Much is made of exactly how far Marc “Muhammad Hassan” Copani could have gone if given the run that was reportedly on the table for him and manager/tag team partner Shawn “Khosrow” Daivari in 2005. From his December 2004 debut onwards, there were multiple reports that suggested he was expected to be in the main event picture by SummerSlam, and with spots wide open on both brands with new champions John Cena and Dave Batista requiring equally new challengers, it certainly wasn’t out of the realms of possibility that Hassan could have been perfect foil for ‘Big Dave’. On paper, the gimmick stood the chance to be a fascinating character study with the sort of nuance and interest badly, badly lacking from the increasingly grotty mid-2000s WWE product. Bravery, and a massive step forward for the wrestling industry in how to portray Arab-American personas in the devastating aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks half a decade earlier.
“Fascinating”. “Nuance”. “Bravery”. Not words often attached to WWE, and particularly not in this era. September 11th though? Now that’s something they could exploit.
Hassan’s first promos were knowingly heel-leaning and smug, but the key was his delivery. To see them written down was to see somebody speaking up for himself and others like him that felt oppressed in testing political times. With rippling muscles threatening to burst out of his skin, Hassan politely introduced himself, explained how he was born and raised there, and asked not to be confused with the acts of terrorism on America and around the world. “You people” was a giveaway that Hassan was trying to create his own wedge, even if he was theoretically asking audiences not to revert to their in-built prejudices. Daivari very literally said the quiet part loud, translating Hassan’s words for Arab viewers as WWE allowed in the swell of boos from the crowd watching on the TitanTron. But why were they booing? Simply because somebody wasn’t speaking American? It asked interesting questions and prayed on a jingoistic streak running through the audience, as did two more segments where the pair delivered the same message from leafy suburban street and Hassan’s uncle’s convenience store. Daivari’s performance was the more pro wrestling of the two, with him getting increasingly worked up during the translation section to such an extent that he’d run out of breath before insincerely smiling through a wrap-up. The act permitted audiences to recognise the men as heels, but the words had yet to cut deep. Hassan spoke with anger about the countries prejudices and a “dirty, yellow underbelly” of hatred, but again; if you felt targeted by this, did this mean you held those prejudices?
Hassan’s last expensively-produced vignette was from the evocative setting of an airport, where he spoke about security unjustifiably harassing, humiliating and strip-searching him during security checks simply because of his Arab-American descent. He worked himself into something resembling rote by the end, shouting that if people “don’t give us the respect that we demand…I will beat it out of anyone who gets in my way“. It reduced the complexity of the gimmick by orders of magnitude, as did his first major in-person appearances after the videos.
On December 13th 2004, Mick Foley dropped in to Monday Night Raw plug his latest book and speak fondly of his time visiting armed forces for one of the company’s newly-annual Tribute To The Troops special. He made his stances on war and politics as clear as ever (even name-checking John Kerry as his Presidential choice, to boos from the Alabama locals) but called it “one of the great privileges of his life” to visit the troops alongside WWE before being interrupted by the theme of Muhammad Hassan and Khosrow Daivari. Daivari introduced Hassan in Arabic to boos, and Hassan talked about how he refused to “blindly support the troops” after the events of 9/11. He questioned Foley’s version of patriotism, only for Foley to note that though he disagreed, they could only have their frank exchange of views because of the USA’s freedom of speech. Hassan doubled down, calling the troops “gutless cowards” and “heartless infidels”, resulting in Mick losing his patience and challenging the newcomer to a fight. Until he backed out, positioning him as a coward as well as a bigmouth, rather than somebody with a legitimate axe to grind.
It got worse for Hassan behind the scenes as well as in front of the camera as the weeks progressed. He was positioned against Sgt. Slaughter just to make the direction of travel explicitly clear, but in the aftermath, he was in bother for not selling enough for the Hall-Of-Famer. It had only lasted three minutes and he was obviously booked to win, but the locker room was what the locker room was, and they’d been worked into a shoot about the bombastic attitude of the newcomer just enough to think he was flexing his ego as well as his muscles. Other than registering a three in the match, he couldn’t win’ – programmed to dominate an old-timer then castigated for being dominant. Hassan apologised in an effort to keep the peace, keep his spot, and keep his head above water, but heat was rising faster than he could manage. Segments with Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler were reduced to “love it or leave it” gabfests. Steve Austin was once scripted to refer to the pair as “sand people”, with even the most generous of critics not able to draw a line between the story being told and the Star Wars reference. Most notably, the Raw and SmackDown rosters parking their brand warfare to gang up on Hassan to throw him out of the Royal Rumble match was as even more pointed reflection of the rotten locker room at the time than Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero and Bob Holly’s mauling of Daniel Puder minutes earlier.
If December had shown flickers of promise, January was the spiritual demise of the character, but its actual death would be far more protracted and punishing. And ironically, what started with Mick Foley was going end, forever, RIP, with Mick Foley’s greatest rival.
(CONT’D)
