsPro's 2010 Leaf MMA base list, so nothing earlier competes with it.
  • 2010First MMA card — Collectibles.com's register shows 2010 as his earliest year in any category.
  • 2010First UFC card — eBay's catalogue page records the set as 2010 Topps UFC Main Event, league UFC, subset WEC Fighter. If the archive prefers to reserve this milestone for a card showing him as a UFC fighter, that card is 2011 Topps UFC Title Shot #60.
  • 2010First certified autograph — Jeff Allender's 2010 Topps UFC Knockout checklist carries A-UF and a Red Ink version, and SportsCardsPro has the card. Whether 2010 Topps UFC Main Event's autograph checklist, which is ten months earlier, also contains Faber could not be established, so an earlier signature is not ruled out.
  • 2010Recognized rookie card — Collectibles.com's register lists it as '#144 RC' and dates his rookie season to 2010; eBay's catalogue independently titles the same card '(RC)'.

Grading & population

Population figures will be taken directly from the grading companies and dated when they are. None are shown yet.

Sources & research High confidence×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.

High confidence

Urijah Faber's rookie card: 2010 Topps UFC Main Event #144 — Urijah Faber.

It is the earliest Faber card confirmed by two independent sources, and it sits in a UFC-licensed Topps base set. eBay's catalogue entry titles it '2010 Topps UFC Main Event - WEC Fighter Urijah Faber #144 (RC)' and describes it as part of the base set's rookie subset. Jeff Allender's complete checklist for 2010 Topps UFC Round 4 (Series 4) has no Faber card, and no Faber row was found in SportsCardsPro's 100-card 2010 Leaf MMA base list, so nothing earlier in the Topps or Leaf 2010 wave competes with it. The counterweight is SportsCardsPro, whose rookie field for #144 reads 'No'.

High confidence

2010 Topps UFC Main Event #144 — Urijah Faber.

Uncertain

Rookie status only. eBay's catalogue calls it (RC); SportsCardsPro's rookie field says No. The card's year, set and number agree across both sources.

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