10 Shocking WWE Superstar Firings No One Saw Coming

4. Muhammad Hassan

It wasn't too surprising that Muhammad Hassan's big 2005 push - which, we're told, was originally supposed to culminate with world title gold at SummerSlam - was abruptly called off after a real-life terrorism attack in London made his gimmick a little too hot for TV.

On the other hand, though, Hassan himself had done nothing wrong. He was simply playing the role his WWE superiors had told him to play (and playing it pretty well, by all accounts: he was fast becoming one of the company's leading heels)

At the time, most of us just expected him to be taken out of the limelight for a little while until the network-instigated controversy had died down. At worst, we thought perhaps he might re-debut a few months later under a different name.

Instead, the company just binned him outright, apparently fearing that the damage had already been done and there was no way they could put Hassan back on television without attracting more unwanted press attention.