Not just soccer is driving Abu Dhabi wild this year's end. Photo: publicity.
On the same week the Fifa World Club Cup kicked off, the Asian Super Cup began nearby at the Abu Dhabi Combat Club, this time including No-Gi Jiu-Jitsu matches as there will be at the next World Pro, in April.
So soccer ended up sharing television time with the broadcast of a live Jiu-Jitsu tournament.
Besides the athletes from the capital Abu Dhabi, the cup featured fighters who train in Dubai, like those from the Emirates JJ Center academy led by black belt Rafael Haubert, and other countries around the region. Teams from Jordan, Morocco, Bahrain, Kuwait, Omman, and Saudi Arabia showcased their technique at the tourney and brought a balance of power to Jiu-Jitsu in the Middle East.
In the brown-and-black belt division, Emirates Team’s Brazilian reigned supreme, in the finals of every category. The standouts were Edmilson Conceição, Oscar Junior, Michel Maia, Samuel Herzog and Fernando Cosendey.
In the white-and-blue belt division, Wessam Mutie (Jordan) had twenty-six matches over the two days and took two gold and two silver medals. Another standout from Jordan was the young Abdullah Nabas, who impressed everyone with his grit in facing much bigger athletes in the absolute, as well as hometown boy Ali Salem, who displayed awesome takedown ability.
At purple, a round of applause for Abu Dhabi’s athletes Taileb Rumait, Mohammad Nasser, Faisal Fahad Al Qitbi, and to Palestine’s Gabriel Tayeh and Jordan’s Haider Hashem. Tayeh, my nephew, just had an MMA fight in Jordan and returned to doing well in Jiu-Jitsu.
Check out part of the Abu Dhabi Sport TV broadcast with the blue belt absolute final between Jordan’s Abdallah Nabas (68 kg) and Morocco’s Abdallah Alaooi (110 kg), a judo black belt and champion of Africa.