The challenge that led to TAQWAMANIA 2006

Read the challenge here/click here to see the video of the match

A PEACE OFFERING

By Michael Muhammad Knight

With CAIR’s Ibrahim Hooper investigating his “legal recourses” in regard to my articles, I would like to propose an alternative means of settling our differences.

Last night I went out to my backyard where I had my dog chained to a tree, and I walked up to that dog and I kicked him square in the mouth—and that dog looked up at me and said, “LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING, MIKE KNIGHT—YOU ARE THE BADDEST MAN IN PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING TODAY!”

“Damn right,” I told that dog—but then he just smiled.

“Why you smiling, dog?”

“I’LL TELL YOU WHY I’M SMILING, BROTHER! THERE’S A MAN OUT THERE NAMED IBRAHIM HOOPER, AND HE’S GOT HIS SIGHTS SET ON YOU! HE’S GUNNIN’ FOR THE TITLE AND I KNOW YOUR DAYS AS CHAMPION ARE NUMBERED!”

You know what I told that dog?

If Ibrahim Hooper wants it, Ibrahim Hooper can come to the dance.

So I hereby challenge CAIR’s National Communications Director to a wrestling match, to be sanctioned by the proper governing bodies and officiated by a licensed referee of the New York State Athletic Commission.

Upon acceptance of this challenge, Mr. Hooper can add any stipulations he wants—if he desires a Steel Cage Match, a Texas Bull-Rope Match, Barbed Wire, Brass Knuckles, Dog Collar, Lumberjack, Coal Miner’s Glove on a Pole, First Blood, I Quit, Four Corners, Winner Fights Daniel Pipes on a Deserted Island, whatever. You can be escorted to the ring by Condoleezza Rice for all I care, and put Irshad Manji in my corner—doesn’t even matter. Call Vince McMahon and get the whole thing on pay-per-view. Just sign the contract, show up and see if you can escape my Stomach Claw that I learned straight from Killer Kowalski himself.

I’ll put up for grabs my Egyptian Championship belt, the same belt that Rochester wrestling legend Hellcat won twenty-six years ago in a 128-man elimination tournament in Cairo. This ten pounds of gold with all its history that now hangs above my fireplace can be yours, Ibrahim Hooper—the championship committee has named you Number-One Contender. All you have to do is climb in those ropes and take me out.

But that’s not all I’m putting on the line.

If Ibrahim Hooper can overcome his crippling fear of Mike Knight and beat me in the ring, I will retire.

I will retire from professional wrestling, I will retire from writing punk-rock novels, I will retire from getting handjobs at ISNA conventions—that’s it, bedtime for the Fecal Assassin.

On the other hand—if I beat Hooper, Nihad Awad can hit the bricks and I get 30 days as CAIR’s Executive Director.

Believe me when I tell ya, Ibby, that I fight as dirty as anybody—just ask around. Watch the tapes: I piledrove Abdulrahman Alamoudi through a table, punked Omar Bakri Muhammad with a sledgehammer and wrapped a steel chair around Ali Ardekani’s head with all his Soldiers of Allah right there at ringside—and before you brand me an Islamophobe, watch the match where I suplex Irv Rubin off an eighteen-foot balcony. As of press time, the belt’s around my waist; and if keeping it there means pulling out all the stops, tough guy, consider them pulled.

SO WHATCHA GONNA DO, BROTHERS?

Ibrahim, get back to your tricep curls. Nihad, clean out your desk.

Michael Muhammad Knight is author of The Taqwacores, a novel available through the legendary punk label Alternative Tentacles.

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