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The Spork
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Meanwhile, the political leakage into pro wrestling has become, quite possibly, the most retarded thing i have seen in ages.
A hallmark in proving that my favorite guilty pleasure really must be the lowest common denominator in entertainment
Take the potentially sympathetic character like the "Muhammad Hassan" gimmick Mark Magnus was saddled and the moves to make him a heel while proving him right at the same time with the whole cliche French/Canadian/Quebecois as anti-American heel schtick and suddenly the whole business has devolved back to it's redneck, carny roots.
The whole point at the beginning of WWE's Muhammad Hassan character was to present a persona who was born American of Arab descent, but who had become angry and irate since, as a consequence of 9/11, he found himself suddenly being treated as a second-class citizen or a suspect.
Between the general incompetence of WWE's creative Department and Vince McMahon's need to piss people off regardless of whether or not he has a valid point, the Hassan character was pushed as a "heel" (a bad guy) even while the audience reaction to his strident interviews and "promos" proved Hassan's greivances to be essentially correct.
To make matters worse, on July 5, WWE pretaped a match/segment for their "Smackdown!" program involving Hassan's "manager" and tag-partner Shawn "Khosrow" Daivari versus longtime WWE performer The Undertaker in which Hassan and Daivari switched roles and Daivari was used as cannon fodder against the much larger Undertaker.
After the match, Hassan summoned five large men from the backstage area dressed in camouflage pants, black sweaters and ski-masks to administer a beating to the Undertaker including choking him out with piano wire, assuming a kneeling prayer position on the mat and then carrying the defeated, "unconscious" Daivari to the backstage area elevated over their heads like mourners carrying a martyr, a Shahid.
The segment was taped two days prior to the London bombings and could have easily been edited out by WWE or UPN that day in time for that evening's airing.
By turning the character into exactly what they tried to build him up as NOT being, WWE creative showed a huge streak of irresponsibility and laziness worse than any other stupid thing they've done to date.
Vince McMahon is basically now pandering to the most racist element of his audience and whining that his critics don't get it.
Well, I'm not a critic, I've been a fan from the time I was 7 years old and i'm 40 now... and I don't get it, and I certainly don't like it.
As a professional psychologist, I find it appalling, as a wrestling fan, i find it insulting and if it means having to chase down tapes from the indy circuit (which I should probably be doing anyway) to get my wrestling fix, then that's what i'll do, because until someone in the one remaining national promotion gets their shit together and puts togeter a watchable program again, they've lost a viewer in me.
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050725
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