Colonel Mustafa

[The Brain]

Yesterday I posted a thread about the main event for SummerSlam 91. Sgt. Slaughter, Col. Mustafa, and Gen. Adnan participated in that main event. For those of you that don’t know, Col. Mustafa is the Iron Sheik. He returned to the WWF after WrestleMania VII and aligned himself with Sgt. Slaughter in his feud with Hulk Hogan. One thing I’ve always wondered is why he changed his name and didn’t just return as Iron Sheik.

I think the Hogan vs. Slaughter feud was pretty much dead after WrestleMania and bringing in Mustafa did not really add anything. Mustafa was treated as a new wrestler and wasn’t much of a threat. I don’t know that it would have made a significant difference but I think it would have been better if he just returned as Iron Sheik. Sheik had a history with both Hogan and Slaughter. Slaughter already had ridiculous heat with his shocking heel turn and teaming with his one time arch enemy would have been another layer to that. Instead Sheik was just treated as a new wrestler that nobody cared about. Why not capitalize on a well known name from the past? I know the WWF had a history of ignoring wrestler’s past when coming from another promotion but Iron Sheik was a WWF name. He was a former WWF champion. Maybe they made the change because Sheik was from Iran and Slaughter was sympathizing with Iraq. Considering this is professional wrestling I don’t think that was a hard obstacle to overcome. It’s not like WWF went out of their way to disguise Mustafa. He wasn’t wearing a mask or anything. It was clearly Sheik. One of the announcers even alluded to it during SummerSlam.

It’s not like Iron Sheik was going to light the WWF on fire in 1991 but I don’t understand why they would change a known name that had a history with the people he was working with and create a character that nobody knew or cared about.

 

[Makaveli31]

I think he was given "the Colonel Mustafa" gimmick to play-up the Iraqi military angle. Sheik Adnan el Kaissey was similarly given the "Gen. Adnan" gimmick. I think the thinking was to actually make these guys appear that they were part of Saddam's army since it was a Gulf War inspired angle.

 

[the_mighty_biggs]

yeah it was a dumbass move like when earthquake returned and they decided to make him wear a stupid mask and call him golga and make him part of the oddities when a return as earthquake would have been a much bigger deal.

 

[HBsam31]

I never quite understood this myself. He had name value in the Iron Sheik. Like you said Brain, he was never going to light the WWF on fire in 1991, but they acted like he was a completely new wrestler which never made any sense. I am guessing they did it to play up the military brigade thing they had going, but by that time the angle was just about dead anyway. What i thought was cool was he still wore the boots with the pointy curled toe. I guess this was just one of those weird thing Vince likes to do from time to time. One question I wanted to ask Brain was did he have a feud with Slaughter after Slaughter turned face again?

 

[I_Like_All_Wrestling]

Sgt. Slaughter was portrayed as an Iraqi sympathizer. The Sheik is Iranian. Iran and Iraq are/were mortal enemies. It wouldn't make sense if the sheik suddenly switched nationalities. I guess that's why.

 

[TK Corona]

Because at the time Sgt. Slaughter was playing an anti-american, who supported the Iraqi cause during the first Gulf War. Adding Colonel Mustafa to the mix created a stable with General Adnan to feud with Hulk Hogan.