[dramatic music]
[shouting]
- I think of how far I've come,
And if you'd ask me back in 1995,
"here you are, and this is your first match
"in knoxville, tennessee,
"and you're gonna stay here
"for probably the rest of your life,
And at some point, you'll become mayor of the county,"
I'd have said, "you're crazy. You're nuts."
But that's kind of how my life has turned out.
It seems like a recurring theme--
Didn't know quite what I was getting into,
But I knew that I couldn't run from the wwe stuff.
Didn't want to. It's part of my life.
♪ ♪
- The time is drawing near! Kane is coming!
- Kane is probably the greatest story
Wwe's ever told.
♪ ♪
But he paid heavy dues.
- This is the christmas creature.
- Bruiser mastino. - This is diesel.
- Isaac yankem.
- You know, sometimes you make chicken soup
Out of chicken [bleep].
- He did not think this gimmick was gonna be the best.
- The deck was completely stacked against me.
- He persevered. It says a lot about him.
- We needed to create an opponent for the undertaker.
- I got a call that wwe had an idea for me.
I realized at that moment
That this was the opportunity of a lifetime.
- He looked like just an unstoppable machine,
Like mike myers or jason.
It was something out of a comic book.
- My god, he's on fire!
Chokeslam!
- What the hell is that?
- He was portrayed as a bad guy for so long,
But he is a tremendous father.
- Oh!
- We learned early on as a family that...
The wwe would always be right up there,
Equal to us.
- This looks on paper
Like a one-dimensional character,
And he made it so much more.
- That's got to be kane!
- If you needed something, you could go to kane.
You needed a monster. You needed a great match.
You needed something entertaining and funny.
- What you gonna do...
- One of the greatest big men to ever do it.
- Look at this.
- Oh! - Look out!
- I don't think any of us thought,
"there's the future mayor of knox county."
- Are you bleeping crazy?
- A big win for a big man.
- My goal is to be the best knox county mayor
That I can be.
["lions and lambs" by jordan baum, michael mcnamara]
- The big, red monster kane!
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- This is glenn's birth certificate.
He was born in Spain,
And we had to take him down to the st. Louis federal building
And swear that this was our child
We were bringing back from overseas.
He was 17 months old when this old picture was taken,
When he was naturalized here.
♪ ♪
- I was born in madrid, Spain,
At torrejón air base.
My dad was in the military
For 21 years.
He was 10 years in the navy.
He served in the korean war on the "uss antietam,"
And then switched services to the air force,
And he was in the vietnam war.
He was the load master on c-130 cargo planes.
- Glenn had a lot of attention...
[chuckles] because he was the youngest.
This one...
I think he was about six on this one.
♪ ♪
This was first grade, and this one was third grade,
And...
He was adorable little kid, wasn't he?
[laughs]
George was in military service.
We did travel around a lot,
And we came back to missouri,
Went up to bowling green, missouri.
We bought a small farm up there,
And the older kids in high school.
Glenn was still in grade school.
- My mom was a homemaker. She took care of the family.
After dad retired from the military,
He worked a lot of graveyard shifts at factories.
I didn't actually see him a whole lot
Because it seemed like he was just always working,
Trying to provide--ends meet.
When you envision hardworking,
Just decent, average people,
You think of folks like my mom and dad.
[rock music]
- He was almost a head taller than his friends,
And his friends all teased him about being tall.
- I was picked on a lot
Because I was just tall and awkward.
And everybody made fun of me, and I couldn't hide
Because I stuck out like a sore thumb.
♪ ♪
By the time that I got to high school,
I became a lot more popular
Because I fell in with the jocks
And was a pretty good basketball player.
- [laughs] the other teams kind of wanted to beat up on him
Because he was pretty good.
Sometimes the coach would put him in
Because he would intimidate some of the other teams.
♪ ♪
- I spent a year and a half at quincy college,
And then I decided to transfer--
Northeast missouri state university.
One of my great regrets in life was,
I probably could've been
A much better basketball player than I was.
I didn't really work hard enough at that.
But I still had this dream
That I wanted to be a professional athlete.
♪ ♪
By this time, I weighed close to 300 pounds.
The football coach actually came to me
At northeast missouri state
And said, "with your body,
You might be able to play professional football."
♪ ♪
So, yeah, if I switched sports,
I had some eligibility left
And just decided
That I didn't have anything to lose.
- And so, here, when he was in college,
This is when he was playing football,
And he loved-- he loved football.
♪ ♪
And this is when he got hurt.
- He got hurt last day of practice
Before the season started.
- My cleat got stuck in a hole as I was turning my knee.
Tore my acl and some meniscus.
[dramatic music]
- He was devastated.
He'd almost cried, because, you know, he said,
"why did I have to do that?
Why did it have to happen to me?"
And, yes, you know, I can understand that.
- I've never gotten my knee fixed--
Just never really had the opportunity to do that.
♪ ♪
I did go to the bears camp.
I was invited to their rookie minicamp.
The first day of an nfl camp back in 1991--
Go through all these physicals.
No one said anything about my knee.
The next day came,
Got on the bus, went to the training facility.
As everybody else was taken to the practice field,
I was escorted up to the player personnel office
And told that my knee injury precluded me
From playing in the nfl and given a plane ticket home.
I'd been there for less than a day.
♪ ♪
- I picked him up from the airport,
And he says, "mom, this is the worst day of my life."
He was 24. It was his birthday.
He had to give his $3,000 advance back.
[chuckles] so he got absolutely nothing out of it.
But, yes, that was really bad.
- That trip home was one of the most devastating things
That's ever happened to me,
Because I wanted to play professional sports
Ever since I could remember.
I went into a depression
For weeks, months afterwards.
♪ ♪
I didn't want to leave my room.
It was extremely difficult.
♪ ♪
There came a point where I realized
That I had to quit feeling sorry for myself,
That life was gonna go on
Whether I participated in it or not.
At the time, I was doing some substitute teaching.
My degree is in english,
So I wanted to teach and to coach.
But, man, I still had this bug.
I still wanted to play sports.
♪ ♪
That was my dream in life,
And one night, friend of mine,
Mark morton and I are watching wwe on tv.
♪ ♪
Mark looked at me.
He's like, "you know, man, you could do that."
And I thought to myself,
"I'm a really big guy like these guys on tv.
"I'm a good athlete, despite having the bad knee.
Yeah, I should try that."
