Kane, the big red machine especially in his early years was a fully formed horror movie monster, in a time and place where he fit right in. He was pre-introduced with his own backstory, and there were details left unexplained, that played out through more than just his wrestling. The costume, the mannerisms, and of course the mask, but also some really minor details you might not know the ideas behind. In this video we're going to explore all of these and more, from the perspective of several people who have been credited as being influential in Kane's creation. You'll hear accounts from Jim Cornette, Bruce Prichard and yes, even Vince Russo, to see if their accounts match up. Then we'll go straight to the source, and look at Glenn Jacobs' own words from his autobiography. The man behind the mask offers some insights and explanations I'd never heard before, but we have to start with the original idea behind the big red monster.
- Bruce Prichard
Lets start with the longest tenured WWE employee who plays a role, Bruce Prichard. Having arrived in the company in 1987 working both behind the scenes and later as on air talent Brother Love, Bruce has for decades been heavily involved in the inner workings of WWE. He also has a long history with the wrestler who is the reason Kane as a character ever existed, the Undertaker. The name Kane has long been accredited to Bruce, but it might be that Bruce was far more involved in creating Kane than that.
On Something to Wrestle Bruce once explained, "finding opponents for the Undertaker is not the easiest task in the world". He elaborates "You have to sometimes create opponents for him. He's a unique character, and its tough to make someone believably competitive with The Undertaker." That is certainly true when we look back at the many, many characters that were invented mainly to feud with the deadman, many of whom either flopped completely or didn't last long. Giant Gonzales, Mordecai and the Underfaker are more famous examples that come to mind. Of all the characters that were designed to feud with Undertaker, the only two I can think of that actually stood the test of time would be of course Kane, but also Mankind, who held victories over Taker in his early run.
Bruce goes on to claim that the backstory of Kane was his idea. In his own words, "I just started freestyling. I said what if Undertaker had a brother? And as I'm going through this thing I'm literally just thinking out loud. What if the Undertaker had a brother that he thought was dead. But in reality he lived, and he's been living away from the Undertaker and he's hated the Undertaker his entire life and you can go back and tell the story that the Undertaker when he first came in went by the name Kane The Undertaker in memory, and as a memorial to his brother Kane, who he thought had died as a small child." I've quoted a lot there so I'll paraphrase the rest, Bruce goes on to say that Undertaker has to feel responsible for his brother's presumed death.
Finally Bruce noted that he believes that this pitch would have occurred some time not long after Wrestlemania 13, which might well be accurate since Paul Bearer teases the arrival of Kane for the first time on the May 12th '97 episode of Raw. Also in listening to Bruce talk about Paul Bearer actually being Kane's father, it only just dawned on me to check when making this video but in real life Paul was only thirteen years older than Kane, but that was never part of the storyline, even in the attitude era.
When Bruce gets to the look of Kane. He says that in storyline the Mask and costume were to cover up the burns Kane would have suffered in the fire, but in real life they were to cover up the fact that this was the same man who played Dr. Isaac Yankem, and to not make it obvious to the fans that the two were the same person. There was in fact another reason for Kane's very unique costume that Glenn Jacobs revealed in his autobiography, but we'll get to that later. Bruce credits Debbie Bonanzio of creative services with the design of Kane's costume, the concept art for which has floated around online for years.
- Vince Russo
This will be a fairly short part of the video, as Vince doesn't actually take a lot of credit for Kane like he does other aspects of the Attitude era. At least he doesn't when speaking not behind his paywall, and Bro's getting none of my money. According to Vince Russo speaking in 2016, Bruce Prichard was always closely involved in Undertaker's creative, which is both a blessing and a curse when you consider some of the booking of Undertaker in the 90's. He also credits Bruce with the idea of the Undertaker having an evil brother, as well as the childhood fire. On Wrestling Inc's YouTube channel where he dedicated a full video to the origin of Kane, he claims that the concept of a steel cage with a roof on it and room to fight around ringside was his arch enemy Jim Cornette's idea. Interestingly the biggest thing I can find Vince claiming any credit for is coming up with the name for that cage, 'Hell in a Cell'.
Perhaps the reason for this might be Vince's lack of a reputation for long term booking. In a Kayfabe Commentaries interview about WWE in 1997, Jim Cornette goes into detail about how Vince seemed to find it hard to come up with ideas to keep Kane and the Undertaker separated from Kane's October '97 debut until Wrestlemania 14 in March of the next year. As I hope you can understand given the history between Cornette and Russo, I'm paraphrasing Jim here, because I'm wording that statement far more politely than he did.
