CAN KANE BLAZE A TRAIL TO THE RAW TITLE?
Every time he's experienced success, he's gone on to experience far more dramatic failure. This dastardly cycle of events has kept him from pursuing long-lasting success and in-ring glory. It's kept an untold number of WWE champions safe from his wrath...
Kane sat in the back of the paddy wagon designed to carry men half his size. He head was newly shaven, his face newly exposed only weeks earlier. He looked out the back and saw six armed guards standing there, waiting to escort him to the ring. He grunted, then shifted in his seat. An alarmed security guard slammed his baton against the cold steel, apparently thinking that such a mundane action would keep Kane's large frame from emitting any further noise. Kane heard the guard's action but didn't give the man the satisfaction of reacting to it. Do they really think they're capable of containing my rage? Kane thought. If only they knew what I've been through, what I've experienced in my life. They don't realize that I'm comfortable in a cage, that it's only inside a cage that I feel truly at home. When they removed my mask, they took away my cage and unleashed my rage. Now it's time to make them pay, to make them all pay …
Kane has, for six long years, been one of the WWE's most intriguing characters. Introduced to WWE fans in 1987 as The Undertaker's little brother, he's had an up-and-down career. At times he's been WWE's biggest monster, capable of beating anyone at any time and destroying even the biggest opponents WWE matchmakers have put in front of him. At other times, he's been unable to break out of the mid-card ranks despite his large frame, intimidating persona, and ties to The Undertaker.
He's had on-air relationships with current WWE diva Terri and former diva Tori and jumped into oddball partnerships with X-Pac, The Hurricane, and, most recently, Rob Van Dam. He's even shown a bit of humorous, jocular side on occasion.
However, through all of Kane's different personae, he's never really established himself as a main-event, top-tier performer. He's never achieved the same kind of success that Undertaker has experienced for the majority of his WWE career. And even though he may have hid his frustrations well, his inability to achieve consistent results against the sport's top stars began to weigh on him heavily. The humiliation of losing his mask was the proverbial suplex that broke this monster's back.
"If you study Kane's career, it looks like he's needed something tragic to spur his competitive side," reasons renowned wrestling psychologist Dr. Sidney M. Basil. "If you recall, he had one of the best runs of his career after his break-up with Tori. How many times has his win-loss record improved after getting in fracases with The Undertaker? He needs some kind of emotional breakdown in order to find the monster within."
Well, the monster within is definitely exposed to all now. All it took was a loss in a mask vs. title match against Triple H to reawaken the beast. Since that June loss, Kane has painted a swath of destruction that not even WWE's non-wrestling officials have avoided. Eric Bischoff was choke-slammed off the Raw stage and onto the floor below. Jim Ross was nearly burned alive; Linda McMahon was tombstoned on a steel ramp.
Oddly enough, the man who forced Kane to remove the mask by defeating him, Triple H, has remained unscathed. Kane hasn't gone after him, nor has he gone after his Raw title. In fact, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that he has gone out of his way to ignore him.
"Kane might have an unconscious fear of going after the championship," said Dr. Basil. "I've seen this kind of thing before. See, a lot of people forget this, but Kane's a former WWE champion. He beat Steve Austin for the title at the 1998 King of the Ring pay-per-view. Of course, they don't remember Kane's reign because it lasted less than 24 hours. Austin regained the title one night later on Raw, and Kane hasn't held it since. He may be afraid of winning the championship a second time, because he doesn't want to suffer the failure of losing it again. His rage at everything and everyone around him is his way of releasing that fear. He's frustrated, and he doesn't know how to deal with it, so he does the only thing he knows how to do: He rages."
Kane afraid? Maybe so. Every time he's experienced success, he's gone on to experience far more dramatic failure. This dastardly cycle of events has kept him from pursuing long-lasting success and in-ring glory. It's kept an untold number of WWE champions safe from his wrath while also keeping him from achieving the triumphs that should have already started to define his career. So instead of trying to pursue championship gold, he's concentrated on doing what he feels most comfortable doing, which is wreak havoc.
However, if Kane is every going to accomplish all that he's capable of accomplishing, he's going to have to focus on something other than simple destruction. The Raw championship is not beyond his reach. He has the skills and the strength to defeat anyone on the Raw (or even Smackdown) roster. His biggest weakness is his own psyche, and if he's been able to overcome hiding under a mask for the better part of his career, he has the wherewithal to do just about anything. Even win the Raw championship.
The one thing that Kane hasn't realized yet, the one thing that he can do to gain revenge, is win the Raw championship. If he wins that title, he pays everyone back … the fans who have supported him, the opponents who have taken advantage of him, and the officials who have used him to further their own causes. In the end, he can get all the payback he wants - and he can get a bit of redemption, too.
It's time for Kane to leave his cage once and for all.