Today is the anniversary of one of the darkest days in American history.
On this day, 18 years ago 2 planes collided with the World Trade Center towers in NYC, a 3rd plane crashed into the Pentagon in Virginia and a 4th was brought down when the passengers over took the terrorists and brought the plane down in Pennsylvania.
In total over 3,000 people lost their lives on this day in 2001.
Everything seemed to have stopped when this happened, events were canceled, TV programming was preempted.
And all of this because extremists didn't like America.
In terms of sports and sports entertainment, the NFL and MLB were pushed back a week due to these attacks.
WWE who normally tapes Smackdown on a Tuesday (September 11th was on a Tuesday in 2001) canceled the taping and opted to air Smackdown live on Thursday night instead.
I remember vividly that day, I was working overnights at the time and had gone to bed when all of this was happening and woke up around 3pm to all the news.
I do need to address one topic of which I never touched on on this site.
WWE in response to all of this created the character of Muhammed Hassan (it's worth noting that the man who played the character is Italian), an Arab-American who felt the effects of racisim after the 2001 attacks.
In the years that followed, going all the way up to the summer of 2004 the character of Hassan became more like a terrorist. All of this culminating on an episode of Smackdown in 2004 just before The Great American Bash of that year.
The story goes as this, The Undertaker took on Hassan's manager Daivari and beat him pretty easily, after the match, Hassan entered the ring and began praying next to Daivari's body and men in ski masks and camo pants come out and carry Daivari from the ring, similar to a scene in the Middle East with a suicide bomber.
All of this happened on the same as terrorists attacked London.
The UPN Network who aired Smackdown at the time was upst with WWE and Vince McMahon. UPN threatened to pull Smackdown from it's line up if the Hassan character wasn't pulled from TV immediately.
All of this led to Hassan being "killed" off by The Undertaker at The Great American Bash.
Now, the rumors that have circulated since this are that Vince McMahon had huge plans for the Hassan character, it's rumored that Hassan was scheduled to defeat The Undertaker at The Great American Bash and become #1 contender to Batista and The World Heavyweight Championship and the following month defeat Batista and become the World Heavyweight champion.
Thankfully this plans never came to life.
Anyhow...
This post is dedicated to all those who lost their lives in the terrioist attacks of September 11th, 2001
I'll end with these two quotes:
"Where were you when the world stopped turning...that September day?"-Alan Jackson
"We who are truly brave will never live in fear!"-Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson
September 11th, 2001...We Will Never Forget!
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