Keep or Delete from History? Kane

[tiger_rick]

Number 3 in the series no-one asked for. Would you delete Kane's existence from wrestling history - well, WWE history.

Kane debuted as Glen Jacobs' third gimmick on WWF TV in 1997 in an angle with The Undertaker that could have been some of the greatest Wrestlecrap ever. I mean, a little brother everyone thought had died in a fire who'd somehow been saved and hidden by Paul Bearer, who it turned out had banged Taker's Mom and was the child's father, and lived in a basement or something for two decades waiting for the opportunity to debut on a nationally televised pro-wrestling show and face his brother in a catch-as-catch-can classic, after an attempt to burn the Undertaker alive in an eye-for-an-eye attack failed. Sounds ludicrous but worked, wth Kane almost immediately becoming a pretty popular act, despite his murderous tendencies and Paul Bearer being utterly hideous. Kane's first year or so, until he became humanised and shagged Tori, was pretty great stuff and he had his moments after that with the comeback in early 2000, the period where he started to speak and the summer of 2002 - before he was accused of shagging his dead college girlfriend (presumably they both went to basement college) after she'd died and then lost decisively to Triple H, the bloke who spread the rumours, and reenacted the alleged necrophilia - all had pretty good moments and the character was still popular.

I'll let everyone else fill in the worst of Kane, aside from what's written above, over almost two decades on TV, as they decide whether deleting one of the all-time great angles from history is a price worth paying to never have heard the terms "vegetive state" or "May 19th".

I'm on the side of delete again. As good as the first angle is, the fact that The Undertaker is someone I loathe doesn't help it at this point. I'm not convinced losing it makes a bit of difference to the company's business, to WrestleMania 14 as a turning point in history or to Steve Austin's ascent. In fact, the most significant thing to come out of the angle, with hindsight, is probably Shawn Michael's injury. Kane wasn't all bad but I think it's about 90/10 bad to good and I can't think of a single match that he was ever in that is a loss to pro wrestling history.

He can get in the bin for me. What about you?

[HarmonicGenerator]

I used to really like Kane (and Undertaker was my favourite for the longest time). The debut was one of the best, he was part of a few great matches (‘01 Rumble, TLC IV on Raw), and he’s one of the people everyone knew and recognised in the Attitude Era. Even I, who didn’t start watching again properly until summer 2000, knew who Kane was. 

But the bad years definitely outweigh the good here and especially if we’re taking his post-WWE career into consideration I could manage without those good parts mentioned above. It’s a delete from me.

[Cannibal Man]

I love 1997 WWF and the build up to the reveal and payoff of Kane is a 10/10 moment that still works but I'd happily delete those four or five months from the arse end of 97 and start of 98 in service of the next few decades being free of one of the biggest shitarses to ever do it. Just a fucking absolutely worthless sack of old bollocks and a complete tithead to go with it.  Awful, awful, awful. One thing to imagine how much alright stuff you'd lose but how much utter dogshit would vanish? Never having to worry about the sight of this sausagey dickhead hobbling about in his Primark work trousers on the way to shite something else up during the Corporate Kane nadir? Bliss. Replace him with Snitsky. Deleted.

Edited August 12, 2025 by Cannibal Man

[Gus Mears]

Has anyone wrestled as long without having a good singles match? I love that even the matches Harmonic Generator suggests all are designed to have as little Kane involved as humanly possible.

 

[air_raid]

1 hour ago, Gus Mears said:

Has anyone wrestled as long without having a good singles match?

Probably only me that remembers it but he had a very good match with Kurt Angle on SmackDown during his brief run as Intercontinental champion. Probably because (a) it was Angle and (b) it was shorter than a PPV match.

[RedTwoster]

I’m loving these keep or delete topics @tiger_rick - I’d love to see you do ones on Meltzer/the Wrestling Observer, secondary titles or WCW Thunder/the ‘second show’. Separately, of course.

As far as Kane is concerned, I’d keep him. If it wasn’t for Kane and wrestlers like him, I’m not sure we’d have that viable alternative in AEW. Kane’s bad years and bad storylines were horrendous, and if he wasn’t there, someone else equally awful may well have taken his place. But if the idea is that he’s deleted and we lose all of that shit, I’m not in favour of it.

We need people to actively want an alternative for that alternative to exist. We need wrestlers to feel like they can do better, and we need Tony Khan to feel the motivation to actually finance that. We need fans to move away from WWE and to flock to the indies looking for something to feed their love of wrestling that was better than what we were getting.

