PART 2
5. The forever war: Kane and Big Show, ultimate frenemies
Sometimes WWE like to revisit certain wells way too often in order to meet their rather absurd amount of weekly wrestling criteria, running things into the ground is something of the norm.
But even the Sheamus/Del Rio and Miz (or Kofi)/Zigglers of the world cannot compare to the back and forth that's been going from 1999.
Big Show and Kane have a rather entwined WWE run, often fulfilling the same roles as each other when needed be it sudden big man title challenger, comic relief, guy who jobs to put over newcomer as a threat, and of course random face/heel turn.
The combined belt/accolade earnings of both men is pretty vast so it should also come as no surprise they've been tag champs with each other on multiple occasions.
To distill the entire Kane/Show saga would actually probably be a taller (ha ha!) order than Kane/Taker, who'd have thought all those years ago at Fully Loaded 1999 when the two faced off in a lacklustre outing reffed by Bob Holly for some reason we'd seen the first of MANY encounters between the two. I actually wouldn't be surprised if it's WWE's most recurring matchup aired on TV.
Let's take a stroll down memory lane and relive some Kane and Show moments, bonding, betrayal, it's all here!
Smackdown invasion
Sometimes WWE actually put effort into the brand split rivalry, in 2005 Team Raw orchestrated a plan to leave Batista and a bunch of jobbers alone with the Kane Show, a plan that hinged entirely on Teddy Long making his few other good wrestlers chase after Chris Masters in JBL's limo, so you know the logical course of action.
Also Edge is there, Kane's secret BFF, sorry Christian.
Chain Wrestling
The May 19th saga would spell the end of a succesful era of Kane/Show teaming, but before the whole storyline went into true nonsense territory with Fake Kane, we got us some hosses bringing the catch as can style wrasslin' onto monday night Raw. A moment so memorable that a friend of mine who hasn't watched since 2007 still remembers it vividly, referring to it lovingly as "Big Show doing the Cruiserweight moves grapples from Smackdown Here Comes the Pain".
SHOOOOOOOOW!
Compassionate Kane showing his caring side.
Professor Beef's Favourite:
"Kane's the man"
What better way to illustrate how random the face and heel roles are for both men than this one segment.
And of course Royal Rumble 2015.gif
Which helped Kane further his all time elimination record
6. The unmasking
For years the idea of Kane being unmasked was an angle of intrigue, numerous times in the past Kane's mask had been swiped or busted but he'd never wrestled under the Kane gimmick without it. How would it work? would they have him look perpetually burned? all our question were answered when Kane typically lost in a title match to 2003 era Trips of going over-uh that included the stipulation that a loss would cause his unmasking.
Well we finally also found out why his hair was so puffy at times, bah gawd it was attached to the mask all along, my life was a lie!
A week later it was revealed that Kane's burn scars were psychological, so we could sidestep smearing some black paint over his eyes every week. After a year of being the goofiest version of Kane teaming with Van Dam we got possibly the most brutal heel version of Kane beating the tar out of Van Dam.
While it's not uncommon for folks to say Kane's unmasking was his decline, I'd disagree. The first few months of unmasked Kane were tops if you enjoy sports entertainment going all in on the non sports side of things. In this time Kane would set
Jim Ross on fire, be led to the ring in chains and of course tombstone Linda McMahon on the stage.
Beating up McMahon's for HEAT is standard fare, but wrecking Linda was next level,
this was a real OH SHIT moment if you ask me, deserving of a place in the barbaric mugging of a non wrestler hall of fame. This led into a deliciously crazy feud with Shane McMahon. One could say Kane's new monster push was hindered by immediately being funneled into feuding with Shane but man the writers had a ton of fun with this one.
Each week there was another crazy clash backstage involving limos driving into trucks, flaming dumpsters and testicular electrocution. Throw in the Last Man Standing and Ambulance matches and this is the kind of carny WWE content I live for.
Also that time Kane and Shane went for dinner
man, this makes the current Kevin Owens/shane stuff seem small time.
Kane ended this run by taking the time to literally bury Undertaker...again, an action which would unfortunately be the undoing of his current push as it would lead to him being borderline squashed at Wrestlemania 20 but not before he pulled off a one man show storyline via the aid of special effects for two months, impressive!
7. Inferno Match
In today's dubious entry, Imagine having your own gimmick match that you pretty much always lose in? welcome to Kane's signature Inferno match!
Coming to you straight from the Attitiude Era, a match you win by setting your opponent on fire whilst wrestling inside a ring surrounded by fire, it's as dumb as it sounds and I have to imagine incredibly uncomfortable for the participants, it takes HEAT to a new literal level.
