The Unmasking of Kane | Wrestling Bios
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After debuting in the WWF in late 1997, Kane became a main event player in the company almost instantly. Kane's backstory, which involved The Undertaker, was enough to make Kane a big attraction during the earliest days of the gimmick. Kane's ring attire too was very unique, the Big Red Machine would cover his face with a now iconic mask that hid away his face, and for many years fans would wonder what Kane looked like (even though Glenn worked previously as Isaac Yankem and the "fake" Diesel).
In 2003, the decision was made to unmask Kane. Feeling that the company had done all they could with the character, both Glenn Jacobs and Vince McMahon decided that Kane's should remove his mask and reveal his face to the world. A short storyline played out involving Steve Austin, Rob Van Dam, Triple H and Eric Bischoff where Kane would put his mask on the line during a World Heavyweight Title match on WWE Raw, if Kane failed to win the championship, then he'd be unmasked in live TV. This video covers the unmasking of Kane and the storyline the WWE built around Kane losing a piece of his identity.
00:00 - The importance of Kane's Mask
03:04 - Early development of Kane
06:21 - Kane's attire evolution
08:55 - Triple H vs Kane - Title vs Mask
16:50 - The Jim Ross interview
- Much more
#WWE #Wrestling #Kane - Sport
I love how kane tightened his glove before playing the crane game
That always makes me smile
His chained and black towel on his head entrance was awesome, they should've let it go longer.
Facts top 5 greatest entrances
@@Sosa_D_Roger The Brood is #1 no arguments..
@@kenrickeason nah #2 undertaker always the best
@@Sosa_D_Roger Can't argue with that..
Fax
It's Crazy Kane only had the mask for 6 years and still went on to have a great 17 18-year career.
Damn, I didn’t think about it like that
Actually you’re wrong. After 8-9 years of being unmasked he went back to being masked with the demon Kane gimmick. And this continued for the rest of his career. With the exception of 2014-15 when he was corporate kane
@@tylercox1875 Im talking about the mask that everyone loved and made him famous. That new mask was garb
People bang on about the mask, yet he somehow grew a voicebox and basically became a member of DX and had a girlfriend just two years after debuting. Wasnt the unmasking that "ruined" Kane.
I agree
All his face runs sucked. The Kane character was an evil psychopath driven by revenge on his brother and liked setting people on fire like he'd once been but in his face runs he became a poor soul who wanted friendship, love and acceptance out of nowhere.
His bit with the hulk and rock was funny as hell but it was kinda the thing that also destroyed his persona a bit too. Never liked kane much after that.
@@DDWES Well I did. He was still a badass but I understand why some would dislike the change
@@Xehanort10 its called character development
I can't tell you if unmasking was the best thing for Kane or not, but it definitely was the best thing for Glenn Jacobs.
I played baseball for many years in my childhood.. I wore leather batting gloves. Those thing STINK like crazy after using them for one season, so I'd imagine that mask was really stinky on Glenn.
I think JR's description of Unmasked Kane at the 2003 Survivor Series was perfect: "Violent as an inbred pitbull."
Worked for Future too, crazy. Mask off.
@@Danielson1818 I know your talking bout glove's but his mask very heat absorbed not to mention trying to breathe through the nose
& the little mouth slit of 😐mask even worse during inferno match's look closely he bends over a few times u can see Glenn licking the mouth guard trying to get air.
@@deniseatkinson9482 Oh yeah. Breathing is hard enough during a full wrestling match. I could almost start to hyperventilate thinking of gassing out in that mask. SIDE NOTE: The inferno match would be a lot worse, because the fire is burning the air oxygen in the ring,
Kane is one of the biggest success stories in WWE. Brought in as a credible threat to Taker.
He forged his own legacy and was able to step out of Takers shadow.
The character became more vicious without the mask.
or overcompensating for lack of a gimmick
Mask off
As a child growing and an avid wrestling fan when Kane arrived I fully bought in without question. Kane was Undertakers brother and they both had powers.
