7 Times WWE Used Wrestlers To Capitalise On US Foreign Policy

This one gets a bit more complicated. Sgt Slaughter performed as a US army soldier in the eighties as an american hero who fought for the honour of the US against the Iron Sheik when Hogan was busy with another top heel. But after a hiatus from the WWF during which the real life Robert Remus appeared in the GI Joe cartoon series (which also played of off foreign relations) Slaughter returned in the early nineties but as Hulk Hogan was still the reigning all American hero, McMahon needed another role for the returning star.

The nineties was still a time of tension in the Middle East, not with Iran but now with Iraq. Tensions in the gulf saw Sgt Slaughter return as an Iraqi sympathiser who had denounced the US and now supported Saddam Hussein. Bruce Prichard has recounted on his podcast about how they thought that the US would never go to war with Iraq and that the use of Slaughter was no different to using German, Japanese or Russia heels like they had previously done. But he also recounted being backstage at a show when they find out they are going to war.

Slaughter quickly became a hot topic in wrestling and a controversial figure which WWF attempted to capitalise from by making him the champion and having him beat the Ultimate Warrior at the 1991 Royal Rumble, two days after the end of the Gulf War. The victory of Sgt. Slaughter would set him on a collision course with the (you guessed it) “Real American” Hulk Hogan at that years WrestleMania.

While the controversy has cooled off with the end of the war the WWF continued to milk the storyline through to SummerSlam with the addition of General Adan (a real life Iraqi who claimed to have gone to school with Saddam Hussein) and Colonel Mustafa, a returning Iron Sheik (because Iran and Iraq are only a letter part in the eyes of WWF).