Shawn Daivari recently spoke with Chris Featherstone of Sports Illustrated’s Extra Mustard Blog about his time and WWE and his controversial angle with Muhammad Hassan.
Daivari and Hassan were thrust into the spotlight upon their arrivals in WWE, speaking out against Americans who were discriminating against people of Arabic descent in light of the 9/11 terror attacks. Daivari had already had a number of WWE tryouts, so he was known by a lot of people on the roster by the time he was brought in. Hassan, on the other hand, got a lot of heat with WWE veterans.
“They treated me like gold, and they treated Muhammad like crap,” Daivari said. “It was his first time up. He looked like a million dollars, he was way bigger than I was. I wasn’t considered a threat to anybody. I wasn’t gonna take anyone’s spot because if I was gonna do anything, I was gonna end up in the Cruiserweight division, which was such a low priority to begin with, it’s not threatening anybody.”
Their angle was eventually dropped after a terror attack in London back in July 2005. Daivari reveals that Stephanie McMahon approached him with a new gimmick that he flat out refused to take part in.
“Stephanie came up to me and was like, ‘We’ve got an idea for you for like next week. We want you to debut as a character named George W. Bush, and we want you to wear Red, White, and Blue trunks, and be like a super American patriot,” Daivari said.
“I replied, ‘I would love to kind of do my own thing, but that is a terrible idea. I don’t know who came up with it, or whose idea was it to come up with the name George W. Bush, and take me from the hottest heel to wearing red, white, and blue, and what the purpose is or the explanation for it. But, I really, really, feel strongly against it.”
You can read the full interview at SI.com.