The other thing that Vince claimed that I found interesting is that the Kane character wasn't actually pitched with Glenn Jacobs in mind. In fact, it was at least in the idea phase invented with nobody in particular in mind behind the mask. I'll get to how Glenn Jacobs was chosen in the role shortly, but it raises the question can you realistically imagine anyone else that might have been put in that role? The only name that came to my mind is Kurrgan, who was signed by WWE in 1997 and was a member first of the Truth Commission, and later the Oddities. Could there have been anyone else around in 1997 that could have been put in that position and survived as long as Glenn did? At least they didn't try to bring Gonzales back.
- Jim Cornette
I'm going to largely be referencing two specific interviews Jim has done, as his story is fairly consistent every other time I've heard it. First his Kayfabe Commentaries Timeline of 1997 which I mentioned earlier, and secondly an interview with Inside the Ropes. As Russo said, the Kane character wasn't created with Glenn Jacobs in mind, but Glenn was already in the WWE system since Cornette helped him in thanks to a reference from Dutch Mantel who had booked him in Puerto Rico, Cornette booked Jacobs in Smoky Mountain Wrestling most famously as Unabom, but also briefly as the Christmas Creature. This feels like an appropriate time to point out that Cornette, the guy who frequently complains that wrestling ain't laak it used to be, booked a Christmas Creature. He also wrestled a ninja Turtle but thats neither here nor there...
Jim Cornette told Inside the Ropes this about Kane's early development. "Halloween is one of my favourite horror movies, and Michael Myers to me was just so cool. And Undertaker was already doing the sit up and he was doing some of the mannerisms, and I thought boy if we did the original videos for Kane where you're looking through the eyeholes of the mask and you hear the breath. And maybe you're looking and you see pictures and clippings of the Undertaker on the walls in a room somewhere because he's been obsessing about the Undertaker." He goes on to describe the look they went with as like a "superhero", more on that soon...
In that quote Jim noted that his idea for Kane when Bruce pitched the childhood fire was for Kane to be an evil horror movie monster who has chosen his time to come back for revenge, but in his words, "they went for the superhero shit". What does he mean by that though? Well earlier I mentioned that I would explain why Kane wore the very over the top costume he did, and you might have seen before that early on in his run on non-televised events, Kane would experiment with walking to the ring wearing a cape that was quickly abandoned. To my knowlege this cape never made it to WWE television, but it does open up a different insight into Kane's character that might not have been otherwise obvious to the fans. While the rest of the world might see a young Kane injured in a fire that ended his parents as a victim, Kane would grow up seeing himself as the hero of his own story, and his brother who the masses loved as the villain. In this version of the story Kane spends his adolescent years training himself up to avenge his parents and himself against the Undertaker. In Kane's mind, he is Rocky Balboa after Ivan Drago kills Apollo Creed. The costume, the cape and the mask, all there to hide his scars, but also because Kane is in his own mind the hero, a superhero even. Remember that for later. In reality though, and as we see it, an eye for an eye makes the world blind.
- Glenn Jacobs' Autobiography
Now let's hear straight from the source, the man who wore the mask, Glenn Jacobs from his 2019 autobiography, Mayor Kane. Glenn gives a pretty interesting take on much of the concept behind Kane, much of it I haven't heard from anyone else. Annoyingly, Glenn claims that he was first approached by either Bruce or Jim, but he can't remember which... He does confirm that the character was created purely to feud with Undertaker, and had to be fast-tracked because from the sounds of it, Undertakers next opponent post Wrestlemania 13 was supposed to be Vader until his arrest in Kuwait for assaulting a television host live on air who implied that wrestling might not be totally legit.
Here's another thing I'd never heard anywhere else, the original name from creative services for the character that he was pitched was not Kane, but Inferno, a name he very much hated. He claims that Bruce hated it too, so their combined efforts got it changed. While nobody else as best I know has talked about this, there are similar stories from around this time of creative services pitching lists of ridiculous names that were never going to work. A famous one being an up and coming wrestler who was pitched the name "Chilly McFreeze". Thankfully this wouldn't be chosen, and the name that would be settled on was Stone Cold Steve Austin. Mick Foley has a similar story around the creation of Mankind, where the name pitched to him was "Mason the Mutilator", and thankfully he managed to convince them that Mankind was better. On screen right now is a list printed in Chris Jericho's second autobiography of names that were suggested for what would become known as the Walls of Jericho. Many of which are daft, with my favourite, or least maybe being the 'Jericoil'.
