Over the last few weeks, I realized that I was actually stopping the fast forwarding of RAW whenever Kane showed up on screen. Since his return from injury at Night of Champions, and the start of his current split-personality storyline, I’ve found Kane to be entertaining and fun to watch.
When the inevitable commercial break faded to black, I said to myself “this is the best Kane storyline since . . . since . . .”
And I couldn’t think of a single other Kane storyline that wasn’t just disturbing, wasn’t cliched, or wasn’t completely fucking bad.
Since Kane debuted in like 1998, he’s pretty much put into bad storyline after bad storyline when he wasn’t simply jobbing to the stars (usually while simultaneously portraying a bad storyline). Whether it’s one of the several times he’s stalked “his brother” the Undertaker, knocking up Lita and then having her miscarry when feuding with foot-fetishist Gene Snitzky, and of course one of the worst wrestling storylines in the history of the industry, the necrophiliac storyline involving Triple H unearthing Kane’s past, and his dead girlfriend, Katie Vick.
Being the selfless, team-player company man, Kane endured all these storylines with no known complaints, and it goes without saying the monumental amounts of respect the man, Glenn Jacobs harnesses within the company, industry and amongst his peers. Undoubtedly, barring heinous personal behavior, he is a shoe-in for the WWE Hall of Fame, and will likely have a job with the company for the rest of his life. Personally, I will always be a fan of Kane, mostly because he was cool as hell and willing to snap a photo with me when I met him on the street in Downtown Atlanta during a Wrestlemania weekend.
However, there’s no denying that throughout his whole career, Kane has undoubtedly had the eternal short straw whenever it’s come to the draw of storylines. Part of it is of course his character, for most of it, portraying the “Devil’s favorite demon,” and the fact that he’s basically a lich or a monster, or some other other-worldly creature that would likely be best named after a Final Fantasy boss. But still, even the most monstrous of characters have always had some lighter-hearted characters at some point in their personas.
But with the creation and development of “Corporate Kane,” the fictional Director of Operations for the Authority, it appears that Creative has finally found a way to make Kane versatile, and actually give Glenn Jacobs the performer, a little bit of room, a little bit of leeway to actually develop and perform.
With him no longer necessarily being pigeon-holed into the occult, Kane is actually demonstrating the mic-work, acting range and versatility that has been developed from over the last 15 years (and probably some acting lessons). Subsequently, he’s showing that he is actually capable of generating heat, reaction and just response in general from the crowds, without even having to throw any punches.
And with the whole split-personality gimmick, where he’s going back-and-forth between Corporate and Demon Kanes, while acting like neither are aware of the other, much to the frustrating chagrin of the Authority and Seth Rollins, fans are getting the best of both worlds in watching Corporate Kane be over-the-top fake-happy corporate tool, and being the no-selling not-jobber of Demon Kane.
Sure, ultimately, this is one gigantic transitional storyline meant to bridge Seth Rollins from one storyline into the next major World Championship contender storyline, which kind of stinks because that just means Kane is still very likely going to have to job, but until the culmination of this storyline comes to fruition at Hell in the Cell, Split-Personality Kane is one of the better storylines going in the suddenly stagnant WWE Universe.