♪ ♪
- Oh! - [screaming]
- I didn't understand how he didn't break
Every bone in his body.
- ♪ problem with me, yo ♪
- They would throw each other out there in the yard,
In our backyard in the grass.
They would just get out there
And just smack each other around.
- [screaming] - oh, no!
[crowd shouting]
- Well, yeah, I thought it was funny.
[chuckles]
- He did go to wrestling school.
They had him in the ring in about two weeks.
- Something's gonna happen.
Oh! - Oh!
- Knocks him out.
- He thought it was so much fun.
"hey, maybe there's something to this."
- My first lessons were actually in a barn,
Trained there long enough
To kind of get some rudimentary--
How to fall down without getting hurt too badly,
How to do some of the moves, and had some early matches.
- ♪ nah, y'all can't do that ♪
- I made him a costume for him to wrestle as angus--
More than one, and this is the only one
I could find I had left.
So this is one of his shirts, you know, that I made
With "angus" on it,
And his pants would've been black,
And they put those down the sides of the legs.
So, yes, I made those.
I made all of his costumes.
- ♪ 'cause they don't want it with me ♪
- You could say that professional wrestling
Lifted me out of that funk
And gave me something to live for.
I was on my way.
- My dad was a big wrestling fan,
But george and I would never in 100 years ever thought
That one of our kids would've been interested
In something like wrestling.
- The first group I trained with
Was some folks out of hannibal, missouri.
Ooh!
Traveling through the midwest on weekends,
Going to shows where you'd have, like, a dozen people
In the audience.
Wasn't learning anything because the people
That I was working with, in many cases,
Only had as much experience as I did
And had never really been
Outside of that very low-level independent circuit.
- They were all wrestling,
And glenn was pretty near the last one,
If not the last one, to come out,
And this kid saw him, and they hollered,
"kill him, kill him! That's my teacher!
Kill him!" [laughs]
We thought it was funny. [laughs]
- George and I would go,
And I would root.
George is not very-- he's not very noisy...
[laughs] as I am.
Glenn finally told me, he says,
"mom," he says, "you can't go anymore."
And I said, "why?" he says, "you're too noisy."
[laughs]
- And there they are...
- I was traveling all over the place
Just looking for a break.
I did some work with jerry lawler.
One year around christmastime,
Kevin lawler, who's jerry's son, called me.
He's like, "hey, I got this idea for a gimmick."
- At this time, everybody had a character,
All the way down to being a garbageman
Or an alligator skinner,
Or, you know, everybody was something--
Even a plumber.
One of them that really caught my attention
Was called the christmas creature.
- This is the christmas creature.
He is huge.
♪ ♪
The christmas creature is a little vicious, isn't he?
- He sent me a picture, and he's like,
"hey, do you think you can have that outfit made?"
So what did I do?
I'm like, "hey, mom, do you think you can make this?"
'cause mom was pretty good on the sewing machine.
- I did have to sew the little light bulbs on
And the tinsel and all that kind of stuff
And the sleeves.
Yeah, that kind of stuff I put in there.
And then he had to have white gloves,
And they had to be decorated up and whatnot.
Those light bulbs--
They had to have a battery so you could turn that on.
♪ ♪
- Christmas creature waves off ricky.
- It was really ahead of its time.
It was a technological innovation.
- This guy is huge.
- Jerry made him dress up like a christmas tree...
[laughing]
And wrestle in a christmas tree.
Oh, my go--
He still, to this day, gets pissed off about it.
I don't know what people were thinking.
I don't know how he did it.
I really--I mean, that says a lot
About the human being right there.
- Coming through the curtains right now,
I got the christmas creature.
This guy is big and strange.
- It gave me the chance to work with jerry lawler.
Over the years, people have seen lawler,
And he's wrestled everybody,
From andy kaufman to movie monsters.
In that regard, the christmas creature
Wasn't that much out of the ordinary
For the memphis territory.
- Jerry jarrett, my partner, watched him,
And afterwards, jerry said,
"have him come to memphis tv tomorrow."
So that's how he got started.
[country rock music]
- ♪ you're about to see the hottest show in town ♪
♪ the way you like it, the way it used to be ♪
♪ smoky mountain wrestling's on tv ♪
- Ladies and gentlemen, this is your tv main event.
- Smoky mountain wrestling was the island of misfit toys.
You had a bunch of guys
Who really didn't fit anywhere else in the big companies,
And jim cornette was the mad scientist behind it all.
- I'm looking for a few good men,
And so far, I found a bunch of 'em.
- Jimmy liked me, saw some tapes,
And thought that I could do well there.
- He was spawned in the valley of death--
The mighty unabom is the demon of destruction.
- Without him, I'd have never gotten my career
Off the ground.
- We would do at least three to four live events
Every single week
In knoxville and the surrounding areas
Of west virginia, eastern tennessee,
Southeastern kentucky.
[indistinct shouting]
- A lot of folks in smoky mountain wrestling
Were either great performers
With an established career
Or were folks that were headed to wwe.
Jim cornette had a relationship with wwe.
So it was kind of a front door for getting to wwe,
Which is ultimately where I wanted to go.
♪ ♪
I'd never been to east tennessee,
Never been to tennessee at all.
Didn't know what I was really getting into.
[thuds on wrestling mat]
- No one, thus far,
Has been able to derail this big, huge man.
- Back in the day,
You were so cognizant of things that were topical.
That was something that was in the news--the unabomber.
So "hey, let's have a unabomber."
- This is your invitation to my world--
A world of ugliness and a world of darkness.
- I think it was just a way to put glenn
In a nondescript gimmick,
Give him an opportunity to learn from a guy like al.
- I have somebody that's a dear, special friend to me
That I want to introduce.
The ultimate wrestler ought to take
The ultimate killing machine.
He was a giant guy with a--
Kind of looked like a bdsm type of outfit with trunks
And wore a red and black painted hockey mask.
When we did our interviews or our promos, never spoke
And had a cape.
He was supposed to be this emotionless monster.
And he would have the mask on,
And I would intentionally try to say things
To see if I could get him to crack, to start laughing.
- Why? Where are you going? - Where do you think I'm going?
I'm going back to have some sex.
And I'd just see him over there kind of...
[chuckles] you know?
Trying not to laugh but he'd have the mask on.
- The demon of destruction...
Unabom!
- I met glenn probably in the mid '90s.
He was working for jim cornette
In smoky mountain wrestling.
And he was their top heel.
