Muhammad Hassan is Dead

That is, the character of Muhammad Hassan is being killed off by the WWE after tonight's Great American Bash.

The controversy surrounding the character has been plastered all over the mainstream media in the States in the weeks since the London bombings, when the WWE unwisely added a mock terrorist element to Hassan's angle with the Undertaker. The news stories are all pretty much like this AP newswire piece, which contains some hilarious quotes from WWE spokesman Gary Davis - like this one, on the distinctly terrorist looking henchmen, dressed in paramilitary fashion, who attacked the Undertaker on Hassan's behalf:

Some people drew the conclusion these people were terrorists even though they were not terrorists.

Yeah, sure. Or how about this howler, on the motivations for creating Hassan in the first place:

The whole point of the story line and this character was to point out the injustices Arab-Americans have suffered since 9-11.

But of course! And exploiting anti-Arab xenophobia by making him a heel was just a coincidence then, no?

I'm sure Vince McMahon doesn't care about the bad press he's getting. It gets attention for his company during a downtime, after all. But you'd think he would have learned his lesson after the Sgt. Slaughter thing 15 years ago, wouldn't you? That was a real money spinner, that was -- so much so that WrestleMania VII got moved from the 100,000-seater Los Angeles Coliseum to the 16,000-seat Sports Arena next door. From the way he was booked from the outset Hassan was never intended to put bums on seats, so the only explanation for his existence was to pander to trailer-trash ultra-nationalists.

But after tonight it'll be over, good riddance - na na nah nah, hey hey hey, goodbye, and all that - and Vince will have to come up with something better. Like, I dunno, the Boogeyman?