3. Muhammad Hussan Gets A Hiding - 2005
Always ones to handle a sensitive subject maturely, WWE decided to introduce a new Muslim character in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Muhammad Hassan - one can only imagine how many hours they spent trying to come up with the name for the guy - became one of the most controversial wrestlers of all-time through no real fault of his own. It's not as though he was portrayed as an extremist as a scapegoat for everything that was going on in the world. No, the reality was actually worse, believe it or not. Hassan's character was simply a Muslim who was angry at being stereotypically viewed of as a terrorist. Unsurprisingly, the character became an awful stereotype soon enough and he was treated as the biggest heel in the company, loudly booed by all for simply being a Muslim. The whole thing was pretty damn racist, when you look back on it. His appearance at the Royal Rumble in 2005 was always going to be a controversial one. Entering at number 13, his presence caused every man in the ring - Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterious, Edge, Booker T, Shelton Benjamin and Luther Reigns - to stop their individual scuffles and turn their attention to him. Despite the fact that the eight men in the ring were a mixture of faces and heels, Smackdown and Raw, they all teamed up to give Hassan a beating and swiftly eliminated him. WWE were quite clearly sending a (very jingoistic) message here. Hassan's character didn't last too long as WWE released him after a highly insensitive segment involving The Undertaker being attacked by masked men that on Smackdown the same day as the London bombings. The entire Hassan character was shrouded in controversy, and fingers crossed we won't see WWE attempt another angle so xenophobic any time soon. The real loser in all this though was poor Scotty 2 Hotty, who never got his chance to worm his way to WrestleMania after Hassan attacked him at the Rumble before he'd even entered. That's the real tragedy here.