We detoured and made a trip to knoxville.
And as soon as I worked with him, I knew.
I said, "this guy needs to come to wwe."
He's just so talented and such a nice guy.
I got back, and I talked to vince,
And I was like, "we need to get this guy up here."
It took a minute for him to work his way
Through some horrible gimmicks.
[indistinct shouting]
- Ladies and gentlemen,
Introducing to you from the land of the giants,
Unabom!
♪ ♪
- I had to go to memphis and to uswa
And spent a lot of time on the road not making any money.
And then go to smoky mountain wrestling--
- Gosh almighty! Look at the size of that guy!
- I wasn't a goofball.
I was serious about this, and I wanted to succeed.
It wasn't just like I got this handed to me.
I mean, I had to work really hard
Just to get into wwe.
- What made me fall in love with wrestling was...
The mixture of storytelling with an athletic endeavor
To have something where you could combine
Good and evil and these stories of nobility and betrayal
And dastardly characters and noble characters.
There's nothing else like it.
It's always scary whenever tom gets a great idea.
- [laughs] oh, man.
- I think it's the greatest entertainment in the world.
[rock music]
♪ ♪
When I first got into professional wrestling,
I had no idea where it was going to end up.
I didn't have any other plans for my life.
I was making a living,
Although sometimes barely eking by.
But nevertheless, I figured,
As long as I could do that that things were okay.
♪ ♪
- Smoky mountain wrestling was big at the time,
And it was at freedom hall,
Which is a little center in johnson city.
And we would go there,
And sometimes we would go to some of the high schools
Where they were gonna be performing.
The girls loved it.
- A friend introduced me to crystal.
I thought that she was beautiful
The first time I ever saw her.
♪ ♪
She was a single mom with two daughters.
She was going to school
At east tennessee state university,
Pursuing a master's degree in counseling
While she was also working full-time
And then working on weekends.
[grunting]
- And unabom catching there, matt hardy--
Slingshot into the turnbuckles.
- Just like he was a five-pound sack of flour.
- Crystal's daughters, devan and arista,
Were big fans of smoky mountain wrestling.
So she was aware of what I did,
And she'd taken the girls to some shows.
[crowd shouting]
- I loved it. I loved every bit of it.
We would spend hours beforehand--
I would make my signs to hold up.
And I loved it. [chuckles]
♪ ♪
- We were just kids,
So everything was fantastic and big and real.
It was fun. I just loved the performers.
♪ ♪
Something we always looked forward to.
- And he's going for the powerbomb.
- I remember that I thought he was athletic--
From what I watched of the shows, okay?
- She was not impressed with my career
At that point.
- It seemed like he was much more agile in the ring.
- She told me that if her father
Had still been alive
That she would have never been allowed to date me
'cause he held a very low opinion
Of professional wrestlers.
- He had been apparently wanting
To go out with me for some time,
And I kept saying no.
I never wanted to date a wrestler.
I had friends that were wrestlers,
And I didn't see myself
With someone that was a professional wrestler.
My oldest daughter, devan,
She had broke her femur in three places
And was in traction at a hospital.
When I walked in one day,
He was sitting there with her, and he had brought her,
You know, coloring books and stuff to do and flowers.
And I was like, "yeah, I got to go out with him now."
So, you know, it was a guilt-trip thing, right?
- I was able to convince her to go out with me,
And she realized that I'm a nice guy
And really just an average, ordinary person,
Other than doing this thing that I did on tv.
- I knew that he would...
Be doing this.
Didn't know on what scale,
But his thoughts were, you know,
He would do it for a year or two,
Make enough money to buy a house,
And be done.
That wasn't what I thought was gonna happen.
That's not what happened. [chuckles] so...
[indistinct shouting]
- She became supportive of it.
But that's never been
What's defined our relationship.
That's just something that I did for a living.
♪ ♪
- It is not a powerbomb that this man does.
We call it the unabom.
- I'll remember that from now on.
- When I came to smoky mountain wrestling,
Jim ross was doing their commentary.
He was person that got me my tryout
That led to being signed with wwe.
Can't keep up with me, that's just too bad.
No one beats unabom.
- ♪ from mountains high ♪
♪ all way down valleys low ♪
♪ ♪
- I was really excited
Because I had previously had a tryout.
It didn't turn out very well, just 'cause I wasn't ready.
I knew now that I was ready. I knew that I could do this.
So wwe signed me within a few weeks
And told me that they wanted me to fly to new york
To meet with vince mcmahon.
This was the guy who was gonna dictate
Where my future went.
Ultimately, he was that outside factor
That would control where my life was gonna go.
♪ ♪
- What is that look on your face for, jerry lawler?
- What?
- I flew from knoxville, tennessee,
To laguardia airport in new york.
I was picked up in a limousine.
Never been in a limousine before in my entire life,
So I'm thinking to myself, "man, I've made it.
This is the big-time. I'm a wwe superstar."
Limo takes me to stamford, connecticut,
And vince looks at me...
♪ ♪
And he asked me, "glenn, have you ever been afraid
To go to the dentist"
And I said, "no," because I'd never been afraid
Of going to the dentist.
So then he looks me square in the eye
And straight-faced says,
"good. I've always had this idea
For a wrestling dentist."
♪ ♪
"isaac yankem.
"I. Yankem.
[chuckles] get it?"
And then he starts doing the vince mcmahon laugh,
Which I had never heard before.
[laughter] next!
[drill whirring] - isaac yankem, dds.
[crowd shouting]
- Outside of my knee injury in football,
It was actually one of the most devastating moments
In my entire life
Because I had no idea how I was gonna pull this off.
- Talked to jim cornette, and jim told
"aw, don't worry about it, man.
"they have these ideas. It'll be fine.
"that's not gonna happen.
They'll figure out something better for you."
Then a few weeks later, jim comes to me, and he's like,
"well, I heard from wwe. It's the dentist."
And I'm just like,
"I thought you said that they weren't gonna do that?"
Of course, the whole thing came about
Because jerry lawler had lost
The kiss your foot match to bret hart
And figured the way to get revenge on bret hart
Was to introduce his wrestling dentist,
Isaac yankem, to take care of hitman.
- He was being given a great opportunity...
- Isaac yankem, coming in from behind!
- Being tied into lawler and bret hart.
- Yeah! - Yankem...
Extremely aggressive. - One, two, three.
- Weighing 304 pounds...
- Oh, my goodness, take a look at isaac yankem.
