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Book It
4-15-02
Each week in Book It we help the struggling WWF creative team with a few ideas on how to get talent that has been stuck in a rut over with the WWF fans.
Sometimes a wrestler can be at the top of his career and still be as stale as a bag of croutons. Steve Austin went through that very problem last year and was able to tweak his character enough to make it entertaining again, without losing any of his established popularity. In 1996, Hulk Hogan finally realized that his old Hulk-a-mania gimmick was no longer going to be a top draw in the wrestling industry, so he did the unthinkable and turned heel. These changes are necessary in order to hold fan interest for any length of time.
When Kane entered the WWF in 1997 he was billed as a monster. The seven foot tall wrestler wore a mask to cover his hideously burned face, and tore the door off the "Hell in the Cell" cage in order to get revenge on his brother The Undertaker, whom he blamed for the fire that took their parents' life. Ridiculous plot line yes, but it worked, as Kane became a phenomenon in the WWF just as the Undertaker had done years earlier. Kane has gone on to become six time tag team champion, one time intercontinental champion and one short reign as WWF world champion.
Kane has tweaked his character to allow more flexibility in his feuds over the years. When he first debuted, Kane rarely spoke and let Paul Bearer do the talking for him. Once he ditched Bearer, Kane used a voice box to speak because his vocal cords were also scarred. Finally, through the power of his friendship with wrestler/physiologist/speech therapist X-Pac, Kane learned that the damage to his vocal cords was all in his head and he could talk normally.
Over the last few years Kane has simply been…Kane. He's nothing spectacular, but he doesn't outright suck. He has been just a very stable, recognizable member of the WWF roster.
Recently Kane was drafted on to the Raw roster and it looks as if the WWF is set to give him a big push into the upper card. The writing staff has once again begun to tweak Kane's character into one more "fun-loving," as he recently cut a comical promo with Hulk Hogan and The Rock. He's also started flirting with Terri backstage. It's fine to surprise the audience by having Kane do something shocking, like say, Hogan impressions, but at heart remember that we are talking about a character that wears a mask because his face has been burned off, his parents were killed in a fire that he (or his brother, I forget) started and the only woman that ever loved him (Torri) slept with his best friend (X-Pac).
"Fun-loving" aren't words that should ever spring to mind when talking about Kane.
Wrestlers like Goldberg, Ultimate Warrior, old school Undertaker and most recently Brock Lesnar have all gotten over with the fans in the same way. They come into the ring as unstoppable juggernauts and destroy their opponents as easily as I destroy a plate of fried calamari. Fans love to see weaker wrestlers fed to these lions and enjoy seeing their heroes overcome the insurmountable odds to beat them. Kane doesn't need comedy to get over with the fans. He needs to go back to the basics of what made him popular in the first place, but also refresh that image with new betrayals.
On Raw we have the new wacky Kane running around, cutting promos and feuding with the NWO. After a few weeks, Kane challenges X-Pac to an Inferno Match at Judgment Day. In an Inferno Match, the ring is surrounded by fire and the first wrestler to be set on fire loses.
In the weeks leading up to the pay-per-view the WWF crew and announcers rehash all the long history between Kane and X-Pac (necessary in order to make us want to see a match we've already seen several times). During the match at Judgment Day the other NWO members come to the ring to help X-Pac. He throws Kane out of the ring, over the fire and onto the arena floor. There, the NWO members grab Kane and hold his face in the fire. I realize that this will take some fancy camera work and more than a few Hollywood tricks, but I think the WWF could find a way to pull in off and make it believable. If nothing else, as the NWO are close to putting Kane's face in the fire, the television cameras cut away because it's just too gruesome to show on pay-per-view television. J.R. and The King talk about how ruthless and cruel the NWO are and how Kane has been seriously hurt.
Kane doesn't show up on television for a few weeks after that. The announcers sell that Kane's face and body have suffered severe damage and Kane may never return. On a future Raw, NWO members begin disappearing. One by one they are taken from their locker rooms and not seen again for the rest of the evening. They are eventually found tied up and beaten in the boiler room of the arena. Kane makes his return and it is assumed that he was responsible.
The new Kane is a monster in the ring once again. He destroys opponents in the ring ruthlessly and without mercy. Kane is the WWF version of The Terminator, unstoppable and relentless. He never speaks, which leads the announcers to assume his throat was really damaged in the fire this time. We never see Kane backstage drinking coffee. Instead we see him like we used to see Mankind when he first debuted, lurking in the dark like an enraged beast. Kane should never have friends or tag team partners. Inferno matches, first blood matches, broiler room brawls, casket matches are all part of Kane's repartee. And once again Kane seems to have tapped those powers of the undead that his brother used to wield so well.
Kane is a freak and should be treated like one, truly an enraged monster, which makes fans drool at the thought of match ups like Triple H, Steve Austin, The Rock, Undertaker and Brock Lesnar vs. Kane all interesting again. The WWF writers should never hesitate to make Kane's life worse because it will only make us cheer the monster more.
