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Post by The Curmudgeon on May 13, 2009 16:49:33 GMT 2
Bit of wrestling history first; Kurt Angle won a gold medal in the 1996 olympics (even though he had a broken NECK at the time) and was snapped up by the WWE in 1999. An inspired promo campaign forced home the fact he WAS an "American Hero" - surely perfect good guy material - but they made him look like a complete do-gooding prick instead. And he was BRILLIANT in WWE - good on the mic, funny, smart - and fantastic in the ring. Anyway, a few years later and Kurt turned from goofy to psycho, and the writers focussed more on his legit hard as nails status. Despite trying every bad guy tactic in the book (attacking women, breaking people's ankles), the older wrestling fans pretty much ignored all the bad guy stuff and cheered the hell out of him, which, when you're supposed to be the number one bad guy in the company, doesn't look exactly right on TV. Which led to this.. www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFvWdqzmWic&feature=relatedOne of the reasons I still watch this "kids show"? Moments like that. |
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Post by trashcanman on May 14, 2009 20:37:26 GMT 2
I love how they had Sgt. Slaughter support Iraq during the first Gulf War back in the day. He even carried an Iraqi flag to the ring. So funny. The greatest country in the world is France? Wow, that may have been worse then the black people and Jesus comments put together to those people.
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Post by The Curmudgeon on May 15, 2009 10:38:57 GMT 2
The Slaughter stuff was hilarious. Didn't they burn the American flag once? Awesome. On a similar note, I was going to post this a little while back but never got round to it. For a perfect example of an idea that is too controversial and just too damn smart for typical wrestling fans, look no further than the character of Muhammed Hassan. His whole schtick was that he was born and raised in America as a muslim, but because of 9/11 he was branded a terrorist. Hassan was quite possibly the best bad guy WWE ever had. And wow did this make for some fantastic, edgy viewing. Muslims complained because he would praise Allah before the match, so that had to get canned. Hassan had idiots shouting "USA" at him, even though his whole gimmick was the fact he WAS a fucking American. Some prick even held up a "get the hell out this country" sign at him. Unreal. Anyway, the idea was too smart and so they had to turn him into a generic "evil foreigner" who wore a turban (or whatever it's called.. I don't want to say "towel" but..) and then the death knell of the character - during a match with the Undertaker, five guys in black terrorist ski-masks came out with bats and PIANO WIRE and Hassan made a "beheading" gesture. Oh, and this was aired two hours before 7/7. Whoops. After this made national news, several papers ran stories about Hassan. Check out this interview, where Hassan calls out the New York Post - this footage was banned from being aired in the UK. www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmQA6jsC3h4&feature=PlayList&p=8FFC67A8F44916F0&index=3The tv network refused to air the Hassan character after that, and so he got shit-canned a few weeks after this interview. I very rarely get angry at anything I watch during wrestling, but the racist, xenophobic attitudes of the fans really pissed me off. And every time I watch these clips it happens again. A damn shame. |
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Post by trashcanman on May 16, 2009 21:29:48 GMT 2
What a disgrace. People are a tribalistic bunch of idiots that allow their opinions to be dictated to them by the scumbags in power whose only goal is to keep themselves in power by turning everybody else against each other. Thanks for trying, WWE.
So are Muslims banned altogether from British television or what? That speech was just plain sensible. And why would Muslims complain about praying to Allah? Geez.
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Post by The Curmudgeon on May 16, 2009 21:38:24 GMT 2
Yeah it was a great idea obviously written by somoene over-estimating the public's intelligence, not only to understand what the character was saying, but also the fact - it IS a character. What kind of fucking man retard, nowadays, sits and paints a racist sign to a wrestling show?
And no no, stuff about muslims isn't banned in the UK - far from it. But a guy mouthing off about the 7/11 bombings a week after it happened? I don't even know if that would get shown now.
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