10 Times WWE Went Further Than The Attitude Era
6. Muhammad Hassan
If you believe Bruce Prichard, the idea for the Muhammad Hassan character came directly from Vince McMahon.
Prichard reckoned that WWE were trying to mirror society in 2004, which is true, since the Kenzo Suzuki character was so obviously patterned after an ancient Japanese emperor. Prichard didn't specify which society *wink*.
"There were people born in the U.S. who because of their ancestry were discriminated against," Prichard told Conrad Thompson in 2018. "Vince looked at it as, "Goddamn, they're Americans. Just because their ancestors came from Saudi Arabia, or their ancestors came from Iraq, why are they treated differently?""
This real conversation formed the basis for the Hassan character, who was radicalised by the default audience reaction. He became the terrorist you assumed him to be and shame on you for that. The Arabic Hassan was literally treated differently because he was played by an Italian-American, for a f*cking start.
They might have been treated differently because Vince scripted famous audience surrogate Steve Austin to refer to Hassan and manager Khosrow Daivari as "sand people".
This was proper cheeky bastard stuff from WWE; after you turned him heel - tsk tsk - Hassan became a '24' style baddie who did such despicable things - piano wire, ski masks, the whole bit - that WWE were buried into dropping the act outright.
Curiously, since WWE were so adamant about pushing a progressive ethnic character, the real-life Marc Copani was released.
"We have Santino for that, pal!"