Lol
16:27 The night Kane took off the mask and did the pyro, the pyro from the turnbuckles seemed more intense than ever. RVD's reaction was also great, his face was like whoa dude
I was there. Nothing was different than usual.
@@yoholmes273 no one cares
@DREA ESCOBAR cool story bro 😎
After JR got set on fire I seem to remember on another Raw that JR was talking badly about Kane either during a match or something else and King was like "being biased against Kane aren't you JR?" or something like that and JR responds with "He set my fat ass on fire!!" lol
Kane turning those burns into psychological burns for his character really made his unmasked run imo his best work. Unmasked Kane is so underrated from 03-11
Better than his 97-98 work?
@@carter3369 nope
@@carter3369 not better, but 100% underappreciated work.
His unmasked work was my favorite run too.. loved this timeframe
His unmasking would of been better if they pushed him with a title run at that time
2003 Kane was something else. I loved this version of him.
it was refreshing and honestly seeing the way Kane was in an super unmasked big red killing machine was similar to his 97 run but here you could see his face and Kane was being more powerful despite that many of us loved his masked persona and it took some time thought out the rest of 2003 for me to get use to the Unmasked Kane.
The half-assed attempt to make him look sort of disfigured was very underwhelming, but what did creep me out a little was the way his "hair" came away with the mask. Was totally not expecting that, lol.
Hot take: Kane with mask (1997-2001) AND without mask (Summer 2003-Spring 2004) is one of the all-time greatest wrestlers ever.
Even though it arguably "killed" the mystique of the character, Glenn Jacobs still is one of my all-time favorites from childhood.
This video is going to be Fire. Pun intended.
I am reporting from 1 hour in the future. Can confirm fire.
At least it’s not ice like that bastard glacier😂😂🤣
I see what you did there...
Hunter,
what you did.
There.
I saw it.
Baaaa duuuum psssh!
I always liked the whole "Kane only thinks he's disfigured" part. Like, it's still not great, but it's probably the best explanation they could've had. Maybe it would have been better if they had hinted at that leading up to the unmasking? That might have made the reveal slightly less disappointing.
Reminds me of Dr. Doom from Marvel.
Yeah, WWE have dropped the ball with some big moments over the years, but this was one they did well, IMO. I guess it could be argued that the gradual diminishing of his attire over time could be seen as a clue that he wasn't as burnt as he let on, but I'd imagine that wouldn't have been intentional.
@@MrBam79 bro In 2011 why kane did not returned with his 1997 ,s attire and mask
@@SmashAtoms His face WAS disfigured supposedly beyond facial reconstruction forever until Reed Richards was able to restore his handsome face as a goodbye favor or something, Besides, they ended up effin’
up his face once again.
In a way, they almost did. As the video shows, when he debuted, most of his body was supposedly disfigured. By 2003, everything except his face was revealed to be normal. Hell, even half of his face was shown to be normal when he went to the half mask.
I think some people forget that the can of gasoline wasn't just randomly sitting in the background between Kane and Jim Ross during that segment. Prior to their conversation starting, Kane brought it into the room in the guise of a gift for JR and then opened it. It's a minor detail that is sometimes forgotten.
Kane with the mask was the best thing during that era like Crow Sting imo. as a kid, I was so scare of him, but couldn't wait to see him. I hated it when they unmasked him.
Agreed, they ruined his character when he took off the mask.
Yeah he spooked me when he had his mask LMAO.
Kane and mankind were always my favourite characters. I miss the good old days.
We all do
I know he didn't want to wear the mask anymore but it just wasn't the same.
Hated it took away the mystique of the character
Honestly, he wasn't the same after joining DX in my opinon.
@@TheTenCentStory There were those great few months after he returned following Tori and X-Pacs betrayal, when he was once again the emotionless machine (with that awesome segment where he tombstoned her). Unfortunately though they went and humanised him again! A mistake on the same level as turning Austin heel at WM17.
