Ilia Topuria 2022 Panini Instant UFC #147: the Bryce Mitchell submission, the base card and its parallels
Card #147 of 2022 Panini Instant UFC is the card of Ilia Topuria's submission of Bryce Mitchell at UFC 282, the fight that closed his rookie year, printed to order. We have catalogued 4 versions, from the 91-copy base to the Black 1/1; 3 have a photo of the actual copy.
The fight behind #147: UFC 282 against Bryce Mitchell
Card #147 tells of Ilia Topuria's win over Bryce Mitchell on 10 December 2022 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas: a submission in the second round, at 3:10, in a featherweight bout at UFC 282, per the official UFC event page.
The hold was an arm-triangle choke, as the back of his 2023 Metal Universe Z-Force #Z-31 tells it, also giving the 13-0 record it left him with.
Front, landscape: Ilia Topuria with his arms spread by the fence, in red shorts bearing his surname, a Modelo beer banner behind; the title “Topuria submits Mitchell in the Second Round” running vertically, “Saturday, December 10”, the UFC 282 logo and the RC logo. Per the photo of our copy.
Back: “No. 147”, the date “12/10/22”, another photo of the celebration, “Featherweight”, the UFC 282 logo and the line “1 of 91”. No text.
91 copies: the base of his shortest Instant card
Panini Instant is made to order: it is sold on Panini's website for a few days after the event, usually a week, and the print run on the back is what was ordered, per Beckett (a secondary source, archived copy).
91 copies of the base, per the back of our copy, against 394 for his #23 of the Jai Herbert KO: less than a quarter as many were printed for his second fight of the year.
Beckett does not list it: its archived checklist does not reach December 2022, so the print run comes from the back.
Bryce Mitchell had his own Instant card that year, #19 (“‘Thug Nasty’ Dominates in Unanimous Decision Win”), with 107 copies, per the same source.
The #147 ladder
Base: the 91 print run, printed on the back.
Bronze /50: our copy reads “50 of 50”, the last copy.
Versicolor /5: no real photo yet; its card page shows an AI recreation, labelled as such.
Black 1/1.
The print runs add up to 147 copies, the same as the card number.
What gets mixed up
“1 of 91” is not the copy's number: on the Panini Instant base that line is the print run. On the parallels, by contrast, the same format does number the copy, like the “50 of 50” on our Bronze.
Here the back's “Featherweight” matches the fight; on the #23 it does not, because that one was at lightweight.
It carries the RC logo, but print-to-order cards fall outside the classic rookie-card definition; Ilia Topuria rookie cards explains it.