actually its wierd. He is suppose to be the bad guy, but everything he says makes him a face. Hes an Arab-AMERICAN (from Detroit) and his beef is that because of 9/11 he is a victim of racism and discrimination. and everytime he comes out to the stage, that crowd has to scream USA at the top of their lungs, which just prooves his point further. Heres a NY Times article about the situation from the last two weeks.
BTW: Hes really Italian.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/18/b...4fdca84dfedd59a1&ei=5040&partner=MOREOVERNEWS
To Wrestling Offense, a Cultural Defense
By LIA MILLER
Published: July 18, 2005
World Wrestling Entertainment recently found itself in the position of defending the psychological and cultural nuances of one of its characters after a particularly ill-timed episode of "SmackDown." The episode featured an Arab-American character named Muhammad Hassan, and it ran on July 7, the same day as the London terrorist attacks.
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World Wrestling Entertainment
Muhammad Hassan, an Arab-American character on "SmackDown," wrestled an ill-timed match.
The seven-minute segment included a group of Mr. Hassan's henchmen, wearing ski masks and camouflage, who ran into the ring to beat up the Undertaker, a popular wrestler and Mr. Hassan's rival. The same men carried the body of Mr. Hassan's sidekick, Shawn Daivari, over their heads, evoking a martyr's funeral. Mr. Hassan then came into the ring and choked the Undertaker. Although UPN, the Viacom subsidiary that broadcasts "SmackDown," ran a crawl across the bottom of the screen warning viewers of the potentially offensive content, many still complained.
Gary Davis, a W.W.E. spokesperson, said that the "the timing of the segment, to air last Thursday, was terrible" and that the company got "hundreds" of letters. He said that UPN had no time to edit out the sequence. In England, "SmackDown" runs Friday night; BSkyB, the network that broadcasts it, edited out the sequence. UPN would not say why it did not pre-empt the show.
"We did everything we could to advise people that there might be material that might be offensive to some people," Mr. Davis said. "The real problem is the perception of viewers watching that segment." Mr. Hassan, he explained, is not a terrorist, but an angry, disillusioned Arab-American, embracing his roots after experiencing racism from other Americans since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. (Mr. Hassan's real name is Mark Copani and World Wrestling identifies him as Italian-American.)
But Laila Al-Qatami, the communications director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said it had contacted W.W.E. over its portrayal of Arabs and Islam. She said her organization understood that the character was an entertainer but objected to the overwhelming emphasis on his ethnicity. She said that the characterization fomented racism toward Arab-Americans. "You in no way would feel for him," she said. "The way he gets so worked up, it seems to reinforce the idea that Arab-Americans are somehow different than other Americans."
In a statement on its Web site, W.W.E. says: "It is these stereotypical images that many people hold that we hope to debunk as part of Hassan's story." LIA MILLER