@@georgeh4171 and that return was so amazing. His physique was phenomenal.
@@planescaped Let me make a counter point. So Kane hadn't lost his mystique already at this point? By the time he unmasked he had a voicebox, a girlfriend, was now fully talking and doing comedy bits. There's only so far you can go with the silent psycopath in a mask and Kane had to evolve. Now whether you think it was a good evolution or that it was handled well is another matter.
those sketches of kane without the mask and with the cape would've been a badass character as a comic book villain
Unmasking Kane in hindsight was certainly the best way forward for character development
Best Kane look was around 2001 when he wore the tank top, mask and was absolutely jacked. Also liked his 1999-2000 reversed colours attire.
Jerry Lawler's call after Kane unmasked is one of the funniest calls ever.
WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!?!
Is that a human? :D
Lmfao
Bruh.. Goldust, Kane, Booker, RVD, Rock, Austin, Hogan, Hurricane, Xpac, Randy Orton, Undertaker, HHH, the early 2000s man.. Its funny to think all these guys were there at the same time.
I think kane without the mask in 2003 really bring out his character and made him more developed than before. It’s brings out more character and more of his violent personality.
I liked his unmasked phase, he gained a ton of personality and really showed more character.
He was great in both roles. The Authority version of Kane was a form of career suicide for him as a wrestler, but everything else was great.
I been waiting for this . All us ppl who usually associate the masked Kane as prime Kane but when I look back when he first took his mask off was my fav time for him. His rivalry with Shane o Mac was top tier
I didn't know it was Jacobs/Yankem until he unmasked and I watch all wrestling. Maybe because I was younger. 38 now
The Unmasking of Kane is quite a lot like the Undertaker's Biker phase. The character needed a shake-up and a lot of people resisted it at first. Then they accepted it and were ecstatic when the original version of the character returned.
It was weird at first when he unmasked even though I have seen him without a mask as Issac Yankem and Fake Diesel but it had been 6 years from 97 to 03 before I saw his face again. The unmasking actually made his character better when he became a heel again. He came in hot in the Summer of 02 after summerslam but at some point got lost in the shuffle after the elimination chamber of 2002.
Speaking of how Taker should have been the one to remove the mask, if we recall he actually successfully did remove his mask at Summer Slam 2000. So, it only makes PERFECT sense that Taker should have been the one to do it. Sort of a big brother helping his little brother via some tough love. Teaching him how to accept himself etc. etc.
It's writes itself, man...
Kane’s unmaking was the biggest pyro he ever had scared the hell outa me lol!
I always thought there was a superb meta-narrative around this storyline, possibly the best the E has ever done. The Jim Ross interview was the perfect encapsulation. Kane was not disfigured and never had been, but the trauma of the childhood fire had made him believe he was. When the mask came off, we got to see for ourselves his self-image of disfigurement being stripped away as the weeks went on and the makeup came off. Of course he had to turn heel at first, because in that ballance between physical and psychological disfigurement the relief of the former must create pressure on the latter, but at last we had chance to see the complete redemption of the Kane character and (thanks not entirely to WWE Creative) the ascension and ultimate replacement by the man who played him. I don't know of any better meta-narrative than that, in all of professional wrestling.
I'm torn on the unmasking as well. But that JR interview segment made the best of the situation, & did so very well.
JR's screams are hilarious
Kane with the mask off actually was the darkest Kane and I feel the best version ....and the fit at that to ....like he just really snapped
I liked that Kane didnt have any burns on his face it was more psychological than it was gory
I liked that when he was unmasked he looked like could be Mark Callaway's brother/Undertaker's brother
The biggest problem with the Kane unmasking and the later times before the first unmasking was the fact that Glenn jacobs looked like somebody who would absolutely kill it on the grill
"Kane completely lost the plot and he tombstoned Linda McMahon." Made me laugh so much.
Linda was so straight in that tombstone, looked like a log in a suit.
