I miss... Muhammad Hassan

[Mitch H. Winnfield]

I mainly remember Hassan for one of my favorite Wrestlemania moments:

Click for Spoiler:

Other than that, I don't recall anything truly memorable from his run in WWE. It's safe to say a lot of Hassan's heat was fueled by real life tragedies, and his character was in the right and wrong place simultaneously. When you stripped Hassan down to his core, he was just another generic anti-American heel. I don't miss him at all, but I'm glad he's happier now.

[HBKistheHOF]

I never thought Hassan was very good or had many(if any) of the qualities to make a real star. & as you already stated all of his heat was generated by his ethnic character & the events surrounding it. I honestly don't think he would have amounted to much of anything even if WWE decided to keep him around & as the same gimmick or not. I really never saw a future for the guy & I pretty much called his entire WWE career from the moment he debuted. I don't mind the Anit-American heel, politically incorrect Foreigner heel, etc. but Hassan always came off to me as a waste of time & nothing more. Never a solid or entertaining heel IMO. He was just one of the many key contributing factors to why I think 2005-2006 were the worst years, possibly ever, in the WWE.

[Richard]

It's unfortunate that sometimes in life you get these extreme co-incidences which for the sake of publicity can't be ignored.

I feel that it was just very unlucky everything in London went down when it did time-wise for everything that was happening in WWE with the Hassan character starting to pick up on the big time matches with The Undertaker and I think if it weren't for the events in London, he would have been a key heel in WWE. He already was but he would have been so much bigger if he was indeed able to grab the World Heavyweight Championship.

I am not sure if he would have been around today. With everything going on still today regarding 'terrorism', I think if it weren't for that event in London it would have eventually been another which could have resulted in his release.

[HBsam31]

I do miss him. He really did generate a lot of heat. I thought his promos were good, and he seemed to have potential in the ring. I think he would have gone pretty far, and it was rumored he was going to get the title. He was different, and he got over pretty fast. In the end they had to do what they did. It was just really bad timing, and Hassan paid the price for it. I think he would have been a top heel for a while had the gimmick been able to continue.

[shooter_mcgavin]

Originally Posted by BigThunder

Giving him the fake terrorist cell was one of the stupidest things WWE ever did. He was gaining amazing heat without it. He and Daivari were enough.

A decent in-ring worker, and a really well executed gimmick at the start. Yeah, I miss him.

Yeah I agree with this. Hussan's character wasn't a terrorist he was an Arab American angry at how America has treated him and his people. It was a great character and gimmick and Hussan himself was a pretty good talent. I don't agree that he should have been challenging for the WHC but he should have had a better run.

The terrorist angle was just over the top and was kind of the jump the shark moment for this character. And the timing made things worse. He would have had an interesting character maybe even turning face eventually with Hussan making amends to America.

It would have been an interesting angle and probably would have been good PR for the WWE. Since WWE has been known of making insensitive cultural sterotypes (well Wrestling in general does) it would have been good to eventually have an Arab American being a face and defending the country.

I do recall a few things when he left:
- WWE gave him a cash settlement knowing there were no justifiable grounds to release Hussan

- Hussan, as I recall, was planning to go to Hollywood. Since someone mentioned he is now a teacher I guess nothing came out of that.

- This what pissed me off, after he left I think there were a couple in the WWE that threw Hussan under the bus. I even recall Batista saying that he didn't have the drive and passion. It seems like the WWE want's to sweep the bad press under the rug and say he left because he didn't have the talent.

[MINISTRYrising]

I think WWE made a big mistake when they released Hassan. Sure wwe had no choice but to pull the character in light of what happened in london, But to release the guy just seems like a step to far. WWE could have easily have sent Hassen to be repackaged or they could have simply taken him off screen for a couple of months to give the people of london time to grive.

[MrHashasheen]

Muhammad Hassan is perhaps one of my favorite wrestlers and characters. Even ignoring the fact that he's Arab-American (and me being Arab meant that a lot of what he said echoed with me), his character had such an incredible amount of depth and realism to it that you rarely see in wrestling. And then all that promise disappeared when they staged that cheesy "terrorist" attack a few days before the bombing, and they had to shuffle him off-stage in a hurry.

Someone remind me though: Wasn't it pretty much the American media who went ballistic over this? I don't recall hearing much from the British end of things.

[mojmass]

He wouldn't have gone so far even if he didn't counter the problems you mentioned because the head of the WWE is a selfish stubborn arrogant and racist guy like vince mcmahon and don't say i'm wrong and a good proof of that is this:
why should a young newcomer get beaten up by two of the best legend of the company hogan and michaels.
and many more proof like this throughout the history of WWE.
antonio cesaro would have suffered the same fate if he didn't changed his approach as an anti american and he was lucky that he wasn't arab because an arab gimmick is always hated in america for unknown reason or WWE makes it to be hated (another proof for them being racist)

[I_Like_All_Wrestling]

I don't the end of Hassan was due to bombings (though clearly things like that were part of it), I think it was due to the kidnapping and bags over people heads thing that they aired when Americans were being beheaded in the Middle East. I think that was the last straw. I remember reading the the network (UPN at the time?) put a lot of pressure on WWE after that.

Now with that said, I think most people miss Hassan. As pointed out, he was a clear "you hate me because I hate America" type of heel. The thing that made him so interesting is that he was making valid points. Even if you didn't like him due to his standard heel persona, I think most people would agree that he was decent on the mic and had a good look. He could have been something. In fact, he could have probably been one of the biggest heels ever if they had the balls to go that way.

[TheBottomLine]

My only memory of Hassan was Royal Rumble 2005. Raw guys got together,Smackdown guys got together,and started beating on guys from the opposite brand. Next thing you know, Hassan's music hit and everyone just stopped, and waited for him to get in the ring, as soon as he got in, they got him in a circle and absolutely whipped his ass. He was thrown out by everyone, then as he was leaving, Scotty 2 Hotty was about to enter until Hassan angrily attacked him. I never heard heat like that before in my life!