- The big, powerful isaac yankem in control--
To the buckle and moving right in.
Oh, my goodness! - [groans]
- [speaking indistinctly]
- Isaac yankem! - His breath is so bad!
- The warrior off the ropes and down on yankem!
- One, two...
- Yes, he got it! [bell dinging]
- Isaac yankem was a terrible character for glenn,
And it didn't make any sense, so far as what glenn could do.
It don't think wwe understood it.
They just said, "we're gonna put out
"this bad-guy dentist out there,"
That just was kind of doomed to fail.
- It clearly was not the greatest concept
Or storyline or gimmick.
I could see that there wasn't a lot of mileage in it.
It just didn't make any sense to me.
- Why did I get stuck with this?
Why did he think
That I was gonna be a great wrestling dentist?
I mean, I have a gap between my front teeth.
Is that it? I have no idea.
- At one point, you're really happy for him
Because he's doing what he loves--
Maybe not the character he loves,
But he's doing something to begin that stepping stone
Of showing other people what he could do.
But just the whole rotted teeth...
'cause I was like,
"what have they done to your teeth?" you know?
[both laughing, person whimpers]
- Isaac yankem, dds! - [chuckling evilly]
- He's gonna drill his way to the top
Of the world wrestling entertainment.
[drill whirring] whoa, get it!
[person whimpers]
- I felt ridiculous.
I just never felt
That I could sink my teeth into the character--
Pun intended.
I never felt like the audience gravitated
Like they should have.
I always felt it just came across
As very campy and unrealistic.
I'm gonna kick in
All of the dirty, rotten, stinking teeth.
- Are you ready, summerslam? [drill whirring]
- I thought it was a really monumental match
For a guy that young in the business.
- Here he comes! - Bret "hitman" hart!
- I just never felt like I belonged.
I felt that the deck was completely stacked against me
With the isaac yankem character.
- I remember the summerslam match I laid out for him.
It was one of the most complicated,
Very layered matches that I ever put together.
I was trying really hard to really get him over
For the company's sake.
- Caught in midair and slammed down to the canvas.
- He did a good job, and I was really proud of him.
I feel like a teacher,
And he was, like, one of my students.
And he was one of my best students.
- [shouts indistinctly] look at that! Look at that!
- I don't know if glenn ever reached
A crossroads where he thought,
"maybe I should do something else."
Glenn never said anything
About the fact that, "maybe this isn't working out."
I'm sure he felt that way,
Because I've been in that position, too,
Where you're somewhere and you're thinking,
"I don't know if I'm ever gonna get a chance."
I have a hard time believing
That there wasn't some doubt in his mind.
- Yankem...
You seem to be on the rise
In the world wrestling entertainment.
- While I was struggling as the isaac yankem character,
I had a tv match with undertaker.
- We've got isaac yankem against the undertaker.
- I can't wait, mcmahon. This is what I've been--
I've been laying awake at nights dreaming of this!
- It was terrible. That was all my fault.
♪ ♪
My heart wasn't in it, and the match was terrible.
If you can't have a good match
And you're just out there going through the motions,
You just don't make your opponent look good,
Which is what had happened that night.
- Undertaker could very well be
The next world wrestling entertainment champ!
- Oh, my goodness!
- I felt bad for him. I really did.
It was really frustrating, 'cause I knew...
I knew the upside with him.
I just knew isaac yankem was not it.
It was not gonna last.
- Oh!
♪ ♪
When your audience sees something
And they go, "oh, my gosh, that's awful,"
It's hard to get 'em back.
I mean, there's only so much you can do.
♪ ♪
- Mark, afterwards, told me,
"look, dude, if you want to stay here,
"you're gonna have to act like you belong here.
You can't mope around."
- And isaac yankem gets a boot to the midsection.
- He was not a fan
Of the isaac yankem character either.
But, nevertheless, I made undertaker look bad...
- Check it out. Scoops up yankem!
Look at this! - I was telling him,
"like, glenn, if you're gonna survive here,
"you've got to develop
"a little bit of [bleep] in you.
"not an [bleep] just to be an [bleep],
"but an [bleep] for the sake of the business.
"you've got to stand up for yourself"...
- [grunts]
- "or you're not gonna be here."
[indistinct shouting]
- When I was in wwe,
I was often on the road 250, 300 days a year.
Getting in the ring and performing
Was really the fun part.
Learning and traveling
And long nights and bumps and bruises--
That's really the beauty of this whole industry.
- One, two, three... - That's where the romance is.
[soft music]
They kept me around, working.
I was over in south africa on a show with wwe,
And jerry brisco told me
"hey, when you get back to the states,
You need to call vince-- he has an idea for you."
♪ ♪
- We had the Monday night wars.
And we lost diesel and razor to wcw.
- Where is it-- the big surprise?
[crowd clamoring]
- [mouthing words]
This is where the big boys play, huh?
- I was ecstatic-- more money,
Guaranteed money.
So half the days and twice as much money.
- He said, "I've got this new role."
And I'm like, "what is it?"
And he's like, "I'm gonna be fake diesel,"
Because diesel and razor ramon had left.
- This is diesel, folks.
Look on his contract.
- The idea was by introducing
The same character that had just left,
You could have impostors
Who were just as big of stars
As the stars were.
♪ ♪
And I assumed the role of the new diesel.
The company was behind it.
We were going to become tag team champions,
And there was gonna be a pretty big push
Behind the characters.
- I'm like, "oh, okay. How's that gonna happen?
You know, 'cause you've got white, short, curly hair."
And he's like, "well, I've got to go get extensions."
[chuckles] he was all in leather,
And he had the long black hair.
I was like, "I like this character.
You're so hot."
[crowd clamoring]
- They created this as a parody.
It's just that glenn jacobs isn't a parody of anything.
He comes back as a different human being.
He looked incredible.
Glenn's success is because of his hard work,
And he did a great job with it.
The fake razor didn't do good job with it.
Glenn did a great job with it.
- Here comes that jackknife!
- Whoa! Sidewalk slam! - Yo!
- The size of diesel. I mean, this guy's huge.
- I'm sure, you know, it was awkward for glenn.
But it's a job.
Either that or you go home.
And I think glenn was like-- he didn't want to go home.
And I think he understood
He was still in the learning process
And still climbing a ladder
That he wasn't sure where it was going
Or how long it would take to get to the top,
But he was still, you know, somewhere on that ladder.
- He is a monster.
