10 Times WWE Asked You To Blindly Hate Foreigners
9. La Resistance
Vince McMahon's uncomfortably aggressive support of the USA's Invasion of Iraq following the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan manifested itself in rather odd ways.
It was one thing for Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler to talk down the lens during Monday Night Raw and WrestleMania to speak directly to the incredibly brave troops overseas with messages of 'kick their ass and come home!' as if they were babyface managers prepping their charges for title shots. But it was quite another to eviscerate an entire country for making an ethical and politically complex decision about the schismatic conflict.
Such was the case in 2003 when France pushed for diplomacy rather than the military action pursued by America, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland.
The narrative shifted against them during a promo in which Scott Steiner compared the country to hell in debating why the war was a good thing with heel Harvard graduate Chris Nowinski. It ramped up when viewers were introduced to La Resistance, a heel tag team who were bad guys simply because they were French.
Sylvain Grenier once cut a promo suggesting he was uncomfortable with the USA being the 'police force of the world', an opinion shared by much of the anti-War west. He received an absolute mauling from biggest babyface in company history Stone Cold Steve Austin for espousing the view.