Muhammad Hassan reflects on Middle Eastern Americans' reactions to his character, how that reception has changed over the years, and his gratitude that the character's life was short-lived.
Muhammad Hassan, portrayed by Marc Copani, was a WWE Superstar whose gimmick was a Middle Eastern American lashing out at other Americans for how his people were treated in the wake of 9/11. The controversial character was written off TV at the WWE Great American Bash in 2005 following his match with The Undertaker.
During a recent interview with Sean Ross Sapp, Copani spoke about the shift the character underwent as the months went on.
"I think there's been a shift," he began. "I think that initially when the character came out, I think Middle Eastern people in this country felt like they had a representative and then when the character became more controversial and really, the irony of me speaking about not getting a fair chance and then not fighting fair, it started to become more of a caricature and really isolated the character and I think it really alienated the character from Middle Eastern fans in this country because now I'm not just representing them. I'm representing them in a very negative way. I think that a shift, I think that people 20 years later recognize that I was a 23/24-year-old kid. I think people have more sympathy for the fact that you're not going to turn an opportunity like that down in a position that I was in or anybody was in.
"I also think they recognize the character remains within its time. That character would never exist outside of 2004/2005," he continued. "Again, if the London bombing didn't happen, we wouldn't have made it much further because the nature of the character wasn't sensitive to begin with. I think my perspective has changed because during the time, I didn't understand how serious that character was being taken. I mean, I was 24/25, Shawn [Daivari]'s like 12—he was like maybe 19 or 20. We're kind of living this gimmick and we're kind of living our dream, traveling, doing all these shows. We know we're getting heat. We know that there's people upset."
Continuing on, Copani says the character's insensitivity would dawn on him later, and he believes he's held himself accountable. Still, he wants everyone to know that he's not the one who is writing the lines that his character says.
"It wasn't until much later that I realized how insensitive that character was," he said. "Like I was saying earlier, how that character was being pushed to depict Muslim Americans and Middle Eastern Americans and the things that that character was doing was not representative of them and it wasn't helping. It was hurting. That's what I disagreed with with the character, the direction we were going in and that's when I became vocal about it. Granted, again, I take responsibility for the fact that I played the character. I was doing those things. I'm holding myself accountable.
"But I wasn't writing the script," he continued. "I might be saying the words and I might be generating those words, but I definitely wasn't the one who was creating those storylines and coming up with the ideas that we had come up with. So I'm glad that people recognize that I am not a person trying to deceive and bring down Middle Eastern Americans. I'm glad they recognize it was a character and I hope they appreciate that I played that character well for what it needed to be at the time. Then I hope they really appreciate that that character is gone and it will never come back."
Elsewhere in the interview, he discussed his brief return to the ring in 2018. Read his comments here.
Also, you can check out the full interview in the video embedded above.