Concept art Kane looks pretty awesome for a MMO game.
I was there that night for taping I watched it live...it’s the only historic event I physically participated in. So iam quite proud !
That's awesome
You are seriously saving me during quarantine!
You got Covid? Or is your country still quarantining?
@@CrZY_DnKS he's sick. Cause as we all know you only quarantine sick people. As much as they'd like you to believe that healthy people must "quarantine" too.
Not sick but exposed.
@@moviemetalhead well you were wrong
Kane is one of the most memorable characters in wrestling.
Glenn seemed to get so much better in ring and on Screen Imo as Kane. Maybe that's my imagination.
The old masks are legit brutal and creepy. I have a strange love for creepy masks and I think Kane is a huge part of that.
Brothers of Destruction with Undertaker as the American Badass and Kane in the vest Attire was so cool when the music hit and they walked to the ring
I remember the night he took the mask off. I couldn’t sleep all night.
The drumming of his entrance music is 🔥
I won't lie. I didn't think Kane would ever unmask. When he did unmasked, it gave me chills.
Hmm...I totally loved the debut version of Kane. And the lunatic version when he was first unmasked who needed to be escorted to the ring in chains w/ security officials.
I remember watching this live back in the day. This happened during the years that was the height of my love for wrestling. The following episodes of raw was really entertaining tv. it wasn't long after tomb stoning linda that shane came back and almost got his giblets fried with the jumper cables and car battery haha.
Dude same here. I kind of watched wrestling during the late 90s but wasn't a huge fan since I was a little kid and had the attention span of a goldfish lol. I literally got super interested in WWE about 2-3 weeks before Kane's unmasking. Like you said, it was really top notch TV. I remember being an 11 year old kid absolutely terrified of Kane during his destructive phase after his unmasking. The silent, scary, almost supernatural schtick Kane had with the mask never really frightened me bc it was just to unrealistic, but the unhinged psychopathic nut job who was practically unstoppable was quite believable to my child self. That 03 Kane that feuded with Shane, before he started rocking just the tights, will always be my favorite version of Kane.
Man when the Kane debut happened I was like 12 years old, just started watching wrestling in early 97, had no idea who Isaac yankem was, as far as I knew Kane was literally the undertakers brother and all the stories about him were true, that innocent naivety of being 12 years old made rhis storyline so much more enjoyable and unfortunately as u get older and more understanding of what’s going on u can never get that kinda feeling again lol
This raw episodes was June 23rd it was exactly one day of my 15th birthday .. I can still remember where I was shocked when Kane took off his mask
Half Mask Kane in 2003 was my favorite look for Kane.
Definitely Glenn Jacob's best character ever. Where Issac Yankem & Fake Diesel failed, Kane truly succeeded them all.
Kane was nothing but money.. Whoever came up with his character should be honored well into the future..
I remember me and my friend dying laughing when Kane showed his face. Like wtf was the haircut/ black smear "burns"
I knew that the smears were from the makeup under his eyes. I just tripped out at the hairline.
The black smears were never meant to be "burns"
It was just his eye makeup running from his sweat.
@@linkvagar2336
Exactly
i learned suspension of disbelief from wrestling - the first match i ever saw featured hacksaw jim duggan, complete with his entrance stomping around with a 2x4. i was only 6 or 7 but i was in tears from laughing. by the end of the broadcast though, i realized that if i just let the on-stage product do the mental work for me, i’d be highly entertained.
I was a kid when he removed his mask and I was absolutely terrified because he looked normal but he thought he looked burned and that always stuck with me
Fantastic video. You're the go-to when it comes to reliving and educating myself on my favourite moments in WWE history. Bravo.
Early Unmasked Kane was absolutely brilliant to me.
I thought unmasking Kane when they did was a good move. It really made his character intimidating again--to me it was the first time since early 1998 that he felt legitimately threatening.
This whole thing made Kane seem more dangerous, Especially when they had him walk out to the ring in chains.