♪ ♪
- There it comes! The jackknife!
- The fake diesel character gave me a lot of confidence.
I realized that, yes, I belonged in wwe.
That's actually what was missing
With the isaac yankem character.
I just never felt like I belonged.
♪ ♪
- Being a phony dentist,
Being isaac yankem, is one thing.
But then being
At least a little closer
To a real person
Gives you some confidence,
An air of walking to the ring like diesel.
♪ ♪
That was a big step in taking the next step
To being who he was gonna be.
- ♪ I never back down ♪
♪ got you on the run ♪
♪ and I'll chase you down ♪
♪ like a bullet from a gun ♪
- By watching me,
I think he learned big-man pacing.
You watch him as yankem,
He works much faster than when he works as diesel.
I think he realized, like, "no, man, slow."
♪ ♪
- You could see the transition
That he felt more comfortable just walking into the ring,
Strutting his stuff.
And maybe it's 'cause his wife was telling him he was hot.
I don't know. [chuckles]
You know, with the sunglasses on
And the goatee and the long hair and...
Yeah. [laughs]
♪ ♪
- ♪ the devil's on the rise ♪
♪ yeah ♪
♪ the devil's on the rise ♪
- The problem is,
If you ever have something that's a fake of somebody else,
Just turn on the tv and see kevin nash.
You can never do a parody of something
When the person is somewhere around
That can still go, and kevin nash could still go.
♪ ♪
- They wanted to prove that it wasn't us.
It was their machine.
That if they put their machine behind it,
They could re-create the character.
And it was just-- that wasn't the case.
We're like nobody else on tv. [crowd cheering]
- Because of just the storyline coming to an organic end,
Rick and I were taken off tv.
We went to memphis and worked some
With jerry lawler there and his promotion there.
- Holy cow! - When I was in memphis,
I got a call that wwe had an idea for me.
There had been an incident
Where vader had gotten arrested.
He was on a talk show with undertaker.
They were in a storyline at the time.
[chuckles]
- So we're on tour in the middle east.
We end up in kuwait.
I was world champion at the time,
And I was gonna defend the title that night.
They had us on some morning talk show.
From what I understand,
It was a fairly big morning talk show.
- Undertaker knew
That this commentator was going to ask the dreaded
"is wrestling fake?" question,
Which I hate.
- They say this wrestling is not for real.
Is it, like, you act or...
♪ ♪
- And undertaker told vader, "just let me handle it.
Let me answer it."
- What we do, if it is acting...
We take a normal man and break him in half.
You know, that's such an unoriginal question
For someone to ask.
♪ ♪
Vader, as all of us old-school guys used to do--
You defend your business, you defend your territory.
Vader grabs this guy and shakes him up a little bit.
- I find your remark and your question insulting.
- It's not my question. It's somebody--
[thud, object shatters]
- Does that [bleep] feel fake, huh?
Does that feel fake?
- And I'm thinking in my head,
"oh, my gosh, vader, what are you doing?"
- And we lost leon for a while.
He was detained in kuwait
For probably about a week or so.
We needed to create an opponent
For the undertaker,
Because looking at what was in wwe at the time,
It was like, well, undertaker's
Either faced them and defeated them--
It had all been done.
And we had damn near run out of dominant opponents
For the undertaker.
But there was a guy
That at the time
Was working in ohio valley wrestling
With jim cornette.
His name was glenn jacobs.
- They tell me, "we're gonna use glenn jacobs."
I'm instantly like, "yes."
- The undertaker!
- When I was in memphis, I got a call
That wwe had an idea for me.
And, initially, what they needed to do was,
They just needed an opponent for mark,
For the undertaker.
- I just started talking about,
"what if...
"when the undertaker debuted
"the whole time he thought
"that his brother was dead?
"his mom and dad, they died in the horrible fire.
"his brother died in the fire.
But really"...
"paul bearer, who was a mortician
"in that funeral parlor,
"took undertaker's baby brother, kane,
"and raised him as his own...
Burned from head to toe, disfigured forever."
[eerie music]
- Vince is like, "why are we wasting
"one match on this?
This is actually a storyline that we need to develop."
I realized that this was
The opportunity of a lifetime.
- Kane is alive, undertaker!
He's breathing!
Kane's alive! I swear!
I was with kane last night!
He's ready to come!
He's waited 20 years to face his brother!
He's coming, dead man!
- And paul bearer had looked after his baby brother
All these years
And had fed all these stories into kane,
Telling him about how his brother--
"your brother knows you're alive.
"but he's never once come to see you
"because he's too busy being the undertaker.
"he's too busy in the fame and the fortune.
He doesn't care about you. He never has."
The time is drawing near!
Your brother kane is coming!
You, undertaker, are gonna burn in hell!
- The whole time,
His brother had been watching the rise of the undertaker
And the rage, the envy--
All those emotions of sibling rivalry,
Except now these larger-than-life characters
With supernatural powers--
That was building up inside this character
Who would eventually be called kane.
- I mean, there was so many layers to this thing,
But it all made sense.
It was just, like, a great horror movie,
Where this guy has been kept
Being developed for this one moment in time
Where he would extract his revenge
On his older brother.
♪ ♪
- He's still trying to work out the character.
He would see something
That he would think would be neat, you know,
And he'd tell me about it.
You know, "I think I can incorporate this."
- The first renderings of the kane character
Were the exact opposite
Of what I thought the character should look like in my mind.
♪ ♪
I just logically thought
That he would literally be an escapee
From some sort of mental asylum or institution
And he would be a lot like a jason voorhees,
Michael myers type
That was just wild and had escaped,
And his entire mission in life
Was just destroying the object of his rage.
♪ ♪
- You ready? [chuckles]
- Can you do it sideways? Like, uh...
You know, you're facing that way.
Kind of pick him up, just see.
- There's something about two brothers
Fighting each other
That hits a chord with families
And in real life, where they go--
Hits a nerve south of the border
Like nowhere else.
- Sometimes in wrestling,
The payoff
Doesn't necessarily match
The buildup.
The kane situation is the opposite of that.
The buildup was terrifying.
It was all on an epic scale.
And then when you first see kane
For the first time,
It's the bad blood pay-per-view--
Shawn michaels versus the undertaker
In the first-ever hell in a cell match.
- He was my guy
And the guy that I wanted.
I'm instantly like, "yes. This is perfect."
We were similar size. We looked similar.
