10 WWE Storylines That Horribly Backfired
3. Never Negotiate With Terrorists
Mark Muhammed Hassan Copani debuted in WWE in December 2004, and was immediately pushed to the moon. He could have had a bright future in professional wrestling. Well never know, because following his ill-received seven-month stint in WWE, he never wrestled again. Thats how badly the run went. There was nothing really wrong with Copanis mic skills, persona or technical abilities: even at the tender age of 22, he had a firm, capable grasp on the fundamentals, and had savvy support from the criminally underrated Daivari as his scheming manager. There are plenty of stories about Copanis attitude backstage: that he made plenty of enemies, that he was hauled into wrestlers court twice in as many months, that his ego was out of control. It wasnt Copani that screwed Copani, however it was a combination of godawful booking and absolutely brutal timing. The original idea for the pair was that they were Arab Americans, fed up with taking heat for the 911 terrorist attacks, who would take out their frustration on American opponents. This was a little too subtle for the WWE of the time however, and in a notorious angle taped on Smackdown on July 4th, Hassan would summon via prayer, would you believe paramilitary style henchmen in balaclavas to give the Undertaker a savage beatdown. The angle aired three days later, on the 7th July the same day that Muslim extremists carried out suicide bombings across London, England. The following week, WWE and Copani tried to spin the PR nightmare with in-ring promos clarifying that Hassan and Daivari were not terrorists, but the damage was done: the network, UPN, put its foot down, demanding that the Hassan character be removed from Smackdown programming. Daivari always the better hand of the two on the stick and in the ring would continue to have a successful career in wrestling, even after leaving WWE in 2007. Copani is now a high school teacher.