411’s Dark Side of The Ring Report: “Becoming Muhammad Hassan”

-It’s nice of the Dark Side folks to schedule the season finale on my birthday. Thanks to my family and friends for the wishes. We end Season 6 with this episode about the controversial Muhammad Hassan character. This one shouldn’t be near as heavy and sad as last week, so for the final time this season, let’s get to it!

-As a reminder, Chris Jericho is our narrator.

-The WWE was on fire in the 90s, but was struggling in the 2000s after the loss of Steve Austin and The Rock. Jim Cornette is here and talks about Ohio Valley Wrestling and how it was the training ground for WWE’s future. He mentions names like Brock Lesnar, John Cena, and Randy Orton. He was also the trainer of Marc Copani, the future Muhammad Hassan.

-Marc notes he was always athletic and played sports, so it combined everything for him. Chris Masters is next and he talks about Marc’s character in OVW. He was smug, and arrogant. He mentions Marc was the OVW Champion at one point. He credits Cornette for getting to a point where he would be called up by the main roster.

-Jim Cornette mentions he got a call from the WWE office and they wanted to make Marc an Arab. “He’s Italian from Syracuse.” Marc says he didn’t know how he felt about it at the time, but he saw it as a big opportunity as not everyone had a character waiting for them. Cornette mentions Marc had a darker complexion and dark hair, so he could look like a stereotypical Arab villain in a movie.

-Marc told his family and they had concerns. We see early video of the character in OVW. The character was a response to the 9-11 attacks that happened just a few years earlier. We get some news footage from NYC on 9-11. Marc talks about where he was when it happened and talks about how WWE went on the air just a few days after and it was a defining moment for him. It was something positive when everything around seemed negative.

-John Pollock, journalist, mentions the WWE was rallying around the country and pushing patriotism. I was at Unfogiven in 2001, where Angle won the WWF Title and it has always been reported that only happened because the show was just a few weeks after 9-11 and in Angle’s hometown.

-We get news footage about Osama Bin Laden. Chris Masters brings up how everyone was on edge about terrorists. Maven is here and says in 2004, 9-11 was still fresh on the minds of a lot of people. The boys saw The Hassan character and knew he was going to get heat.

-Shawn Daivari was as independent wrestler that was signed and put with Hassan as his manager. He was able to speak Farsi. We get old interview footage from Shawn as he is now a WWE Producer, so no way he is going to be part of this. He talks about getting the call and pitched the idea.

-The characters were tried out in OVW. Cornette says it was a Vince McMahon idea, which meant it would be given a chance to go as far as possible. Marc says he grew up with Hogan, Savage, and Steamboat. He brings up Volkoff annd Sheik and how the early Muhammad character was similar.

-Things started to change when the filmed the vignettes. Michael Lombardi, former WWE writer and producer, talks about vignettes and how they introduced new characters. The idea was he was an American character that was of Arab descent and is discouraged with what has happened to his friends since 9-11. The idea was his Nationality didn’t make him a villain and he was more than a stereotype.

-Things changed the day before his debut when Todd Grisham and Ivory were doing commentary on Heat and mentioned Hassan was debuting the next night. Ivory asked Grisham how he was getting there and he told her he was driving. “Good, because I don’t want you to be flying if you get my drift.” Ugh!

-The debut happens on RAW in Huntsville, Alabama where Mick Foley is thanking the troops. Hassan interrupts and contradicts everything Mick says and instantly the fans were instructed to hate the character. The idea Vince was trying to tell a complex story went out the window. Cornette says it worked with the fans because they didn’t like hearing America didn’t have all the answers.

-Oh wow, Gene Snitsky is here! He can’t remember anyone getting that much heat since The Iron Sheik. “It was crazy. It’s wrestling.” He says people wanted to kill Hassan.

-Commercials!

