Ladies and gentlemen, gather ’round! We have a tale of retirement, nostalgia, and a little bit of reality check served cold. Remember Muhammad Hassan? Yes, the guy who was about as Italian as a plate of spaghetti but got a WWE paycheck to play an Anti-American villain. Well, if you were hoping for a comeback, keep those dreams in the locker room.
Hassan, born Marc Copani, was a headline maker in 2004 and 2005 with a gimmick so controversial it made headlines for all the wrong reasons. The climax? A scripted ambush on The Undertaker by a band of masked men, aired just hours after a real-life terrorist attack in London. Talk about timing, right? It wasn’t exactly WrestleMania but more like Wrestle-MESS-ia. WWE swiftly sent him packing.
Fast forward to 2018, and Copani made a brief, tantalizing return to the indie wrestling scene in New York. He looked like he could still take a bump or two—or so we thought. But on the “Insight” podcast, hosted by Chris Van Vliet, Copani shared why he’s done playing catch with the ropes.
“I absolutely cannot step back into the ring,” Hassan said, channeling the wisdom of every retired athlete who’s ever grimaced at a pulled muscle. “I would shatter into a million pieces I think as soon as I took one bump. I threw my back out two weeks ago picking up my nephew, I blew my hamstring racing my daughter on the beach. It’s just amazing, as you get older you pile up injuries for no good reason. Like I wish I had a good story for how I threw my back out, like I mean I could squat and I could bench, and then I’m just getting out of the car and doing this, and boom, gone, it’s scary.”
And there you have it, folks. Marc Copani is now molding young minds as the Director of Human Resources for the Fulton City School District in New York. While he might not be delivering choke slams, he’s certainly delivering memos and molding young minds. From wrestling rings to the school bell rings—what a transition!