“We looked intimidating”- When Muhammad Hassan had revealed that his controversial gimmick in WWE was intimidating in real life too
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Muhammad Hassan in WWE
Muhammad Hassan is best known for his tenure in WWE from 2004 to 2005. Hassan was a heel character and used to talk about America’s contempt towards almost everyone of Middle Eastern heritage after 9/11. Muhammad Hassan would criticize the media for the portrayal of the Arab Americans following 9/11. Hassan then confronted Jerry Lawler and Jim Ross on an edition of RAW and Challenged Jerry Lawler for a match at New Year’s Resolution and thus began his undefeated streak by defeating The Hurricane, Chris Benoit, Sgt. Slaughter, and Chris Jericho.
Muhammad Hassan had garnered so much heat as a heel that when he entered in the 2005 Royal Rumble, superstars such as Booker T, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, Edge, Eddie Guerrero, Luther Reigns, Rey Mysterio and Shelton Benjamin ganged up and thew him out of the ring. Muhammad Hassan had even got an oppurtunity to face the then WWE Champion John Cena but was beaten by the Cenation leader.
Muhammad Hassan was released from WWE in 7 months
He made his debut at a period when American and international history was tumultuous, and it was obvious that a character like Hassan was seen as insulting. In July 2005, Muhammad Hassan was supposed to face the Undertaker at the Great American Bash which would determine the number 1 contender for the World Heavyweight Championship. This was announced on the 4th July edition of Smackdown and the then SmackDown GM Theodore Long placed Daivari in the match with the Undertaker that night.
During their match,Hassan emulated praying to allah and it seemed as if he was imitating like a terrorist group. Thereafter he entered with five henchmen disguised as terrorists entered the ring with hassan and attacked and choked the Undertaker, Hassan then applied the Camel clutch on the undertaker.
The group strangely resembled to the one that carried out the bombings in London on 7th July and the programee was about to telecast a few days later. Hassan’s character was then banned from appearing on UPN, the old Smackdown station. After the incident UPN pressured WWE to remove the Character and due to increasing public pressure WWE dropped the character
At The Great American Bash on July 24, The Masked men again appeared with Muhammad Hassan but The Undertaker managed to throw all of them out of the ring. The Undertaker then power bombed hassan onto a concrete floor through an open stage ramp. This was an apparent solution to end the character. Thereafter Hassan was released from WWE after a 7 month tenure.
The Character of Muhammad Hassan was played by Marc Julian Copani and he is an Italian American but played the Character so well that no one suspected him of being of another ancestry.
Back in 2020, during an interview with Chris Van Vliet Copani, he highlighted how his character was menacing even in real life. He said that in 2004, as he and Daivari were staying at a hotel in San Francisco and were heading from the parking lot to the hotel door in their WWE gimmicks and looking very intimidating, a lady walking towards them altered her course by taking her daughter five feet away from them. He explained there was plenty of room for them on that way, but she was afraid of them.
“What was this, 2004? We were just a few years removed from 9/11 and I remember a few instances. One I remember was San Francisco. I can’t remember the name of the hotel, Shawn (Daivari) and I were on the path walking from the parking lot to the hotel entrance and a lady was walking towards us and we had the full gimmick on and the glasses and my suit and 230 pounds at the time, so we looked intimidating. She took her daughter off the path and walked like five feet away. I mean there was plenty of room for us on that path but she was scared.”
WWE did the most shameful and offensive thing at the SmackDown edition and at The Great American Bash. Had they modeled his character in a different way, Marc Copani would still have been a wrestler. Copani retired from wrestling after his WWE release and worked as an educator and is now a Principal of the Fulton Junior High School, Newyork. It was revealed in recent years that Marc’s Character was about to become the World Heavyweight Champion at SummerSlam,thereby making him the youngest Champion at 23 in WWE history.
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Rahul Amare
(825 Articles Published)