It's gonna be easy to sell the fact
That we're brothers.
And it was a break
That I thought that he really deserved.
It's probably one of the...
Most important debuts
In wwe history.
- When kane came out,
Absolutely jacked, bigger than taker,
That was incredible.
- Oh, god, what age was I? Like, 12 at the time.
I remember jumping in my bed, it was so frickin' cool.
- It was jaw-dropping,
I would say.
It made you immediately go, "oh, this is no joke."
- Very hard to make undertaker feel
Like he's in an underdog situation
Because of his character.
But, man, the fans really were, like, concerned
About taker.
-I remember watching.
The lights go off, and then they came back up.
♪ ♪
- Oh, my god!
Wait a minute! It's paul bearer!
♪ ♪
It's paul bearer!
And that--that's got to be--
That's got to be kane! That's got to be kane!
♪ ♪
- It was just amazing.
For a moment, there's just this complete silence,
And no one knows what's going on.
And then the music starts playing,
And then the spotlights hit,
And for just a heartbeat, no one made a noise.
- When he walks through the curtain
With the outfit, with the mask,
And the size and the physique,
That's frankenstein's monster-- who doesn't get that?
- Look at the size of this human being.
Or is that a human being?
- He was a living, breathing monster
That people were genuinely a little afraid of.
You didn't know what was behind that mask
And what he's capable of.
And they believed the story.
- The look on the undertaker's face
Just said, "oh, my god."
- What sold that moment was undertaker's eyes saying,
"I know you, you're my brother, you're kane,"
Without ever saying a word.
And everything together made that
Possibly the best debut of all time.
- What's this?
♪ ♪
- That was, like, one of the first times ever
I showed any kind of look or emotion
That didn't say "kill," right?
There's this look of bewilderment in my eyes
That people pick up on right away
That's like, "whoa, look at undertaker.
He's always had that stern, 'I'm gonna kill you' look."
- The undertaker looking into the eyes
Of his younger brother!
- The stare-down--
If you saw the stare-down
Between these two long-lost brothers...
Who one didn't know the other one was still alive
And now he's coming back,
Was incredible.
♪ ♪
- The undertaker set up for the tombstone!
Driven down to the canvas!
♪ ♪
- This is shocking!
♪ ♪
- Look at the size! That's got to be kane!
[crowd booing]
And listen to this response!
♪ ♪
- It was the first time I felt like a wwe superstar.
I mean, I realized, "this is what it's all about."
- Yeah!
- When I was younger, I had went to a show.
Hulk hogan had come out.
We talked about blowing the roof off the place.
We blew the roof off the place.
I'd never heard people get that excited
About anything in my life.
That was the first time that I felt like that.
The entire world is watching me.
This is what it's all about.
This is what I've worked for all those years
Is this moment.
[cheers and applause]
- Glenn is a very smart guy.
And because of that, he's able to get into the characters.
I mean, what he did with kane,
I don't think any other human being
On the planet could have done.
It's remarkable what he did with kane.
To be undertaker's brother and to have to come in
With undertaker on top,
It's like being michael jordan's brother.
- We are gonna walk
Through the world wrestling entertainment...
Take each wrestler one by one
And destroy them
Until we beat you, undertaker!
That is why kane is here!
- I will never fight
My own flesh and blood.
- And kane takes...
- A lot of unexplained power.
- For months after my debut,
I just ran through everybody in wwe,
Destroyed everyone
On the way to a showdown with the undertaker.
- Kane's attacking his brother!
Wait a minute! He's gonna fight back!
- The undertaker! - The undertaker's had enough!
- He did know! - He had a chance, jr!
He didn't do it!
Kane is hammering and battering his brother!
- Undertaker, welcome to your worst nightmare.
- There was a huge build.
He pushed me to the limits,
Where I had to say, "okay, little brother"...
- How much more of this will the undertaker take?
- "you've messed with big brother
"one time too many.
Now I'm gonna have to thump you."
♪ ♪
[thunder booms] - whoa!
- Lightning bolt just hit that coffin!
♪ ♪
- Is it--
It is the undertaker! - Whoa!
- It's the undertaker, and he is back!
- Welcome to hell... [cheers and applause]
And the demon who will lead you
Into eternal damnation.
[crowd screaming]
Kane...
You will rest...
Crowd: In peace! - In peace!
[bell tolls dramatically]
- Wrestlemania xiv arrives in boston.
♪ ♪
- ♪ I'd walk through flames ♪
♪ fear, fury, and fire ♪
- People were anticipating and excited
To actually see
Someone that could actually bring it to the undertaker.
- Straight out of the mouth of hell
Comes the undertaker's brother, kane!
♪ ♪
- Go out to the ring,
And I'm with paul and get introduced.
He puts his hand on my chest,
And my heart is thumping so hard
That he can feel it, and he's like,
"man, what's wrong with you? You okay?"
And I'm like, "man, this is, like,
"the biggest moment of my life,
As far as my professional life."
- ♪ when the lights go out ♪
♪ my light will only shine brighter ♪
♪ ♪
- I'll never forget watching the undertaker come out
And looking down the aisle...
- There he is!
♪ ♪
The prince of darkness!
- He's walking under the torches,
And they formed a canopy of flame
Over the top of him.
And I thought to myself--
For a second, I'm like, "oh, my god.
That's the undertaker."
[chuckles] you know?
I was awestricken.
And then I realized, "oh, he's coming out to beat up me.
Now, wait a second..."
That's when I truly knew that I had arrived in wwe.
- What a hellacious matchup this is going to be.
- No matter what happened after that,
No one could ever take away the fact
That I had wrestled undertaker at wrestlemania.
- It's gonna be a first time ever,
Two super heavyweights,
Two super-dominant characters, supernatural--
You got all these different elements.
They're about to lock it up.
And I think we achieved that.
I wanted the first time that we went at it
To be at wrestlemania, so it was fresh.
That emotion would be raw and that energy real.
♪ ♪
- As a kid growing up,
I was always a fan of monster movies.
Not the kind that they have today.
I mean, like, "king kong" and "godzilla."
♪ ♪
To me, sitting there commentating
And watching these two giants go against each other,
In my mind, it was like,
"I'm witnessing--I'm watching this in real life.
"this is king kong versus godzilla.
"these are two giant monsters
Trying to tear each other apart."
- You can feel the intensity!
And now kane is feeling the wrath
Of the undertaker!
- I personally loved it,
And, obviously, all the fans loved it.
