Visibly refreshed and patently raring to go, Robert Whittaker represents a clear and obvious danger to Darren Till in Abu Dhabi come Sunday.
The New Zealand-born Australian has not competed since losing his UFC middleweight title to Israel Adesanya last October, a knockout defeat that seemingly knocked the stuffing out of him.
A first loss in more than five years prompted Whittaker to take a step back from the sport. Label it burnout or simply falling out of love for the game, one of the promotion’s top talents needed time away, at age 29.
However, he cut a calm and confident figure at the W Abu Dhabi – Yas Island on Tuesday, not long before he runs into the menacing Till at the headline bout at UFC Fight Night 3. Hugely anticipated, it brings down the curtain on the inaugural, four-event Fight Island.
Looking to begin his own new chapter, Whittaker laughed and joked his way through the pre-fight media briefing, yet there was a focus there, too. The intervening period between UFC outings could just have made an already gifted combatant even more of threat.
“I’d like to think I was always dangerous,” Whittaker said. “I’m just happy. I’m alive again; the fire for the sport has been lit. I’m enjoying all the different angles: media week, the weight cut, my time in isolation. That’s a massive change.
“Feeling this way means I’m going to go in that octagon happy as Larry, and I’m just going to get to work, have fun. Because that’s what drew me to the sport, was what I enjoyed about the sport – the combat aspect of the game. Can’t wait until Sunday.”
Whittaker was supposed to return in March, against Jared Cannonier at UFC 248, but withdrew two months out for undisclosed reasons. Of course, it later transpired that it wasn’t through injury, but a different kind of fatigue.
Thankfully, that mental wariness has melted away.
“It feels good; it feels really good,” Whittaker said. “I’ve been hungry. That break I had was exactly what I needed. It brought the adrenaline and the happiness back in what I do.
“A lot of people don’t realise, the fight itself is 15-25 minutes. It’s every other day. It’s the training, every hour you spend in the gym, that’s the rest of your life. And that’s what I had to come to grips with, that’s what I had to enjoy again. And having that break, being away from the game and the training and the gyms, it reinvigorated me.”
The downtime has no doubt been good. Whittaker (20-5 in mixed martial arts) has made “significant progress” in his online gaming and bench-pressed a new personal best. As a father of three, much joy has been found as well in spending the time with family, doing "the little things” like taking the kids to daycare, or making them peanut-butter sandwiches. He calls it the “silver lining of this whole pandemic”.
The pandemic means no fans will attend the Flash Forum on Sunday. After the clash against Adesanya, and the hype that contest generated – it played out in front of 57,000-plus at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne – Whittaker says he won’t mind at all.
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Mounir Lazzez makes UFC take notice
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“That doesn’t bother me too much,” he said. “I’m just happy to be fighting overseas. I’ve fought a lot in Australia, and I love fighting there, all my fans and friends are there.
“But I’ve done it a lot and there’s a lot of things that surround it, a lot of media obligations, a lot of hype building, and nothing gets bigger than my last fight. Then the weight came crashing down.
“A huge draw for me with this career is I got to travel the world. For work, I got to visit exciting places, I got to fight in front of so many different crowds, I got to experience a side of life people can’t.
“And granted it’s a little restricted right now, but it’s really good. This is why I signed up; I wanted to come to places like Abu Dhabi.”
Get past Till, then the title talk, and a rematch with Adesanya, will surely amp up once more. Whittaker goes into Sunday's comeback as the division’s No 1-ranked challenger.
'Should be a cracker'
“People view me as a top contender because I am a top contender,” he said. “I’m one of the best in the world. I’m still only 29; I think a lot of people forget that as well. So I have enough time to walk away from the game and just train skill sets and come back at a later time.
“Honestly, where I’m sitting, the world is my oyster. And the biggest thing is I just want to enjoy it and earn a living. And as a team and a family we’re doing it together. So got to be happy with that.”
Although, Till is sure to thrive on the challenge. The No 5 middleweight (18-2-1 in MMA) appears on the rise, prevailing on his move up in class last November, when he took a split-decision win against Kelvin Gastelum. And, in typical fight bravado, he’s apparently hitting harder than ever.
“Should be a cracker,” Whittaker said. “We’re both going to go out there, going to headhunt – should be fun. He goes out there headhunting, he’s got good striking; I go out there headhunting, I got good striking. It just looks a fun fight.
“The biggest threat is his left hand. My biggest threat is I’ve so many angles he’s got to be aware of. I’m so creative. He’s got his left hand, that’s all he’s got.”
Even so, the build-up has been largely cordial, with the pair trading friendly jibes in public ever since the fight, initially slated for Dublin next month, was booked.
Till, 27, has become something of a social-media sensation, which Whittaker has evidently enjoyed. In April, he called on his English rival to join him in gorging simply on “chips and dips” until they met on fight night.
That said, the playful back-and-forth stops now.
“I was in the gym when I wrote that,” Whittaker said. “I don’t trust him and he doesn’t trust me. As cordial as it’s been – and it’s good to be like that, because you should be; we should set role models for other people – I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him.