Hopefully there's more Kane content in the future loved the video.
I still remember watching that episode of Raw when Kane took off the mask. I was 12. I don't quite know what I was expecting but I just remember being so disappointed. Pretty sure I stopped watching wrestling altogether a few months later.
The problem with all of this is he never should of took it off but if they was going to take his mask off they should have made it seem that he was getting some plastic surgery fixing his disfigured face.. See this is what happens when you don't build a match/storyline right.. They had all kind of chances to stop this from happening and build up on it.. they didn't which got WWE backlash from it.. The Reason I stopped watching Pro Wrestling around this time because of the Reign of Terror thing from Triple H but I kept playing the wrestling games and my first time seeing Kane without his mask was in 2008 in Raw vs Smackdown.. I said this can't be right so I went back and started to find old episodes in 2009 when I first got on CZcams and I was kinda disappointed when I finally seen the Unmasking years later.. But his first run without the mask was damn good though..
Same here, I was 12 in 2003 back then, and I screamed when Kane took his mask off for the first time after he lost the World Heavyweight Championship against Triple H on WWE Raw. Before the show goes off the air and before I went to bed, I said, "Kane put your mask back on." But I knew that the makeup was part of the character as a I grew up into a adult from last decade in the 2010s. Kane is my 7th favorite wrestler of all time right next to The Undertaker, The Rock, Stone Cold, Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Mick Foley, Sting, Booker T, Diamond Dallas Page, Goldberg, and Kurt Angle.
My fav wrestler and the reason I got into wrestling in the first place. His unmasking was a true refreshment for his char and Kane was at his sickest and most dangerous. Loved how he wrecked pretty mucn everyone for a while. Overall, I think they ve done a great job for his Unmasking phase period.
The only thing I would ve done to make him look even more dangerous was to keep that horiffic wig when he first unmasked. Jacobs mentioned that he didnt wanna do it because of his wife, but I think they couldve just use a wig whenever inside the ring then take it off outside wrestling.
On paper this was a great idea and could have been amazing, it’s just a shame that what we got instead was a guy who looked like he’d just come back from a festival covered in mud and hadn’t washed
See i thought Kane wore makeup underneath his mask and thought it just ran a little bit
@@Venemofthe888 it could have been a bit of both to be honest, but I do remember feeling somewhat underwhelmed when the reveal happened after all the tales of Kane supposed to be disfigured and burned so I was like “Oh.. that it?”
He looked like a Giant Evil Doink.
Kane was also unmasked at Summerslam 2000 and No Way Out 2003.
Always learn something watching these!! I am so glad they didnt drop Kane after Wrestlemania 14. He'd always be tied to Taker...but after a few years he became his own man.
Thank you my friend for uploading this video i am a big fan of your channel and will continue supporting it thanks again.
The effort you put into your videos blows me away, good job sir 🔥
He was first unmasked at Summerslam 2000. Great video by the way 👏
Bruce Pirchard and Vince Russo will always take credit for ANYTHING and everything!
I never knew it was Jankem until recently as I didn't watch WWF anymore when Kane got unmasked. The entire Kane character and storyline was done so well back then, and the same is true for Mandkind as well.
Yeah we can’t pretend like they unmasked the 97-98 Kane. At this time so much of the character and mask were already gone.
People always talk about the unmasking of Kane, they never talk about the de-hairing of Kane. Long hair Kane was almost like Samara from the Ring sometimes...much creepier.
Kane after unmasking was at his most evil and sadistic.
You’re right. They did leave a lot of money on the table with this storyline and undertaker should’ve been apart of it. They could’ve did a Mask vs the streak match at wrestlemania and that would’ve been tough for us to predict the winner and would’ve made the streak more legendary.
I like how things went with the unmasking, but if it was really thought out it would’ve been better especially since Kane and Undertaker had a match at the wrestlemania following this.
I was kid back then so I really believed whatever story like I was given about Kane being badly scarred from fire.
