Free Hassan
This is Muhammad Hassan, or his real name Mark Copani. He was "Arab-American" professional-wrestler. His gimmick was that he was sick and tired of the racism that he had received since September 11th. Unfortunately Mark Copani suffered due to real life racism and ignorance.
The truth about Muhammad Hassan:
Mark Copani, was only half Arab and half Italian. His Mother was born in Jordan. He isn’t muslin, he is Buddhist. He was an American and probably loved his country and was just doing his job, which was acting!
Why his character was dropped.
On a show taped 2 days before the first London bombings he started to change his character from an angry Arab-American to an actual terrorist. A move I believe to have been more morally conscious than his first gimmick(more on this later). What actually happened was his manager Khosrow Daivari (real name Shawn Daivari) was in a match and lost to The Undertaker. After the match Hassan came down to the ring and then 6 men in ski masks and black clothing came out to the ring and choked The Undertaker. Then they carried Daivari out of the ring like a Martyr.
The problem (If you didn’t think that was enough): It aired the day of the London bombings. After which the network which carried the WWE show UPN demanded that Hassan and Daivari be removed from TV. The WWE obliged.
Shawn Daivari
The Defense:
OK. Lets start with as to how this footage actually hit the airwaves (Which it didn’t in all of Europe.) Obviously as soon as word of the bombings got to the WWE they immediately tried to remove the footage from the show. Yet somehow they were able to get it off the European version of the show (which of course airs about six hours earlier than it does here) but not off the American version. UPN claimed it was too late to edit the footage. Ok well if that’s true because of their ineptitude they demanded Mark Copani to be removed form his job. What? They can just interfere in another companies business like that, and really hurt the career of these two men? Come on.
Now why is it more morally conscious to have a terrorist rather than an Arab-American? Well as an Arab-American, Hassan misrepresented his community, granted the WWE did a very good job of distinguishing that Hassan’s opinions were solely his own and not representative of any Arab-Americans, but still it’s a bit offensive. Now let me use an example. In the 80s there was a wrestler named Nikolai Volkoff, he was, you guessed it, a Russian Communist. See in real life “Josip Peruzovic” had fled Russia and Communism and had made a life as a wrestler. One day he was sitting down talking to another legend in the business the late “Classy” Freddie Blassie. Volkoff said that he was real uncomfortable representing Communism because he was so strongly against it. Blassie responded by saying “You know how to get back at Communism, be the meanest rudest Communist you can be, and inspire true hate for your CHARACTER and that will show your distaste for Communism” Volkoff did just that. This is Why having a Terrorist wrestler was more morally conscious. Mark Copani probably hates terrorism just as much as anyone of us, through ACTING and being a ruthless terrorist and getting the fans to hate his charactor, Muhammad Hassan, he could inspire fans to help fight terror.
Fuck UPN and their ignorance of the wrestling business and good job at really hurting the careers of two hard working honest AMERICANS!
Back to wonderful happy America
Fuck UPN!
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