10 Wrestling Facts We Didn't Know Last Week (Jan 13)
3. La Résistance Split Up Due To Muhammad Hassan
Introduced in April of 2003, La Résistance were a tag-team initially comprised of Sylvain Grenier and Renee Dupree. Later, Rob Conway would join their anti-American group by appearing as a French sympathiser. Very old-school in approach, the team always managed to elicit boos from audiences around the United States.
Appearing on the Pancakes And Powerslams Show, Conway looked back on the moment he was told by WWE officials that La Résistance would be no more. Throughout the first half of 2005, a new foreign menace had emerged on the WWE roster. That man was Muhammad Hassan, an Arab-American character using the same idea of racism to get heat.
By that point, Dupree had been drafted to SmackDown and was out of the team. Grenier and Conway were told by management that they were scooping up some of the 'USA' chants WWE wanted for Hassan. Therefore, La Résistance had to go.
Conway remembers one house show from that period vividly. Grenier and himself had drawn tremendous heat from the crowd, theoretically lessening the impact Hassan had later on the card.