10 Ridiculous Wrestling Gimmicks Which Are Actually TRUE

7. General Adnan

Paul Bear Mortuary
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Though it was patently ludicrous that US military hero Sergeant Slaughter and Iranian jingoist The Iron Sheik - tacitly repackaged as 'Colonel Mustafa' - would swap army fatigues as Saddam Hussein supporters during the former's ill-conceived and incredibly distasteful WrestleMania VII run in 1991, their Ba'athist buddy General Adnan's gimmick was arguably less realistic than the truth.

That Adnan was born in Baghdad, Iraq, already distinguished him from the vast majority of foreign wrestling menaces, in that he actually hailed from his supposed country of malevolence. But things went further. Though Slaughter's outranking Arabic mouthpiece wasn't quite a general in Saddam's army, he was an old school friend of the deceased dictator.

In fact, Hussein himself had asked his former classmate to bring wrestling to Iraq in the '70s; as the Iraqi leader's paranoia increased following his political ascension, he began to see the popular Adnan as a rival, and the latter fled the country of his birth for good. No wonder he was vocally flying the flag for his old pal years later.

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Editorial Team

Benjamin was born in 1987, and is still not dead. He variously enjoys classical music, old-school adventure games (they're not dead), and walks on the beach (albeit short - asthma, you know). He's currently trying to compile a comprehensive history of video game music, yet denies accusations that he purposefully targets niche audiences. He's often wrong about these things.