The characters Lana and Rusev launched into an anti-American rant in which they made reference to the flight MH17 being shot down and hailed Russian president Vladimir Putin for ‘making fools’ out of the U.S..
People are quite angry about this, so the mainstream media says, on Twitter and all of the other antisocial networks that exist out there on the information beltway.
While it may be the old ‘too soon’ cliche that is best used in this situation, I am not at all surprised at what the WWE is doing.
Back when when the WWE was the WWF, they capitalized on Iranian hatred by making Hulk Hogan win the 1984 title belt against the Iron Sheik..
In 1990, Sgt Slaughter turned his back on the United States and joined with Iraq ..
Hulkster had to ave the say the day and rid the WWF of anti-American sentiment.
So now wrestling has LUNA..
But there’s no Hulk Hogan to save the day this time. I think John Cena is right for the job..
Listen.. We all know, at this point in life, that wrestling is fake. It’s an act.. but so often it’s on the cutting edge of pop culture—it’s how it stayed in fashion for so many decades. Vince McMahan is obviously no stranger to controversy and will get through this LUNA lunacy quite fine.
As to whether it’s offensive? Sure.. but that’s the point. It’s an attempt to market the character as someone we will all hate in unison. It’s quite a keen way of doing it.. controversial, too. But … if an organization was free of controversy, people may very well stop paying attention to it.. Don’t think THAT doesn’t run through Vince McMahan’s mind.
Russian-themed WWE characters use MH17 disaster as part of act
