10 Times WWE Stars Went Viral For Totally STUPID Reasons
5. Mohammed Hassan's Timing
Long before social media became the main way for moments to go viral, WWE had to rely on the good old fashioned mainstream media to spread the word. This one happened all the way back in 2005 and tarnished WWE's reputation for a long time.
Muhammad Hassan was an Arab-American character who used anti-American sentiments to get heat. The character was straight out of the WWE playbook, except when he debuted in 2004, heightened global tensions and post-9/11 sensitivities meant Hassan needed to be handled extremely carefully to make the gimmick work.
Obviously, WWE wasn't the place to try this.
Instead, they decided to run an angle where masked men came to the ring to attack The Undertaker, then carried a wounded Daivari out of the ring like he was some kind of sacrifice. The whole thing would've been horribly offensive anyway, but on the same day it was broadcast, a real life tragedy happened.
The 7/7 bombings were a series of coordinated terrorist attacks that took place in London on 7th July 2005. The attacks resulted in the loss of many lives and caused widespread shock and grief throughout the nation.
The Hassan angle wasn't shown in the UK, but it went out unedited in the USA on 7/7. The New York Post, TV Guide, Variety, and even more publications picked up on the storyline; before long WWE was all over the news at the same time as an actual terrorist attack was being reported. There's no way they could've known when they filmed it, but it shows how insensitive the storyline was.
Hassan was quickly dropped from television, the character was killed off on pay-per-view, and WWE tried to make the controversy go away.