It was great.
- I've never seen anybody manhandle
The undertaker like that, jr!
- I've never seen anybody like kane, king.
♪ ♪
His body's got to be ravaged
From those high-impact blows from kane.
♪ ♪
- Oh, my god. - Oh, look at that!
Look at the agility.
The undertaker on kane's shoulders.
Oh! No!
♪ ♪
The undertaker, a tombstone!
Planted him!
Kane has been drilled! That will be all!
[cheers and applause]
Oh, no! Nobod--
Nobody's ever kicked out of the undertaker's tombstone!
- I took three tombstones.
Never, ever happened before.
So it made me an even bigger character
Than I had before I lost the match.
- Can he do it twice? Yes, he can.
- This would be the third tombstone.
- Yes! He got it!
My god, what will it take if it's not--
- One, two, three. - Yes!
[bell dings]
The undertaker has won this match!
The undertaker...
♪ ♪
- So, even though I lost,
It still was a springboard
For propelling the character higher.
♪ ♪
- The art of professional wrestling
Is transmitting your emotion
To the audience and evoking emotions from them.
Usually we do that--
We show people our emotions with our face.
Obviously, because kane was wearing a mask,
You couldn't see his face.
Early on, I struggled with that
Because kane is supposed to be very dark, very brooding.
But he's also not emotionless.
And how could I portray that emotion to the audience?
One day I was playing with my dog.
She was a st. Bernard named annie,
And I noticed that no matter what I did,
Annie would tilt her head.
Now, it'd be different degrees,
Depending on whether it was curiosity,
Depending on whether I had a treat,
Depending on whether I had whistled.
But I thought that was really cool.
I wonder if kane would do the same thing.
♪ ♪
- I'd watch him in the mirror, you know, practicing.
I'm like, "good god, what have I married?"
You know? [chuckles]
- The truth--
I'll tell the people the truth tonight!
Yeah, I will.
[cabinets rattling] [squeals] stop!
Stop! Stop!
[rattling continues]
[distant cheers and applause]
- Glenn's always felt pressure.
♪ ♪
He is a perfectionist.
And he does want to give so much of himself
To whatever it is that he's undertaking.
- And the undertaker...
- And that was something we learned early on as a family,
That the wwe would always be...
♪ ♪
Don't want to say first,
But right up there, equal to us.
♪ ♪
And that doesn't seem fair at times.
♪ ♪
Wanting to be successful at whatever he's doing
And giving everything that he's got--
I used to tell him, I said,
"you know, there can only be one number one.
"and you have to learn that you got to be okay
"if you're number two or number three
"or number four or number five,
Because in the world, there's only one number one."
Did that ever stop him from trying to be number one?
No. Absolutely not.
♪ ♪
I don't think he always liked my logic either.
♪ ♪
So did you like working with taker?
- Undertaker is my favorite wrestler
Before I got into wwe.
Talk about honor and privilege and all that--
It really was to work with him.
The first time I ever met mark, was 1991 or so.
♪ ♪
- Were you scared? - [laughs]
Well, I'm backstage at a wwe show.
I was like, "oh, my gosh, I've stepped
Into a set of a horror movie,"
With this guy walking down the hall."
Yeah, he's intimidating. - Yeah. So are you.
- Well, you don't ever think of yourself
As being intimidating 'cause you can't see yourself.
You can only see the other person.
- Hmm, this is good,
'cause we never talked about your business
When you were actually doing your business.
So it's a good thing that I'm hearing these stories now.
[organ music plays]
[explosion] - oh!
♪ ♪
- Fire was the theme of the kane character.
- It made perfect sense because the whole storyline
Was everyone getting burned up in the funeral home fire.
- Undertaker...
Did you actually believe that it was all over?
- He's desecrating his own parents' grave!
- Our story is probably the greatest story
Ever told in wwe.
It never stopped evolving.
- Burn, burn, burn, burn! - No, no, no!
- Yes!
- Oh! - Look out!
- Oh, the undertaker chokeslammed!
- Look at paul bearer! - [cackling]
- Look at the flames!
- Which led to the inferno match.
- I had a dream!
I saw the ring surrounded by fire!
♪ ♪
- [laughs]
After wrestlemania xiv in boston,
The next match between undertaker and kane
Is the inferno match.
- The loser must catch fire,
An inferno!
- The inferno match is something birthed in hell.
It has never been witnessed
And is difficult and frightening to envision.
- The beginning of your...
Eternal...
Damnation.
[dramatic music]
- It's actually one of my favorite matches
Of all time.
[explosion] - oh!
["burned (kane)" by wwe & jim johnston playing]
[bell dings]
- Ladies and gentlemen, it is now time
For the first-ever inferno match!
- I think the performance we put on that night
Was done really well.
[gong sounds] - this is gonna be something!
Whoa! Whoa!
["graveyard symphony" by wwe & jim johnston playing]
- You had to be ready for anything.
Working with fire,
Real fire,
I think, is a hazard for anybody,
But, again,
Having the attitude that
You're going to make it work,
No matter what it takes, whatever it takes,
You're going to make it work.
- You worry about the audience.
Is it gonna get too hot, or, you know,
Could someone potentially get burned?
There are a lot of unknowns more than anything
With the inferno match.
- We're gonna have some serious combustion.
So let's get ready for it.
Here... [cackles]
The first thing I can think of
When jr and I are sitting in the back,
You know, going over the format of the show,
I said, "jr, what is this inferno match gonna be like?"
And he says, "well, I'll just tell you this--
"I was out by the ring
When they were testing the pyro,"
And he said,
"it's gonna be hot."
I said, "what do you mean 'gonna be hot'?"
He said, "it may singe your eyebrows."
- I said, "no way!"
♪ ♪
- It's hard to be a first
In anything in this industry.
You tend to worry
About something really catastrophic happening.
- Look at this!
Oh, my gosh!
- This is amazing!
- One thing that I did not equate for was the amount
Of oxygen that the fire was gonna consume.
- I get there early,
And I talk with the stunt people
Who we'd brought into hollywood
About how we're gonna do this.
Their first reaction is,
"wait, you're gonna do this live?"
- Back then, we didn't rehearse things
Like we do today.
We were just kind of more "fly by the seat of our pants."
- And they're like, "okay, we need to set you on fire
So you're used to this."
♪ ♪
Never words I thought I would hear--
"need to set you on fire."
So they put some stuff on my arm
And have me in long sleeve.
