For WWE fans in the mid-2000s, Muhammad Hassan's short time in WWE left an mainly negative impression on the company, due to unfortunate circumstances and it drove Hassan away from wrestling. Hassan's friend Shawn Daivari gives an update on the former WWE superstar.
Daivari appeared on Fightful's "The List & Ya Boy" podcast to talk about Hassan whose real name is Marc Julian Copani. Daivari said he and Hassan keep in touch and even occasionally do appearances at wrestling events together when it's possible. During Hassan's time in WWE, Daivari served as his manager before moving on to manage The Great Khali a couple of years later.
Hassan has always been a controversial topic in WWE due to an angle in 2005 that saw Hassan send five masked men to attack the Undertaker during a taped episode of SmackDown. The episode aired in the United States on the same day as the London bus bombings. The Muhammad Hassan character, which was portrayed as an Arab-American character, and the angle coinciding with the bombings left many thinking that Hassan was a terrorist character. He was promptly removed from WWE and Hassan left wrestling altogether at that point.
"We still talk. He's right now the principal of a high school. He went back to college, had a little bit to finish up, became a high school social studies teacher. He thought, 'This school is too broken for me to make a difference as a teacher.' He went back and got his Masters degree in school administration, went back and became principal of the high school. It's a full-time gig. We still stay in touch, but unlike me, he has so much outside of the wrestling business that, if he can, he'll do [wrestling event appearances and autograph signings] if it makes sense, but it's not a thing that he needs to pay his mortgage or anything," Daivari said.
Fightful's very own managing editor Sean Ross Sapp caught up with Hassan a while back and wrote about the infamous angle and what Hassan has been doing with his life.That article, which was one of Hassan's first public comments since leaving pro wrestling, can be read at this link.
“The List & Ya Boy,” hosted by Fightful owner Jimmy Van and managing editor Sean Ross Sapp can be seen live every Wednesday at 3 p.m. ET on Fightful.com and on YouTube. The show features some of the biggest names in wrestling as guests, including Matt Riddle, Diamond Dallas Page, Deonna Purazzo, J.J. Dillon and more. Daivari's comments can be viewed in the latest episode of "The List & Ya Boy" which can be viewed in the video above.
