15 Things We Learned From Dark Side Of The Ring: Muhammad Hassan
13. How He Viewed Hassan Initially
Of course, Copani compared the Muhammad Hassan gimmick to older, more cartoony characters like The Bolsheviks or The Iron Sheik. So, he kept content in his earliest promos fairly tame. This new guise was more about gently nudging people towards a certain response rather than outright inciting a riot or offending anybody.
That all changed once WWE started pushing for more controversy, but things were in check at first. Former WWE writer and producer Michael Leonardi recalled seeing early vignettes and promos that portrayed Hassan as a frustrated Arab-American who was actually just irked by xenophobia and struggling to comprehend why his family was suffering because of heinous actions by others.
It had potential, especially because Copani was knocking it out of the park with his delivery. If he and WWE could successfully turn the scathing heat on punters for singling him out for the way he looked post-9/11 when he'd grown up in America without incident, then they'd be onto something. Hassan could've been a super-smart political and societal commentary, but this is wrestling.
The biz usually paints in broad strokes, not nuance, and thus Muhammad Hassan's more intelligent, level-headed pleading for equality was ignored in favour of ramping up the controversial aspects of his kayfabe'd background. To Marc, maintaining some respectability during early promos on OVW programming was important. He definitely didn't want to be linked to the 9/11 horror even in passing.
Going a more cerebral route appealed to him more. Then, Vince McMahon got his grubby mitts on things.