Review of UFC 56: Full Force

Introduction

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) held their latest event, subtitled "Full Force", at the regular venue of the MGM Grand Casino is Las Vegas, on 19th November 2005. The main event of the evening was for the Middleweight Championship, with champion Rich Franklin taking on Nate Quarry.

Elsewhere on the card, (UFC reality TV show) Ultimate Fighter coach Matt Hughes tangled with Joe Riggs, and the impressive George St. Pierre met Sean Sherk.

Video

Video is presented in 4:3 fullscreen PAL and is excellent. Such is the quality here, I`m inclined to think that perhaps this wasn`t transferred from the television master, but indeed from the original event recording (I also noticed some differences to the original TV broadcast which substantiates this theory).

As with all conversions from made-for-TV NTSC, the image is a little soft, but the fabulously colourful transfer is about as good as could possibly be expected from a sporting event, in fullscreen.

Audio

Audio is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 and is very good for a DVD of this genre. In fact, it is hard to imagine how, considering the source, this could have been any better. The pumped-up crowd do their very best to give this show a big-time atmosphere, which comes across tremendously on DVD.

Commentary is provided by Joe Rogan and Matt Vasgersian, who provide an excellent analysis of what is going on inside the Octagon.

Features

Extras on this disc are comparable with other recent UFC releases. There are pre and post-match interviews, fighter weigh-ins, and footage of the fighters in training. These extras are hardly substantial, but provide an excellent partner to compliment the main feature.

Conclusion

"UFC 56: Full Force" was a good show which in perennial entertainers George St. Pierre, Matt Hughes and Rich Franklin played a huge part.

I am pleased to say that, contrary to the TV version of this show, that the first match of the evening between Nick Thompson and Keith Wisniewski is shown in its entirety here. It`s a good thing because despite relative inexperience in UFC, they delivered a good match.

Frankly, the only match which failed to deliver was the semi-final heavyweight match between Kevin Jordan and Gabriel Gonzala. At one point, referee Herb Dean momentarily stopped the fight, to tell the fighters that if they didn`t start to turn things up, that he would begin deducting points from them. Aside from a big knockout that won the match, they unfortunately took little heed. The crowd were far from impressed, and voiced that disapproval.

That match nearly killed all of the momentum that the previous bouts had had. Fortunately, Rich Franklin (primarily) and Nate Quarry produced the best match of the card in the main event, ending the show on a high note. I was thankful for that, because otherwise the good matches between Hughes and Riggs, St. Pierre and Sherk, and even the long Horn vs Prangley match would`ve been remembered as worse than they actually were.

Overall, this is yet another UFC event which delivered some very good matches, and little dross. Oh how the company has moved on since the mid-90s! If you are a UFC fan, and didn`t manage to check this one out on Bravo, I recommend you take a look. Fans of other contact sports, even boxing, should also give UFC a go. If the UFC is not merely a fad, it will soon overtake boxing as the most-watched combat sport in America.