His face was briefly exposed in 2000 at summerslam as well
wrestling bios you are the best wrestling channel ever
There was a storyline around 2000 with DX or the Mcmahon/Helmsley Faction trying to unmask Kane and remember reading that WWF had a very expensive special effects burns mask made for Kane to wear but they never used it. Does anyone else remember hearing this?
Interesting enough Erick Bischoff was also involved with unmasking off Ray Mysterio Jr. in WCW so he really loves unmasking wrestlers.
He couldn't think of any more creative ideas
And Juventud Guerrera too.
Regarding the make-up; I don’t think that was part of the character. He blacked around his eyes every week, just to have the mask blend with his face. Like Batman does. When he took the mask off, that was all that was left, and it was smeared from sweating and the mask rubbing on his face. That’s why it was gone the next week; it was never meant to be part of the look.
I LOVED the original Kane mask, still probably my favorite mask in wrestling. But if Glen was tired of it, I can get behind a maskless Kane... just really REALLY wish they did it better. Like you said, this should of been bigger, and would of made an all time great mania moment, with taker v kane in the garden and kane being unmasked there. they could even keep the mental scares aspect so he has no makeup, just needed a better story to get there.
Thank you so much for this video!
The storylines following the unmasking were the best of Kane's career, aside from the build-up to the Kane character's entrance into the WWF.
Probably the best wrestling channel on CZcams
I remember coming back to WWE after the Attitude Era right after the unmasking. It didn't bother me despite growing up with the full outfit + mask, the way I saw it once the Taker/Kane brotherhood storyline ended Kane was free to do what he wanted
Slow Chemical was one of the best theme songs in the Ruthless Aggression era
Even though I disliked the unmasking, I still liked Kane. Mask or no mask, Kane was still my favourite WWE wrestler. Also, the Cape looked pretty cool.
1997-2002 kane was amazing
I never liked how WWE tried to say Kane setting JR on fire is why the right side of his face was paralyzed
3:06
Correction, the reason Kane's Concept Art doesn't feature his mask is because the task of creating Kane's mask was outsourced to a company then known as "Mansour's Designs" while WWE's Wardrobe designer Terry Anderson was tasked with the rest of the costume (seen here in the video). The reason they had another company make the mask is because they had experience with making performance masks for Renaissance Fairs and things of that nature; Kane's mask was going to cover all of his face so they needed it to be as breathable and high quality as possible. Mansour's Designs produced Kane's first three masks and eventually in 1999, Terry learned how to produce the masks herself and from then on she made the rest of his full masks.
I remember watching Raw that night. As soon as I saw Kane walk out there with a wig on I knew it was comin off.
I thought he looked infinitely scarier without the mask, especially once he shaved his head and has that opaque contact lens.
I remember a story going around about the second version of the the Kane mask that had the scowls and frown kinda of moulded in to the mask...
Rumor was that the had used facial molds of Taker to design the mask.
Also, I think it helped with the B.O.D. thing to show that they both have natural red hair.
It would have been hilarious if when we first see Kane without his mask JR said "OH MY GOD! it's Isaac Yankum!!"
I think he should have yelled "It's Diesel!" just to make it bigger mindfuck.
I couldn’t watch WWE during this time but looking back on it I didn’t miss much, it was very much the triple h show and this video is another example of it, that being said great video 👍🏻
The unmasking was an iconic moment. Legendary in my younger days
I actually would've loved the Undertaker being the sole reason behind Kane's unmasking. It was this version of Kane who cost the Undertaker his buried alive match and caused him to revert back to the Deadman. If the Undertaker were to unmask Kane, then it would only serve to bring everything full circle. Both brothers would have brought the characters back to their roots.
Your videos are incredible.
Did any of you know that it was Isaac Yankem in his earlier years? I only started watching WWF as he was making his debut, so I had no idea.
Undertaker had already taken off Kane's mask at SummerSlam 2000
Yeah but got it back so don't think we can count that