Rusev and LanaWWE has been a part of popuar culture since a long, long time. So much so that during its initial days most gimmick used to resort to populist ideas and stereotyped portrayals. It represented the culture of those times. So stemmed the idea of a ‘Real American hero’ and the ‘foreign villain’.There have been a lot of stereotypical gimmicks. This list looks at some of the present ones. And even with so many campaigns and ‘good intentions’ WWE just can’t escape arguments about the repreentation of various cultures on their show. The issue of race still plays a major role. Here are the 5 stereotypical gimmicks WWE has come up with
#5 Rusev
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Rusev deserves credit for being one of the few heels in a long time to draw heat. He’s one of the few rookies from NXT to have beeen consistently good at being a heel and one of teh few to actually sell a foreign villain gimmick in this day and age.
But the success hasn’t escaped all the stereotypes. He’s an admirer of Vladamir Putin, he thinks all Americans are trash, he’s brutal so much so that they’ve even played they angle of Rusev being an abusive boyfriend.
Lana and Rusev were introduced as villains at a time when the international relations between both the nations in conversation were nowhere near friendly. One of Lana’s promos even caught controversy after Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 incident when she said ,”You blame Russia for the recent current events”
#4 New Day
New day is the most entertaining act on TV right now but that came only after the lukewarm reaction to their initial babyface run. They were introduced with the typical notion of three happy go lucky African American guys. There is nothing new about singing and dancing but they had to put three black guys together for this gimmick to come to fruition.
Even the vignettes they showed had an all- black choir singing in the background. This just stemmed from stereotypes.
#3 Nation of Domination
If we’re talking about The New Day, then the Nation of Domination does come in the conversation naturally. Ever since the rumors of Big E, Kingston and Woods forming a team began, many were talking about a second coming of The Nation of Domination which was a gimmick that had four black guys and it typically represented the ‘angry black population’ of America.
They were a heel group and they seemed more like radical extremists. The issue of race there just couldn’t be ignored.
#2 The Mexicools
This group was created to address all the stereotypes and seemingly break them but it turned out to become a huge stereotype on its own. The fact that not many people may even remember this group is testament to the aforementioned argument.
The team consisted of Super Crazy, Psicosis, and Juventud.
They were actually making fun of other Mexicans in America. Just merely poking fun at the already misunderstood view about their own culture.
#1 Mohammad Hassan
There seems to be no career as wasted as Mohammad Hassan’s. He was young when he came to the WWE. He was just 23. He retired at the age of 24 following a huge controversy.
He introduced himself as an Arab- American and that he came to WWE to erase all prejudice related to Arab- Americans after 9/11. He used to raise his arms in the air and address Allah but stopped doing that as time passed. He got some major heel heat. He was even attacked by Hogan as comeuppnce during Wrestlemania. Attaked by a man who came out to the music of ‘Real American’.
In 2005, an episode for Smackdown was taped where Hassan first prayed on the ramp and that led a few masked men to come and choke the Undertaker. This episode was aired a few days after the London Bombings and the terrorism angles, coverage had already begun which led this segment to capture extra attention.
This led hassan’s immidiate exit from WWE, and eventually retiring.
