In the 2001 Royal Rumble, Kane eliminated 11 men in the match; a record that stood for over 10 years before Roman Reigns eliminated 12 in the 2014 Royal Rumble. It was an awesome record and when watching it live, I remember really rooting for Kane as he had always been one of my favourite superstars and I wanted to see him headline WrestleMania.
The biggest highlight of his career following this was his World Heavyweight Championship win. After winning money in the Bank, Kane cashed in and beat Rey Mysterio for the title, becoming the first wrestler in WWE history to win the WWE Championship, the ECW Championship, and the World Heavyweight Championship.
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He lost the championship to Edge though, and the rematch thereafter. He was then sidelined with injury for a few months before returning under the red mask he became so well known for initially.
And WWE actually had an opportunity to retcon the unmasking of the Big Red Monster and do over. BUt WWE being WWE, dropped the ball yet again.
In 2006, WWE introduced a masked figure that looked and acted exactly like old Kane. It would have been simple to swap wrestlers in this instance, say the unmasked version was a fraud and make a backstory for it. It would have made me so happy I can’t tell you.
As I’m sure you’ve gathered, I have never been a fan of the unmasked iteration of this character and I saw this feud of Kane vs. Kane as a wasted opportunity to bring back the fear factor to the persona. But I digress.
The new mask did not do much for Kane as a monster due to the dodgy wig that accompanied it and the fact you can see his real hair below the mask. The suspension of disbelief becomes harder and harder when you mess about with a character too much.
It’s the same reason I was not a fan of The Undertaker’s American Bad Ass gimmick. Luckily this only lasted a few years.
Kane’s character, on the other hand, was not able to recover from a storyline point of view but when it comes to success in the squared circle, still managed to stay at the forefront of programming, teaming with Daniel Bryan and capturing the WWE Tag Team Championships.
