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#1 Kane
On June 23rd, 2003, the Big Red Machine Kane lost a match that resulted in him having to remove his mask. I mark this moment as one of the worst decisions in WWE history. I grew up watching Kane, and the whole point of his character was that you couldn’t see his face and that’s what made him more demonic.
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He was like the WWE’s Leatherface; a tortured soul with an incredible backstory. To give you some background, Kane was involved in a fire at his parent’s house that The Undertaker was revealed to have started. Kane was horribly disfigured in the fire and suffered from mental issues in the years following the blaze.
His mask was there to hide the disfigured face and the horrible scars that he had. He also couldn’t talk when he first joined and the mask covered the whole face. I understand cutting the mouth section out to allow Kane to join in on promos normally but even that removed some of the mystique from the 7-foot monster.
After striking up a friendship with Rob Van Dam the storyline turned to Kane being offered a World Heavyweight Championship match against Triple H with the stipulation that if he lost, he would unmask.
He lost.
There was no turning back following this. No way Kane could have ‘burn’ makeup applied every night that would be strong enough to withstand the lights and physicality of the wrestling ring. They passed off the reason he wore a mask as mental scars rather than physical. It was a bit of a cop out and Kane became just a man following this.
Despite setting Jim Ross on fire, tombstoning Linda McMahon on steel and every other deplorable act Kane attempted, he was still just a man at the end of the day. Gone was the suspension of disbelief that this may actually be a monster and gone was the continuity of a beautifully crafted character and his backstory.
They could have revamped Kane in many other ways, but taking the mask off was one of the biggest mistakes of the ruthless aggression era. It was so disappointing and ruined a fantastic character. I’m not saying he’s not had success since, he actually captured the World Heavyweight Championship in 2010, but the suspension of disbelief was gone.
The Devil’s Favourite Demon just wasn’t scary anymore.
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