Kane and Taker faced off at Unforgiven 98 in the first of these, a match that lives by its spectacle of how much you enjoy watching flames timed to shoot upwards with moves slamming into the canvas. Much like Hell in a Cell, the inferno match often ends up betraying its concept and people end up outside the ring, Taker performs a spectacular dive over the ropes, for some reason WWE nerfed Vader is also here. Bearer leaks some blood for the business and Kane loses after being booted backwards and slowly realising that his arm is kinda on fire, whoops.
The two would have a fiery rematch a year later...on Raw. In what was really a vehicle to have minsitry Taker set a teddy bear on fire in front of Vinny mac, Kane gets his boot dunked on the fire, a forgettable outing to be sure.
Also in 1999 Kane would take on THE GAME-UH, as Trips had to slog through multiple matches in one night to earn his place at Unforgiven's big boy table. Kane once again takes one for the team and loses due to interference by ministry cronies Viscera and Mideon, pre naked Mideon obviously, we wouldn't want to risk burning that wang.
After many years the inferno match would inexplicably return and Kane would finally get a win, fortunately Kane's opponent at Armageddon 2006 MVP had ring attire that could justify getting one's arse lit ablaze, and thus Kane finally gets a win out of his signature match.
*these toasty inferno gifs courtesy of legit shook, pls don't judge me Stro*
Despite its rarity, WWE video games have done well to keep the legacy alive as a few smackdown vs raw titles actually brought the gimmick in as one of their NEW features, much like the real deal it was a limiting and clumsy encounter with nice visual effects. You could only win by throwing your opponent over the ropes as I recall and they'd burn their buns on the way down. WM2000 on the N64 also teased the inferno in its opening which I recall leading to a bunch of fake cheats back in the days where that was commonplace where one could unlock the inferno match by jumping through various silly hoops. Still more tasteful than some of the "unlock Owen Hart" stuff, that's for sure.
But wait, there's more!
Bray Wyatt's main roster PPV debut involved facing Kane in a ring of fire match, which was effectively an Inferno match that ends by pinfall, it earns points for the novel way Harper and Rowan extinguish the flames to interfere but otherwise it's a mess, but hey Wyatt actually won a match so it's probably held in high regard among Wyatt Family members.
8. The man knows how to make a return
Something that I feel modern WWE really fumbles with is returns. Back in the day storming the ring and single handidly murking a bunch of heels was a standard comeback trope, one that was always hype.
Kane of course is no stranger to this,
none better than back in 2000 where after a whopping absence of like...two weeks? (from a broken heart no less), Kane and red blazer Bearer would serve as the finale of a hype final half hour of Raw.
"The fire still burns", every week a promo video would play, a pyro explode and a younger Nocturnowl would be beside himself with excitement, that finally Kane was back...except then nothing . Kane's 2002 injury is one of his few longer ones to my knowledge and WWE were making a big deal out of it, multiple teases with no return were leading me to critical mass hype.
The dastardly Un-Americans dared to set alight the American Flag which I hear is something that actually REALLY rustles jimmies across the pond, who could stop this most heelish of heel actions?! Kane's promo aired, pants were shat and....nothing.
Another fakeout, but as the fiendish foreigners set to continue their dastardly deed
it turned out that Kane was indeed back, in half mask form. He stormed the ring imposing his American will (not bad for a guy from parts unknown, Kane the American Dream) and it ultimately led to the Kanearoonie. Between the big face pops, the goofy Kane humour and the push he was getting, why you could almost believe they had BIG plans for Kane here, alas things would take a massive downward turn, the shovel loomed near...
The year is 2011, Kane has spent more time unmasked than masked, thus it was time for a shakeup.
Kane's return here was to only attack one man, but that one man was worth a thousand men, none other than John Cena. This was a feud I'd been wanting for years as Big Match John usually does well with big guys and surprisingly it was a fresh match up. Kane wore two masks because two is better than one obviously, he would also debut his short lived suffocating Kane Klaw finisher on Cena the following week.
Now here's the fun part, this feud did not go well (shock). It leaned upon the concept of Kane making Cena embrace the hate levelled at him by the fans, each week Cena looked to be corrupted further, could Cena overcome the odds of hate?....well yeah, actually he could.
But more recent reports reveal that the idea of Heel Cena was very much in the works and I have no doubt this feud was going to be the one to do it, all the pieces were in place but in the end nothing happened, Kane got Cena'd and his big return fizzled out. Oh what could've been, but hey we did get a hilarious episode of Raw as a result.
Kanetober will return, one more table turned around and it's back again.