Glenn also says that he wasn't initially keen on the Kane costume we have all grown to know. He says "I saw Kane as more like an escaped mental patient, or perhaps a maniacal hockey mask wearing Jason Vorhees from the Friday the 13th franchise." Interestingly this seems to relate well to Jim Cornette's interpretation of Kane. Around the time that this was happening, Glenn noted that Paul Bearer had already begun appearing on Raw teasing the imminent arrival of Kane, drip feeding us more information every week. It wasn't a matter of if but when these detailed had to be finalised. What made Glenn change his mind on the costume though? He attributes that to a phone conversation with Vince McMahon that made him see the character through a completely different, and previously unexplained lens. "He said he understood where I was coming from about the look of my character. It made me feel better, but Vince also said I was wrong about who Kane really was. Kane wasn't someone from a mental institution, or a mere sadist. Kane, Vince insisted has a scarred ego. He's a tortured soul compensating for his ugliness, and emotional dysfunction by becoming a super hero. Also, he's not disfigured as much as he perceives, that's just another example of how insecure and unfulfilled Kane is." When Kane finally removed the mash in the Summer of 2003, some fans were disappointed to find Kane wasn't the scarred monster we had been told he was? Here is the explanation for why that was. For all the ridicule Vince gets for many of this creative ideas over the years, some of which rightfully so, I'll give him credit for sticking with this one six years after he originally pitched it.
There is one other aspect of Kane's look that I always wondered about, and Glenn provides an answer for it. I'm referring to the one contact lens that he would wear, which according to Glenn's book was a suggestion by Jim Ross. Upon seeing Kane wearing the costume for the first time backstage at an event, Jim pitched the contact lens with a maybe unlikely inspiration. "Vince kept stressing that the operative word with Kane is 'cool'. JR responded 'You know what would be cool? He then brought up shock-rock singer Marilyn Manson who at the time was at the height of his career, and noted that during performances the singer wore one contact lens that made his eye look sinister." This was, frankly a genius suggestion from JR, as not only does it serve to make Kane look more menacing, but it takes us further away from that superhero like figure that the Kane character sees himself as.
Now we get to maybe the most iconic part of Kane's look, the design of his mask. Glenn noted that they had trouble finding someone to make it, eventually finding a couple based in New York who specialised in leather S&M gear. Whether they made anything for Demolition or not is not disclosed... If you're interested in how the first mask was produced, a mold was made of Glenn's face, which is then wet, and heated in an oven to create the creases. This only really applied to the initial mask, as later ones would be made out of latex, noting that one time the creases in the leather actually cut him upon landing on his head in a match.
While I've compared Kane to a horror movie character in this video, I think part of what drew me to Kane is that he doesn't just have the slow lurching mannerisms you might expect out of a monster character. He was athletic enough to regularly jump from the top rope, and even once off the top of a steel cage onto the much smaller X-Pac. There was clearly more thought put into how this character would react in different situation. One example of this that Kane explained himself on Talk is Jericho, involved how he would try to convey emotion, which is difficult for any wrestler wearing a mask. Instead of making grander full body expressions as a luchador might, Kane would tilt his head to the side slightly, allowing the viewer to interpret this themselves. What might be going through Kane's mind? Kane went on to explain that he had gotten the idea from his dog, who as many do would tilt it's head when talked to. You could interpret this gesture as Kane being somewhat simple, but also as him trying to process what is being said to him through the prism of his troubled life experiences.
This brings me back to the scars that Kane didn't have when he took the mask off in 2003, they're intended to be psychological, but we wouldn't see that until his face reveal. Exposing Kane's face to the world after years of self delusion would alter his mental state for the worse. During that 2003 run Kane would develop an obsessive and incorrect idea that people were laughing at him. This led him to turn on his friend and tag team partner at the time Rob Van Dam, and would also cause him to set Jim Ross on fire during an interview. Without the mask, his hero-like perception of himself was gone, and he dealt with it in the worst way, by lashing out. This was the Kane that I loved back in the day, the absolute monster version of him that we only really saw in his early years. It's why to this day and multiple times on this channel I keep coming back to the subject of him.
Sources:
Prichard: Timeline 1997
Something to Wrestle August 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g98q8Nr7bYM (Currently privated)
Something to Wrestle November 23rd 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cB_yaeoN9I
Cornette: Timeline 1997, Kayfabe Commentaries
Cornette Inside the Ropes on Kane: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9peUAarBOU
Russo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73iUbSJAvYw 14:50
Talk is Jericho #435, 2018
Kane: Mayor Kane: My life in Wrestling, 2019
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