Muhammad Hassan

[Scott Malbranque]

The "ALAYYYYYYYYYYYYLEEYAAALAYYALAAAAAYYEEEYAAAA" was one of the greatest intros to a theme tune ever, I'll give him that. Fantastic.

 

Didn't they also use the Sultan's/Tiger Ali Singh/Generic Arab Entrance #7 on him at one stage too, or am I imagining it?

 

As Showtime above said there, the Rumble will always stick out in my head when I think of Hassan. Pure hatred from the crowd, right to the wrestlers in the ring. I actually felt sorry for the lad that time...

[courageous]

However the character was flawed from the start because he was a heel even though he was completely in the right.

 

 

That's the thing though - when he debuted he wasn't a heel; the crowds decided he was heel because he didn't fit in with their narrow view of world politics (it probably was always the WWE plan, given their lack of left wing sympathy, but for the first couple of weeks Hasaan said and did nothing wrong).

 

I wonder how a properly done version of the original gimmick would go down in Canada or over here where the general public opinion is a bit less 'guns & god'

[CleetusVanDamme]

That's the thing though - when he debuted he wasn't a heel; the crowds decided he was heel because he didn't fit in with their narrow view of world politics (it probably was always the WWE plan, given their lack of left wing sympathy, but for the first couple of weeks Hasaan said and did nothing wrong).

 

 

That's bollocks. He was clearly a heel. The crowd "decided" to boo him because he was calling them all racist in the vignettes before his debut. When he actually debuted he interrupted Mick Foley, and went on a rant slagging off the troops.

 

 

You don't get much more heelish than that.

[LaGoosh]

He was a heel from the start.

 

The thing is he wasn't just the typical anti-American foreign heel.

 

The biggest part of his character was that he was an American! You can't have a heel character say "I'm an American, but you racists all treat me like a terrorist when I'm no different from you!" and then the fans boo him and chant USA during his matches. The whole thing was a complete clusterfucker from day one and I'm suprised some kind of Anti-Arab Defamation group didn't get involved.

[big mickey]

I liked him. However they missed the boat on turning him into a huge positive for them.

 

He could have been turned into a proud Arab-American, modern day Jim Duggan so to speak.

[LaGoosh]

And the fans still would have boo'd him. So all the fans would be racists.

[Loki]

However the character was flawed from the start because he was a heel even though he was completely in the right...

 

And the fans still would have boo'd him. So all the fans would be racists.

 

See, that's the thing. The largest part of the WWE's audience, the US masses, totally bought into him as a heel and would have treated him like a heel forever. So it wasn't really flawed at all. He could have been one of those heels, like Bret, who is booed in the US but applauded overseas (Canada, UK?) where they hate Americans.

 

I thought it was great myelf - he just said stuff which was true, the crowds hated him and they would cheer anyone who beat him up. Money.

[LaGoosh]

I suppose, but it was only a matter of time before it naturally steered into controversial territory and have to be canned. It was inevitable. He could never have been a main event heel.

 

And he would have never been applauded overseas because he was absolutely shit in the ring and overseas audiences have no reason to like or respect him.

[King Pitcos]

He could have been one of those heels, like Bret, who is booed in the US but applauded overseas (Canada, UK?) where they hate Americans.

He wasn't, though. You won't find a WWE crowd in the UK that hates Americans more than they hate brownmen (people who have a chip on their shoulder about Americans aren't likely to be fans of the big American wrestling). And in 2005, WWE had no interest in having a character get cheered anywhere for being anti-American or anti-Jingoism. Was/is the suspicion of Arabs purely an American thing?

[jm29195]

Regardless of the character he was awful in the ring, just another identikit OVW clone with a flat liner finish.

[Magnum]

I don't think there was much intention at all on the WWE's part to make him anything more compex or polarising than a pantomime villain - in fact, the cynic in me reckons the 'persecuted Arab-American' aspect of his vignettes were pure tokenism so they'd have something to fall back on if they caught stick from anti-racist groups. You have to remember that this was around the same time Vince created an evil French tag team just because their president realised how stupid and pointless Bush's war was. Good old-fashioned all-American xenophobia was still alive and well in the WWE in 2004/5.

[wh1007]

I remember reading in Power Slam that Stone Cold was considering coming out of retirement to wrestle Hassan but decided against it when he saw Hassan wrestle on Raw.

IIRC Hassan ballsed up the finish of the match aswell,I believe he was wrestling Benoit actually.

Wasn't there the rumour that Hassan was supposed to go over The Undertaker at the Bash that year and go on to face Guerrero at SummerSlam...obviously UPN threw a huge spanner in those works.Hassan's demise was well executed in my opinion.

In the ring tho Hassan wasa pretty woeful which would have put an end to any big plans that WWE had for him eventually.I think Hassan will always be remembered for THAT terrorist angle on SmackDown! which to this day still sends a chill down my spine.

(Sorry I would have posted a link but I don't know how )

[CleetusVanDamme]

Wasn't there the rumour that Hassan was supposed to go over The Undertaker at the Bash that year and go on to face Guerrero at SummerSlam...

 

 

No. The match with Taker at the Bash was originally going to be a "number one contender" match. He would have took on Batista at Summerslam.

[digforvictory]

You always knew though that any of the subtlety that the Hassan character had would go eventually and he'd just become an actual terrorist. He was decent on the mic and got a lot of heat, although as someone else said you're always going to get heat with a gimmick like that, but the problem was when he stepped in the ring. He was completely average. He may have got better in time but they obviously had big things planned for him straight away giving him feuds with HBK,Hogan and Undertaker and I don't think he would have got the job done in the ring. He was really boring.

[bAzTNM#1]

I always quite liked the Hassan character, however the WWE "jumped the shark" on him when they added those mock Iraqi beheadings and being associated with "terrorists". His character was great until all that carry-on.