5 times WWE changed wrestlers' ethnicity

The Japanese guy from Samoa 

In the wrestling business, not much is guaranteed. You might come in with a well-toned body, a good name, and your own ethnicity, but depending on the character that you are playing you are bound to change almost all of them. You will probably get a new name that is easy for the fans and the merchandise department and you could get a complete makeover of your body thanks to the costumes, body paint or some other things.

And in some cases, you could get your ethnicity changed as well. Today, we are going to take a look at this last category of wrestlers who had their ethnicity changed by WWE.


#5 Camacho

Camacho is the son of Haku

The chances of one remembering Camacho are low as he only had a short and low-impact stay in the WWE. He was booked as the Latino pal of Hunico (who is still featuring under the mask of Sin Cara). Camacho mostly spent his time down in NXT but could not make it to high grounds despite having a good set of skills.

While he portrayed the Latino gimmick, in real life, he comes from the United States. He is the son of legendary WWE star Haku and WWE decided that it was better to portray him as a Latino guy instead of letting him stick to his roots. Camacho is currently working in New Japan Pro Wrestling along with his brother Tama Tonga and has been successful so far.

#4 Muhammad Hassan

Hassan was an American

Muhammad Hassan became synonymous to controversy thanks to the sensitive gimmick he played. To his credit, he was someone that fulfilled the job he got almost perfectly, but thanks to the socio-politic time frame and the terrorist attacks that were going around, WWE had some immense amount to pull his character and they eventually did the same.

The real life Mark Copani, Hassan was born in Syracuse, New York. However, he was given Arab roots by the WWE and thanks to some great costumes and accent, Hassan got over as a legitimate character. HE dropped out of the wrestling scene soon after he was let go by WWE and it marked a sad end to his wrestling career.

#3 Nikita Koloff

Extents that one go to stay in character

The success of Ivan Koloff, who came in as a foreign heel and ended the eight-year reign of Bruno Sammartino, gave the wrestling business a lot of ideas. One among that was the character of Nikita Koloff, the nephew of Ivan Koloff. Nikita found some solid success during his stay in the Jim Crockett promotions and made good use of the Ivan Koloff angle.

However, not many knew that Nikita actually hailed from Minnesota. The real life Nelson Scott Simpson, Nikita showed some great professionalism to protect his Russian gimmick and even went on to learn different languages so that he could keep kayfabe alive.

#2 Yokozuna

Samoan not Japanese

Yokozuna was billed from the land of the rising sun and his name referred to the highest rank in the Japanese Sumo wrestling. All these, along with his dressing style and the manager in Mr. Fuji, Yokozuna was projected as a Japanese sumo star that made his way into WWE and dominated. Yokozuna had some memorable feuds during his stay in the WWE and went on to win the WWE championship as well.

The truth about all these is that: Yokozuna was never a Japanese star. In fact, he hailed from the great Anoai family of Samoa which means that he is the relative of stars like Roman Reigns, The Rock, Rikishi, Usos, Rosey and a string of other superstars.

#1 Scott Hall

Cuban from America

The heroics of Scott Hall are well known. He had a lengthy and illustrious career despite the battles with his personal demons and it’s safe to say that Scott Hall deserves the Hall of Fame induction that he got. Hall’s rise to fame came thanks to the Razor Ramon character that he played.

It was heavily inspired by the Al Pacino character from Scarface. The character which was named Tony Montana was a Cuban and thanks to some small makeovers, WWE managed to turn the American Scott Hall into a Cuban. The gimmick was an immense success and that is why when Hall left for WCW, WWE tried to replace him with a Fake Razor Ramon and we all know how that went.

Meet the man who called CM Punk the softest man alive HERE