UFC 55 ‘Fury’ – DVD Review (FightDVD)
By Gary Graham

The show came from the sold out Sun Arena, Uncasville, CT on October 7^th 2005.

UFC 55 on my least favourite PPV’s of 2005, don’t get me wrong this PPV had everything and more for Cage Fighting fans. Just the lack of title matches and seemed that some of the matches were poorly booked and outcomes were predictable.

A loaded card with ‘on paper’ a great looking main event for the UFC Heavyweight Championship.  This was however the only title match on the card.

The card is as follows:

UFC Heavyweight Title
Andrei Arlovski vs. Paul Buentello
Branden Lee Hinkle vs. Sean Gannon
Forrest Griffin vs. Elvis Sinosic
Renato "Babalu" Sobral vs. Chael Sonnen
Joe Riggs vs. Chris Lytle
Jorge Rivera vs. Dennis Hallman
Alessio Sakara vs. Ron Faircloth
Marcia Cruz vs. Keigo Kunihara

Extras:
Fighters cut weight
Fighter autograph session
Fighters choose their gloves
UFC 55 weigh in
Lytle and Riggs prepare to fight
Lytle and Riggs post fight
Babalu and Sonnen prepare to fight
Babalu and Sonnen post fight
Griffin and Sinosic prepare to fight
Griffin and Sinosic post fight
Arlovski and Buentello prepare to fight
Arlovski and Buentello post fight
UFC 55 Fight Highlights (MV)

Onto the DVD, well as always FightDVD have done a great job on presenting the DVD, nice graphical layout and ease to use menu system. (which was just as well as my remote control was on its last legs).

Very nice opening segment on the DVD, with WWE style editing and promo setup.  Several of the fighters in the classic black and white one camera interview poses with the mixture of the roman centurion and backing track of opera helps with a build up of the DVD presentation. 

I am going to get on with the let down of this DVD.  This has to be the main event between Andrei Arlovski and Paul Buentello, on paper and in the pre match build up this fight looked like it could be a thriller in reality it either was a really poor mis-match or Arlovski is going to be one of the most dominating forces in UFC history.  I have seen Andrei Arlovski fight quiet a few times before and he is a beast in the ring, a big man who is lightning fast and deserves to be the UFC champion.  The match starts and finishes in just 15 seconds with a punch that knocked Buentello out cold in what was the only punch of the match.  The crowd chants of Bull Sh**, we pretty unfounded as the punch that landed square on Buentello’s jaw.  The camera did not even catch it and was only shown in the replay from another angle.  It was a great knockout, just there was no fight.  I suppose that’s how it goes in MMA fighting.

One of the matches of the night for me personally has to be Forrest Griffin vs Elvis Sinosic.  Griffin the winner of The Ultimate Fighter series one.  Forrest seemed rather nervous in opening minute of the first round, but slowly his confidence started to grow and some nice punches and kicks by fighters.  Forrest a definite stand up fighter and this match is in his domain.  Both fighters exchanging bombs, all of a sudden Griffin starts swinging and connecting, he rocks Elvis and continues to pummel him until he falls to the floor and Forrest wins by a knockout.  The match never lasted the first round but showed that Forrest is a dangerous man when he is allowed to box. 

All in all UFC 55 ‘Fury’ is a good watch and for UFC fans this is a must DVD to have in your collection.  Many of the matches never got further than the second round and only 1 went to the judges decision.

Product Code: UFCDVD055
Price: £13.99
Approx running time 140 mins