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The two often chastized Amercian audiences and often mentioned their support of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In an imitation of Drago and Ludmilla from "Rocky IV," Rusev played the Russian flag-waiving unstoppable monster while Lana used her cunning to control him. PaigeĪs effective as the gimmick was, it's clear the WWE took things too far by having a character capitalize on an ongoing war.įrom January 2014 through May 2015, the duo of "The Bulgarian Brute" Rusev and "The Ravishing Russian" Lana made for one of the best heel acts in the WWE.
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MORE: ISIS allegedly targeting Survivor Series | Survivor Series picks | WWE uses tasteless gimmick used to promote Charlotte vs. The angle resulted in Slaughter feuding with Hulk Hogan, who defeated him for WWF Championship at WrestleMania VII. WWE then took things a step further by photoshopping Slaughter into a photo with Saddam Hussein, leading fans to believe that Slaughter truly was an Iraqi sympathizer. Slaughter recieved a massive amount of death threats as a result, forcing him to wear a bulletproof vest wherever he went. It started out harmless enough, with Slaughter cutting promos about how the country had gone soft and been too forgiving to outsiders such as Nikolai Volkoff.īut when tensions between Iraq and Kuwait led to the first Gulf War, Slaughter announced himself to be an Iraqi sympathizer, wearing an Arab headdress and alinging himsef with a (kayfabe) Iraqi general, Gen. Slaughter back to the company to play an anti-American heel. Unfortunatly, the Hassan character wasn't the first time the WWE tried to capitalize on conflicts in the Middle East. After the "Great American Bash,” Hassan disappeared from WWE programming and was released from the company two months later.Īnd do you want to know the worst part about all of this? The wrestler who played Hassan wasn't even Middle Eastern.
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UPN, the network that hosted “Smackdown!”, immediately stepped in and demanded that the WWE remove Hassan from television. To make matters worse, a terrorist attack in London took place three days later.
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The group beat the Undertaker with clubs and choked him out with piano wire while Hassan imitated praying to Allah, clearly imitating Muslim terrorist groups like al-Qaeda. On the July 4 taping of “Smackdown!”, Hassan attacked the Deadman with five masked assailants in ski masks, black shirts and camouflage pants. In July 2005 Hassan was booked to face the Undertaker at the “Great American Bash” pay-per-view event. But then the WWE decided to do something really stupid. The gimmick was widley hated by fans, making Hassan and tag team partner Khosrow Daivari effective villains for guys such as Hulk Hogan, Shawn Michaels, John Cena and Batista to defeat.īy the summer 2005, Hassan was rumored to get a run as world champion. Hassan debuted as an Arab-American who claimed that Middle Easterners were being racially profiled because of the 9/11 attacks. The result was Muhammad Hassan, one of the most offensive characters in WWE history. In 2004 the WWE tried to cash in on racial tensions towards Middle Easterners with the United States at war in Iraq and Afghanistan.