15 WWE Pushes That IMMEDIATELY Backfired
4. Muhammad Hassan (2004-2005)
Looking back, the entire premise for Muhammad Hassan was ghastly from the off. It preyed on people's fears after 9/11, and the guy behind the gimmick (Marc Copani) was asked to sink to increasingly xenophobic depths in order to garner heat. At times, as revealed during the 'Dark Side Of The Ring' episode analysing his run, Copani was uncomfortable with this, and understandably so.
Here's the thing: Fans did boo Hassan when he debuted in late-2004, but it quickly became clear that the character just made folks distressed or sucked them out of the fantasy land they wanted to be in when watching Raw/SmackDown; not in a pro wrestling heel way, but more in a 'yeah, this is something too real and grim to work as escapism' way. Again, Hassan himself wasn’t cool with some of what WWE had him do.
Things were going wrong months and months before the infamous attack on The Undertaker in July 2005, but that's typically pointed to as the breaking point. It certainly was for execs at UPN. They were horrified by WWE's booking in light of terror attacks in London, and they demanded that the character be taken off TV. Sadly, it was Copani himself who took the hardest hit here.
He wasn't afforded the luxury of a repackage job or any patience at all from WWE. His wrestling career was pretty much over.
The company had wanted to stir patriotic sensibilities in the aftermath of 9/11, but they went too far with it. It says everything when Marc was confronted by angry Muslim men when touring Australia. They weren't happy with how the gimmick portrayed their faith. Copani was spooked by that altercation. Rightly so!