Your thoughts on Muhammad Hassan?

[Messiah]

For those who don't remember him, he debuted in late 2004. His gimmick was that he was an Arab-American wrestler who felt he was unfairly stereotyped because of his background due to the 9/11 attacks.

While I know a lot of people aren't fans of cheap heat gimmicks, I thought Hassan was fantastic. I thought his gimmick was an excellent spin on things because a lot of what he was saying was true. Its funny how the crowd would chant "USA!" at him. Could cut a great promo and was one of the biggest heat magnets of the last 20 years. Epic theme too.



It is a shame that network pressure ended his run in the company. I think he still could have been a valuable guy on the roster in another role.

[Messiah]

Youtube comments are often dumb, but this one perfectly explains a lot of what happened during Hassan's tenure:

Your average Hassan Promo;
Hassan comes out and talks truths about racism in America usually backed up with facts.
Then a WWE face comes out. shouts Murica about ten times and tells him that if he doesn't like being treated as second class, he can leave! Even though the character he plays was born in America. So leave where?
and to top it all off Hassan is supposed to be the heel and the person telling him to swallow the racism or leave the country is the face...

[Str8Shooter]

This entire gimmick pretty much foreshadowed Trump's presidential run over 10 years later.

The dude was a heat machine though, and cut a pretty good promo. I'm not sure he had much passion for the business though. I believe once he left WWE he left wrestling altogether and tried acting. Not sure what he's up to now.

I believe the last straw was when SD had a bunch of masked men attack Undertaker and carry him off as some sort of kidnapping/sacrifice the same day as the London bombings.

[Everlong]

Hassan was an awesome heel and it's really a shame his run had to be cut short like it was. He wasn't the absolute greatest in the ring, but MAN could he attract heat, and he could cut a really good promo. Fantastic heel.

I can understand why the network pressured WWE to can the character but I definitely agree that it seems like a missed opportunity that they never got to do more with him.

[PorkChop]

"Get the hell out of America Hassan!"

[The Legend]

Apparently he was one of the former wrestlers that sued WWE over concussions earlier this year, so yeah he'll never be back in WWE.

Also, I think that the network forcing WWE to can the character was the best thing for him and left him being remembered a lot more positively than he otherwise would. Hassan's quick departure kept the shallow character with limited storyline potential from being exposed. Look at how hot Rusev was early in his career and where he's at now. Now realize that Rusev is 10 times more talented than Hassan ever was as a wrestler and think about where he'd be if he stuck around 3, 5, 7 years longer.

[Hanley!]

He was a very interesting and nuanced character until he just became a terrorist, which unsurprisingly led to him getting fired. For a while, WWE balanced his character very nicely in terms of making him a real heat magnet, but not making him an offensive stereotype. They got exactly the right level of heat for him and walked that tight rope excellently for about 6 months. In hindsight, I'm surprised they didn't screw it up faster than that given their track record.

Obviously the wrong writer was working on one of his stories - or they were just escalating things to ridiculous proportions because that's what you do in an Undertaker feud - but once he started acting like a genuine terrorist that's when things were over for the character. Even if the London Bombings hadn't led to him being fired, it would have been hard to enjoy his work after that.

I always felt bad for the guy. It wasn't his fault that he had been given a controversial gimmick. But nobody said life was fair, I guess, particularly in wrestling. Pity they couldn't work him into a new gimmick. He wasn't the best in ring performer, but he was a hell of a talent on the microphone.