More Hassan

OK, So since my last post, I've spent a lot of time having a very lively discussion on thesmartmarks.com forums about the Muhammad Hassan character. Now this might get rather lengthy and the non-wrestling fans in the room might want to go for a walk but I'm going to try to make my points.

One of the main things that I've been discussing has been the way that Hassan has been portrayed, the main knock against it being that there was no reason for his Arab heritage to be brought up, with the example of TNA's Sonjay Dutt being used to show that an Arab looking person can be used in wrestling without it becoming an issue. I think that is a case of apple's and oranges

Sonjay is a wrestler who is a member of the TNA X devision, who comes out and does some flips, Don West calls him the “playa from the Himalaya's” then he usually loses to a mid-card heel

Muhammad Hassan is a character who was born and raised in Detroit, who had a fairly normal life up until 9/11. After 9/11, he began to see that he was being treated differently, due to his looks and heritage. This pushed him deeper into his heritage, hence the wearing of the headdress and robes, along with his entrance music. He feels that he has been discriminated against due to people's fears of Arab's , when he was as victimized by 9/11 as much as they were.

See, there is no reason for TNA to bring up Sonjay's heritage, as it's not central to the character, such as it is, that he plays. As a matter of fact, I would be more offended if TNA out of nowhere, said “This is Sonjay Dutt, a great X division wrestler, oh and by the way, he's an Arab.”

I love the character that Hassan plays. I liked it when it came in as it was different from what a lot of people were playing. A character with convictions like he has, there are really good story lines that could last years, if written correctly. The best part of it is that he looks like he really believes what he says.

(For the record...Hassan is played by a Italian-American by the name of Mark Magnus)

Sometimes I don't understand what it is wrestling fans want, The WWE brings in guys that are one dimensional “Hosses” and they complain, so they bring in characters like Eugene (Who I think could be the “Hacksaw” Duggan of the next 10 years) Mordecai (who was another character if brought along correctly, could have had years of shelf life) and Hassan, and it's complain even louder.