10 Wrestlers Whose Careers Were Destroyed By A Single Mistake

Working as Mark Magnus in Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW) Marc Copani had impressed WWE management. In 2004 he was rewarded with a promotion to WWE television.

Despite being of Italian descent, Copani was repackaged as angry Arab-American Muhammad Hassan. The character would criticise the way Muslims were depicted in the media. Although immensely talented, Muhammad Hassan was unpopular for all the wrong reasons.

During the summer of 2005, WWE planned to push the Hassan character into the main event scene. On the 4 July SmackDown taping it was announced that Hassan would take on The Undertaker at the Great American Bash. Later that night, Hassan summoned five masked villains to attack The Undertaker. The five men were clearly supposed to be terrorists, even choking the ’dead man’ with piano wire.

Just three days later, the London Bombings took place. Thankfully, the controversial footage was cut from the UK broadcast of SmackDown. The tasteless angle became one of the most criticised in WWE history.

The Hassan character was removed from television at the insistence of UPN and Copani was released from his contract in September. It has since been revealed that the original plan was to make Hassan the World Heavyweight Champion. Copani was unlucky he accepted a gimmick that was one of WWE’s most offensive, killing his career in the process.