“After he said ‘chips and dips’ I trained twice as hard. And I hope he didn’t train, because I trained my absolute arse off. I’m coming to come in there very, very good.”
Desert Warrior
Starring: Anthony Mackie, Aiysha Hart, Ben Kingsley
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Rating: 3/5
WTL%20SCHEDULE
%3Cp%3EDECEMBER%2019%20(6pm)%0D%3Cbr%3EKites%20v%20Eagles%0D%3Cbr%3EAliassime%20v%20Kyrgios%0D%3Cbr%3ESwiatek%20v%20Garcia%0D%3Cbr%3EEntertainment%3A%20Tiesto%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EDECEMBER%2020%20(6pm)%0D%3Cbr%3EFalcons%20v%20Hawks%0D%3Cbr%3EDjokovic%20v%20Zverev%0D%3Cbr%3ESabalenka%20v%20Rybakina%0D%3Cbr%3EEntertainment%3A%20Wizkid%0D%3Cbr%3E%0D%3Cbr%3EDECEMBER%2021%20(6pm)%0D%3Cbr%3EFalcons%20v%20Eagles%0D%3Cbr%3EDjokovic%20v%20Kyrgios%0D%3Cbr%3EBadosa%20v%20Garcia%0D%3Cbr%3EEntertainment%3A%20Ne-Yo%0D%3Cbr%3E%0D%3Cbr%3EDECEMBER%2022%20(6pm)%0D%3Cbr%3EHawks%20v%20Kites%0D%3Cbr%3EThiem%20v%20Aliassime%0D%3Cbr%3EKontaveit%20v%20Swiatek%0D%3Cbr%3EEntertainment%3A%20deadmau5%0D%3Cbr%3E%0D%3Cbr%3EDECEMBER%2023%20(2pm)%0D%3Cbr%3EEagles%20v%20Hawks%0D%3Cbr%3EKyrgios%20v%20Zverev%0D%3Cbr%3EGarcia%20v%20Rybakina%0D%3Cbr%3EEntertainment%3A%20Mohammed%20Ramadan%0D%3Cbr%3E%0D%3Cbr%3EDECEMBER%2023%20(6pm)%0D%3Cbr%3EFalcons%20v%20Kites%0D%3Cbr%3EDjokovic%20v%20Aliassime%0D%3Cbr%3ESabalenka%20v%20Swiatek%0D%3Cbr%3EEntertainment%3A%20Mohammed%20Ramadan%0D%3Cbr%3E%0D%3Cbr%3EDECEMBER%2024%20(6pm)%0D%3Cbr%3EFinals%0D%3Cbr%3EEntertainment%3A%20Armin%20Van%20Buuren%0D%3Cbr%3E%0D%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Email sent to Uber team from chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi
From: Dara
To: Team@
Date: March 25, 2019 at 11:45pm PT
Subj: Accelerating in the Middle East
Five years ago, Uber launched in the Middle East. It was the start of an incredible journey, with millions of riders and drivers finding new ways to move and work in a dynamic region that’s become so important to Uber. Now Pakistan is one of our fastest-growing markets in the world, women are driving with Uber across Saudi Arabia, and we chose Cairo to launch our first Uber Bus product late last year.
Today we are taking the next step in this journey—well, it’s more like a leap, and a big one: in a few minutes, we’ll announce that we’ve agreed to acquire Careem. Importantly, we intend to operate Careem independently, under the leadership of co-founder and current CEO Mudassir Sheikha. I’ve gotten to know both co-founders, Mudassir and Magnus Olsson, and what they have built is truly extraordinary. They are first-class entrepreneurs who share our platform vision and, like us, have launched a wide range of products—from digital payments to food delivery—to serve consumers.
I expect many of you will ask how we arrived at this structure, meaning allowing Careem to maintain an independent brand and operate separately. After careful consideration, we decided that this framework has the advantage of letting us build new products and try new ideas across not one, but two, strong brands, with strong operators within each. Over time, by integrating parts of our networks, we can operate more efficiently, achieve even lower wait times, expand new products like high-capacity vehicles and payments, and quicken the already remarkable pace of innovation in the region.
This acquisition is subject to regulatory approval in various countries, which we don’t expect before Q1 2020. Until then, nothing changes. And since both companies will continue to largely operate separately after the acquisition, very little will change in either teams’ day-to-day operations post-close. Today’s news is a testament to the incredible business our team has worked so hard to build.
It’s a great day for the Middle East, for the region’s thriving tech sector, for Careem, and for Uber.
