MUHAMMAD HASSAN

I'm really not sure what to say about Muhammad Hassan, and I'm pretty positive the WWE even today feels the same way. Muhammad Hassan came and left the roster pretty quickly, over just a couple of years. And rightly so. His gimmick was an extremely sensitive one. Hassan's gimmick was that of a terrorist, and he came to the WWE post-9/11 and pre-London bombings. Hassan was particularly offensive because he didn't only poke fun at religion, he poked fun at religious people themselves. Immediately associating Muslims and Middle Easterners with terrorism is one of the most problematic trends in Western society, and the WWE wasn't helping fix the matter with Muhammad Hassan.

Hassan went undefeated for months before eating the pin from good ol' American babyface John Cena in June of 2005. Of cours they would have him defeated by an all-American gimmick. Of course. Americans love to see themselves come out on top. The "American-good/foreigner-bad" theme is a staple in professional wrestling storylines.

Muhammad Hassan's in-ring career ended when the 2005 London bombings coincided with his gimmick, and WWE felt pressure to remove him from television.