-Back with news footage of President Bush talking to the troops in the Middle East. The WWE does shows in Iraq with Tribute to The Troops and we see the military at the shows. Then you have Hassan telling people he isn’t the bad guy and people don’t know what it is like to be him. He talks about Americans ganging up on him and other Muslims. Marc says people don’t like being shown their own flaws.

-Marc says he was raised to not judge people by the color of his skin. He was told what his grandfather went through as an Italian American and mentions what Japanese Americans went through during WWII.

-John Pollock talks about the history of the evil heel in wrestling and how it goes back nearly a hundred years. It is easy to tap into our tribalism as humans. The bring up how Vince tried something similar in 1991 with Sgt. Slaughter, turned Iraqi sympathizer. Vince believed it would sell out The LA Coliseum, but they barely sold 10,000 seats a few weeks before the show. Cornette says nobody wanted to see it.

-The WWE wanted Marc to portray the character at all times. It gave him a taste of what it was like to be an Arab American in the US. He tells stories of fans calling loved ones when they were on planes and parents taking their kids off planes. He tells a story of working in Australia and they were approached by a group of Arabs. They were angry because they knew Marc was not Muslim. It made his realize there were a group of people they could be offending. It didn’t escalate as he had Snitsky and other giants wrestlers around him. It was the first time he started to question the character.

-Commercials!

-Hassan’s success doesn’t sit well with others in the back. He talks about being 24 and green and he didn’t know how to behave. Masters mentions some guys had been working years and never got a push like that. Snitsky mentions they would test guys to see if they could make it and in a lot of cases, they would run guys out.

-Maven brings up an episode where Hassan uses the Camel Clutch. Kurt told Muhammad that Eddie Guerrero also uses the move and when a guy escapes Eddie’s it makes his Camel Clutch look weak. Marc goes up to Eddie and asks him if he should he using the hold, and Eddie tells him he has always used it and his father invented the hold. It ends up being a story all the boys tell and Marc ends up in wrestler’s court. Marc felt horrible and told his father he wanted to fly home, but his father told him to face it. Masters mentions Taker was the judge, jury, and executioner. Marc had to buy over $1000 worth of drinks and says some guys were just dumping them on the floor. Eddie gave Marc a hug and told him he knew he didn’t mean anything by it.

-WrestleMania 21: Marc was told he was going to do something with Hulk Hogan and it’s a dream come true. He tells his family and friends. Snitsky says it is like playing baseball with Babe Ruth. Hey, Real American! RIP Rick Derringer! The song you created is my childhood! Marc talks about standing in the ring as Hogan’s music hit and how the noise of the crowd felt like it was lifting him off the mat. He has never felt anything like it before or since.

-The WWE decides to take the character in a new direction. They went more radical with the charatcer and turned the character into a terrorist, since the fans were calling him that anyway. Marc felt the character became insensitive and was a departure from what they originally had planned. He had masked men with him doing his bidding and he told Stephanie McMahon about his issues. She was the writer he dealt with on SmackDown and he says she put him in his place. “Basically, shut up. We know what we are doing.”

-Commercials!

-Marc says the change occurred over a few months, but nothing felt distasteful until the end. Marc had little power to change anything and it would not have looked good because others would tell him about the chance he was getting. Marc mentions making the throat slash gesture over Shawn Michaels’ throat. It’s okay for Taker to do it, but it has a different context when his character does it. Maven says it only seemed natural and he never once had any issue with the change in the character. He just focused on the fact that Hassan would be getting heat.

-Cornette says there was a plan to push Hassan to The World Title. He started an angle with The Undertaker and it was building to a #1 Contender’s Match. Marc says the idea he was told was he would beat Taker and then beat Batista in Washington DC for the World Title. “The big FU to America.” Instead Taker SQUASHED Daivari.

-The day the episode was set to air, London had a terrorist attack with explosions on buses. WWE made the choice to air SmackDown as is, with a controversial angle, but would have a warning crawling across the screen. They underestimated the amount of scrutiny it would receive.