Uber on,
Dara
BUNDESLIGA FIXTURES
Friday (UAE kick-off times)
Borussia Dortmund v Paderborn (11.30pm)
Saturday
Bayer Leverkusen v SC Freiburg (6.30pm)
Werder Bremen v Schalke (6.30pm)
Union Berlin v Borussia Monchengladbach (6.30pm)
Eintracht Frankfurt v Wolfsburg (6.30pm)
Fortuna Dusseldof v Bayern Munich (6.30pm)
RB Leipzig v Cologne (9.30pm)
Sunday
Augsburg v Hertha Berlin (6.30pm)
Hoffenheim v Mainz (9pm)
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Ms Yang's top tips for parents new to the UAE
- Join parent networks
- Look beyond school fees
- Keep an open mind
Al Jazira's foreign quartet for 2017/18
Romarinho, Brazil
Lassana Diarra, France
Sardor Rashidov, Uzbekistan
Mbark Boussoufa, Morocco
The Perfect Couple
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber, Jack Reynor
Creator: Jenna Lamia
Rating: 3/5
Fourth-round clashes for British players
- Andy Murray (1) v Benoit Paire, Centre Court (not before 4pm)
- Johanna Konta (6) v Caroline Garcia (21), Court 1 (4pm)
NBA FINALS SO FAR
(Toronto lead 3-2 in best-of-seven series)
Game 1 Raptors 118 Warriors 109
Game 2 Raptors 104 Warriors 109
Game 3 Warriors 109 Raptors 123
Game 4 Warriors 92 Raptors 105
Game 5 Raptors 105 Warriors 106
Game 6 Thursday, at Oakland
Game 7 Sunday, at Toronto (if needed)
MATCH INFO
Syria v Australia
2018 World Cup qualifying: Asia fourth round play-off first leg
Venue: Hang Jebat Stadium (Malacca, Malayisa)
Kick-off: Thursday, 4.30pm (UAE)
Watch: beIN Sports HD
* Second leg in Australia scheduled for October 10
Pakistan squad
Sarfraz (c), Zaman, Imam, Masood, Azam, Malik, Asif, Sohail, Shadab, Nawaz, Ashraf, Hasan, Amir, Junaid, Shinwari and Afridi
Roger Federer's 2018 record
Australian Open Champion
Rotterdam Champion
Indian Wells Runner-up
Miami Second round
Stuttgart Champion
Halle Runner-up
Wimbledon Quarter-finals
Cincinnati Runner-up
US Open Fourth round
Shanghai Semi-finals
Basel Champion
Paris Masters Semi-finals
Famous left-handers
- Marie Curie
- Jimi Hendrix
- Leonardo Di Vinci
- David Bowie
- Paul McCartney
- Albert Einstein
- Jack the Ripper
- Barack Obama
- Helen Keller
- Joan of Arc
Other promotions
- Deliveroo will team up with Pineapple Express to offer customers near JLT a special treat: free banana caramel dessert with all orders on January 26
- Jones the Grocer will have their limited edition Australia Day menu available until the end of the month (January 31)
- Australian Vet in Abu Dhabi (with locations in Khalifa City A and Reem Island) will have a 15 per cent off all store items (excluding medications)
Results
4pm: Al Bastakiya – Listed (TB) $150,000 (Dirt) 1,900m; Winner: Panadol, Mickael Barzalona (jockey), Salem bin Ghadayer (trainer)
4.35pm: Dubai City Of Gold – Group 2 (TB) $228,000 (Turf) 2,410m; Winner: Walton Street, William Buick, Charlie Appleby
5.10pm: Mahab Al Shimaal – Group 3 (TB) $228,000 (D) 1,200m; Winner: Canvassed, Pat Dobbs, Doug Watson
5.45pm: Burj Nahaar – Group 3 (TB) $228,000 (D) 1,600m; Winner: Midnight Sands, Pat Dobbs, Doug Watson
6.20pm: Jebel Hatta – Group 1 (TB) $260,000 (T) 1,800m; Winner: Lord Glitters, Daniel Tudhope, David O’Meara
6.55pm: Al Maktoum Challenge Round-1 – Group 1 (TB) $390,000 (D) 2,000m; Winner: Salute The Soldier, Adrie de Vries, Fawzi Nass
7.30pm: Nad Al Sheba – Group 3 (TB) $228,000 (T) 1,200m; Winner: Final Song, Frankie Dettori, Saeed bin Suroor
Key findings of Jenkins report
- Founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al Banna, "accepted the political utility of violence"
- Views of key Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, Sayyid Qutb, have “consistently been understood” as permitting “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” and “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
- Muslim Brotherhood at all levels has repeatedly defended Hamas attacks against Israel, including the use of suicide bombers and the killing of civilians.
- Laying out the report in the House of Commons, David Cameron told MPs: "The main findings of the review support the conclusion that membership of, association with, or influence by the Muslim Brotherhood should be considered as a possible indicator of extremism."
About Proto21
Date started: May 2018
Founder: Pir Arkam
Based: Dubai
Sector: Additive manufacturing (aka, 3D printing)
Staff: 18
Funding: Invested, supported and partnered by Joseph Group
Name: Brendalle Belaza
From: Crossing Rubber, Philippines
Arrived in the UAE: 2007
Favourite place in Abu Dhabi: NYUAD campus
Favourite photography style: Street photography
Favourite book: Harry Potter
Scores
Scotland 54-17 Fiji
England 15-16 New Zealand
Company%20profile
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