Despite a strong start to his career as a fire-obsessed, scarred individual, his character would be ruined multiple times by feuds that did not matter or were viewed as silly or abhorrent. In 2000 he had a great feud with Chris Jericho which stands out in my mind, but after this, no-one has really given Kane a decent rivalry.
He has been awarded the Worst Rivalry of the year by the Wrestling Observer Newsletter a total of 7 years. This is not particularly surprising though given that one of the storylines involved necrophilia and another involved knocking Lita up in a questionable fashion.
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I won’t go through the others because quite frankly they are too boring to mention.
The major problems, however, started to happen mainly when Kane took his mask off.
In 2003, he had a good relationship with Rob Van Dam, with the two capturing the tag-team championships at one point. However, after losing to Triple H in a match for the World Heavyweight Championship, Kane had to unmask as per the stipulation of the match set by Eric Bischoff.
RVD stayed with Kane as moral support and paid for his troubles with a chokeslam.
It was a this point, we found out that the scars and the issues that Kane had been reported to have by Paul Bearer were in fact all a lie and the scars mentioned were in fact merely mental. Never have I felt so cheated by a television show in my life, and I’ve watched LOST.
It was the most character-destroying revelation I’ve ever seen. Kane now no longer had this supernatural air about him, nor did he have the intimidation factor of being a burns victim under a mask. We were scared of what we did not know.
For me, it was bad enough when he started talking but I understand that was necessary for promos and the like.
Kane made the most of it though and the unmasking brought a sadistic side out of him which led to Jim Ross being set on fire, Linda McMahon being tombstoned and a subsequent feud with her son Shane McMahon (another worst feud of the year winner I might add). Sadly, I still could not fully invest in the character.
Following this, Kane became what can only be described as a normal wrestler. There were a few moments along the way that still showed that link back the supernatural but he was no longer the dominant, scary force he had been.