-We see the match where Daivari gets destroyed and Hassan falls to his knees and a group of men dressed in black attack Taker and choke him with piano wire. Daivari then puts him in the Camel Clutch. They bring up that a year earlier, five masked man had beheaded an American on camera and WWE had five masked men in this angle. The men they carried Daivari out as a martyr. Cornette says it crossed the line and people didn’t want to see that on a wrestling program.

-UPN was pissed and wanted nothing to do with it. The WWE was branded as being insensitive. Lombardi notes he felt they were going too far and told his boss he wanted nothing to do with it. He was demoted and stripped of his duties. UPN applied enough pressure that WWE decided to kill off the character.

-Marc talks about how the character changed and how it was a stereotype when it started out as being anti-stereotype. Marc mentions wanting to buy a house and talking to Johnny Ace. He asked what was going to happen, and Johnny told, “don’t buy the house.” He knew he was done! The character was no longer allowed on TV and could only do PPV.

-Great American Bash: The last time we saw the character and Marc said it was an honor to be taken out by The Undertaker. It was a SQUASH and then Taker gave him a Last Ride through the stage. Marc mentions he hit the crash pad so hard, he flipped into a standing position. They then put down on the ground, covered him with cable wires and had “blood” splattered around him. He notes he was murdered on National TV and Cornette notes that was the last we saw of Muhammad Hassan.

-Marc says the show was in Buffalo, which was home, so he could drive to his house. He didn’t know if he felt sadness or relief, but he was heartbroken. Everything he dreamed of was gone. Cornette says it made no sense as Marc did everything he was told and Vince fucked his career up. He should have done something for the guy. Marc says he could not find reason for it and wrestling turned it’s back on him. He needed to change and didn’t know how.

-Commercials!

-Marc moved to LA and stepped away from wrestling. He was in survival mode and dealing with depression. He says nothing was going his way and mentions the character was so hot, they felt there was no other way to bring him back as a new character. Snitsky says it was a wasted talent as he had so much to offer.

-Marc started having suicidal thoughts and wondered how many days he wasted. He knew he needed to make a change in his life. He went to college and started working nights at UPS. He became a teacher and then a principal and doesn’t waste days anymore. It took 10 years for him to appreciate the journey and not focus on how it ended. Maven feels bad for Marc because he was talented. Marc has no grudges and got to live out a dream. Now he is very proud of making his dream a reality, but admits the character was not long for TV and it shouldn’t have been. He says no nationality should be stereotyped and shouldn’t be on TV. He is proud of Shawn and what he is doing with the WWE.

-Cornette says Marc is probably better off with what he has been doing instead of dealing with 20 more years of wrestling bullshit. Marc says he would do it all over as he is the man he is today because of those experiences. He is a director of Human Resources in a small school district and helps out 3000 kids. He talks about having second chances and his best days are in front of him.

-Good for Marc! My man seems to have all his priorities in order and I am happy he has found what he is looking for in life. I liked the initial Muhammad Hassan character before it became standard foreign heel stereotype. I do remember the push up the card where it was assumed he would be World Champion before everything went south and he was killed off. I enjoyed this episode because it had a happier ending and we needed to hear something good. It was cool hearing from Maven, Snitsky, and Masters and Cornette is always great. The star though is Marc and he was very open with what he was doing and what was pitched to him and how he was just doing what was asked of him though he clearly started having some issues. As mentioned what could he really do though? The man can always say he got to do something with Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania and had his last match against The Undertaker. He went through the BS of wrestling and came out much better as Cornette noted.

-Overall I enjoyed this season (as much as you can with some of the topics) and hope we get a Season Seven. There will always be topics, incidents, and people to cover so they should be good for years to come. No clue what the show does as far as ratings for Vice, but I assume it does what the network needs. Thanks to everyone who followed along throughout the season and thanks to anyone that checked out even just one of these recaps. It is always greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading!