Kane built one of the longest and most memorable careers in WWE history. In the Hall of Famer’s view, though, it was only possible because he was willing to change his character over the years.
At a Big Texas Comicon panel moderated by Emily May, Kane said that a wrestler who plans to stay in WWE for the long haul cannot keep going back to the same formula.
“If you’re going to be around WWE wrestling for any period of time, you have to learn to reinvent yourself and you can’t be just one-dimensional.”
Kane went through one of the biggest changes of his own career in 2003. The character debuted at Badd Blood in October 1997, when Kane tore the door off the cell in the first-ever Hell in a Cell match to attack The Undertaker.
After almost six years under the mask, Kane felt that version of the character had reached its limit.
“I felt that had kind of run its course. It was cool, but you know, at the end of the day you also get stale as a performer and I just want to do something different. So we took the mask off.”
The unmasking came on the June 23, 2003, episode of Raw at Madison Square Garden, after Kane lost a World Heavyweight Championship match to Triple H. Randy Orton interfered on Triple H’s behalf, and once Kane had removed his mask as the stipulation required, he attacked Rob Van Dam.
Years later, Kane told WWE that only he and Vince McMahon initially backed the change, while others questioned the need to alter a character that was already successful.
Kane reinvented himself again in 2012, when he formed Team Hell No with Daniel Bryan. The team won the WWE Tag Team Championship and held the titles for 245 days, with much of their storyline built around comedy and therapy segments.
“The Team Hell No stuff was such a breath of fresh air and I think it proved to everybody that yeah, he’s not just you know, this guy that doesn’t talk and goes out and beats people up. He can be funny, too.”
Kane went on to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2021.