In that sense, we need the bad years. Kane isn’t exactly an integral part of the ‘bad’, but he’s certainly part of it, and I don’t want to risk removing any of the ingredients in that shit sandwich for that reason.

[Supremo]

I can’t seem to find it online, but I remember Kane’s Hall of Fame induction video working miracles into making you think he was a net positive to the product. When it’s presented in a quick montage, you forget all the drudge you had to sit through for years on end.

In many ways, the character was the prototype that Bray Wyatt eventually followed. Absolutely killer initial concept that got worse over time as they endlessly added nonsensical bollocks to it. Who actually burnt the funeral home in the end? Was he scarred? Fuck knows.

The best stuff of his career was the original 1997/1998 run and the Team Hell No stuff with Daniel Bryan. No prizes for guessing why teaming with Bryan Danielson, the Greatest of All Time, ended up being a career highlight for Kane.

I genuinely couldn’t tell you my favourite Kane match, but we’ll always have the Hurri-Kane-Rana when he nearly paralysed himself. Look what this idiot did…in America!

Such a surprisingly stupid thing for Glenn to do. I hear he’s quite smart in real life.

[TheBurningRed]

He actually had quite a decent match with Orton in his later years at Wrestlemania. For all his shit, I’d keep him. His run up until maybe 2004, he was perfectly fine/enjoyable. I couldn’t man you five great Kane singles matches though.

[CTXRussomark]

For someone that was around for so long it's incredible to think you could delete Kane from ever existing and probably nothing of much significance would change.  Undertaker got an extra year or so out of the deadman gimmick thanks to him but ended up switching to the biker gimmick anyway, and from that point onwards I genuinely can't think of anything from Kane's output that I'd fight to retain.  On the other hand I could be here all night listing the terrible shit I'd be glad to be rid of.  So it's a definite delete for me - he peaked in those first couple of years and it was a slow decline for the next 20. 

[gmoney]

4 hours ago, Gus Mears said:

Has anyone wrestled as long without having a good singles match? I love that even the matches Harmonic Generator suggests all are designed to have as little Kane involved as humanly possible.

 

He had a decent match with X-Pac at some point, and that's the only one I can remember. The first Inferno match isn't good obviously, but I loved the spectacle at the time. 

As others have said, his debut and initial storylines were the exact sort of nonsense that was perfect for the time and I loved, but post that it's slim pickings indeed.

Additionally, I remember getting back into wrestling in 1998 after getting bored of it in 1995 like a lot of people. I can recall thinking to myself as a 13 year old "it's all changed, it's cool now. My older brother won't rinse me for liking it because of wanting to see big sweaty men any more." Only for him to pick up one of the trading cards I had of Kane and go "is that a gimp?! They've got a bloody gimp in it now! Gmoney, is he your best one?" and homophobic taunting continued. 

Get rid. 

[Carbomb]

Most of this has been covered. Only other decent thing I can remember him doing is his post-unmasking psycho run, where they quickly reframed him as believing himself to be disfigured. He actually got back his aura as a monster at that point. 

Of course, his psycho run went the same way as Orton's: Shane bloody McMahon killed it stone dead.

[simonworden]

This one is interesting because I really think you can do without Kane and everyone still gets to where they did.

His most notable feuds were with Taker, WM14 of course being the big one and if you look back at that card, Taker could've had a decent match with a host of other opponents from Rock and the Nation, Triple H or they could've easily done the HITC against Mankind instead of King of the Ring.

HIs unmasking storyline didn't really help elevate anyone even if it popped a few ratings so that's off the table. Undertaker's return to the darkside would need some reworking but I think that's easily done.

The only arguments I can see for keeping Kane are the pops he got for his music/ pyro live being a big enjoyment moment for many fans at their first shows and perhaps the merch he shifted with the masks.

There's also no doubt that the gimmick made Glen Jacobs not the other way round. Anyone could have easily been slotted in with the right size and shape. 

[The King of Old School]

He electrocuted Shane McMahon's testicles.

That's enough to keep him around for me.

[tiger_rick]

3 minutes ago, The King of Old School said:

He electrocuted Shane McMahon's testicles.

If only he'd electrocuted Vince's.

[Merzbow]

His friendship with X-Pac was one of the few times an odd couple gimmick really worked, the pop for him saying "SUCK IT" through an Electrolarynx is reason enough to keep him.

We never got DX Green Kane though..