Go to light my arm on fire.
When my arm gets lit on fire, I go to move.
They're like, "no, no, no, don't move that way,
"because if you do that, you're gonna inhale the flames.
"you need to keep your arm behind you
And just keep it moving like this the whole time."
So I'm like, "okay."
- The ring is surrounded by fire.
♪ ♪
Here we go.
Taker trying to gain the early advantage.
- You feel that, jr?
- Oh, powerslam again! - Yeah!
When the fire went off around the ring,
We were as close as anybody.
All of a sudden, this fire came blowing up.
I could smell--you know, there's a distinct smell
When something-- hair's getting singed.
- Kane's coming down! - Oh!
Ah!
- Usually when we're doing stuff like that,
I would tell crystal,
"I have to do something tonight.
"it's gonna be okay.
Don't worry about it," and I'd be like,
"just wait. Maybe don't watch it
Until I call you and tell you that everything's okay."
- You can't tell your wife not to watch something
Where you're gonna be caught on fire
And being a freakin' human inferno walking around,
Flames shooting off of you.
- Oh! - Oh!
- And we're praying, "oh, dear god, please.
Please, please, please, please," you know?
"don't let him catch on fire.
Let him--" [laughs] "let him be okay.
Let him win this one."
[laughing] "let mark catch on fire."
[indistinct shouting]
- You're nervous, but we're young,
And you're doing something that no one else has ever done.
You put that stuff out of your mind,
And you figure out how to make it work
To the best of your ability.
- Threw kane over the top rope!
- Uh-oh.
- Wham! Oh!
- Kane back up now with that steel chair.
Undertaker catches it right in his hand.
Oh, kane, back in the fire!
♪ ♪
Kane's on fire!
♪ ♪
Kane is on fire!
- I had this surreal moment where I'm looking at myself,
And I'm on fire in front of about 20,000 people,
And, of course, millions of people watching at home.
Throughout the match, I'm trying to keep
Everything straight-- "I have to have this match.
"I have to do this. I have to do that.
"then this happens, then I get knocked out of the ring.
"oh, don't fall into the flames
"when you get knocked out of the ring
"because you'll probably go to the hospital
With very bad burns."
Well, now my arm's on fire.
♪ ♪
- This time, all the gold is on the line!
This time, my son will be the champion!
- Kane reaching way down deep,
Knowing full well he's the number-one contender
If he defeats his brother again!
- Look out! No! - Tombstone!
- Yes! - Tombstone!
Will that be enough? - He got him!
- One!
Two!
Three! Kane wins!
- Right there the belt goes.
Right there!
The seven-foot monster is absolutely--
- Yeah! - Yeah!
- Kane...
If you would speak publicly for the first time.
[crowd clamoring]
- What?
[organ music plays]
["burned (kane)" by wwe & jim johnston playing]
- Coming down the aisle,
Accompanied by paul bearer
Is the challenger,
Kane!
- The first blood match
With "stone cold" steve austin at the king of the ring
In pittsburgh in 1998--
The stipulation was that if kane won
And became world champion,
Drew first blood on "stone cold" steve austin,
He'd become world champion, of course.
If he lost, he would set himself on fire.
- Here we go!
- That was also the hell in the cell match
Between undertaker and mick foley.
- Wait a minute, do you think he's daring the undertaker
To start this match up there?
[crowd clamoring]
- Look out--oh! - Oh, no!
- Good god almighty! Good god almighty!
- Oh!
- Good god!
Good god! - That's it. He's dead.
- Vince mcmahon looks me squarely in the eye and says,
"if mick can't come out,
You're gonna have to figure out what to do."
[crowd clamoring]
"I ain't setting myself on fire, okay?"
[laughing] "let's take that off the table immediately."
There was some trepidation in my mind
About whether we're gonna be able to pull this match off
Because of mick's physical condition.
Mankind is supposed to come out.
Undertaker's supposed to come out.
Undertaker takes a swing, hits austin.
Austin gets cut--first blood,
Kane's champion--does not have to set himself on fire,
Which was top of mind for me.
- The winner of this bout
And new...
World wrestling entertainment champion,
Kane!
[eerie organ music playing]
- To become world champion was just amazing.
That first one, man, that was just so special,
Because I joined a very select group of individuals.
Not only is it an honor
For the entire world to see,
But, also, it's the fact that the company believes in you.
Wwe was taking off and going anyway.
But I think that that was really a booster
That shot us up to the next level.
Kane was just going to the moon.
I never thought--
I never believed that it was possible.
[upbeat music]
♪ ♪
[explosion, heavy metal music]
- Chef boyardee big beefaroni--
Open up a can for yourself.
- I was a celebrity who has risen to such fame as kane.
Both: Kane! [cowering]
- I realized that this was
The opportunity of a lifetime.
Kane was just going to the moon.
[electronic music]
Hi, pete.
It simply did not get any bigger than that.
The overall experience of this commercial
Was amazing.
The fans get to see me gardening,
Crocheting, and maybe even see my pet-rock collection.
I never thought
This would've been possible for someone like me.
I mean, I dreamed about it,
But I never thought--
I never believed that it was possible.
- I'm here today at the nbc studios in burbank
To film an episode of the "weakest link."
- Kane, you're good at wrestling?
- Yes. - You good at anything else?
- No. [laughter]
- Can you try and speak more clearly?
- Can you try to speak more clearly, too?
All: Ooh...
- I think we can bring her and make her a disciplinarian
Or authoritative figure,
The demented schoolmarm, if you will,
And she'd do great.
She might scare everybody backstage, though.
- Kane, in psychology, who introduced the theory
Of the oedipus complex?
- Sigmund freud. - What french national heroine
Was burned at the stake in 1431?
- Joan of arc. - Correct.
[applause]
- I am the strongest link.
Goodbye.
I think the key to longevity in wwe
Is the ability to reinvent yourself.
Through the years, I changed a lot,
From where I was a silent, brooding character
To more of, like, an actual superhero.
- Don't you realize when you jumped on kane,
You jumped on me?
- As easy as it is
To relate to two brothers fighting,
It's also very relatable
To when they make up,
When they realize that, "we're family,"
And that, "we're blood,"
And that, "we're stronger together than apart."
- ♪ you've been alone all your life ♪
♪ ♪
- And when we finally brought the two brothers together
As a tag team
And the brothers of destruction were born,
Now the audience was happy.
- Undertaker and kane combined
Make the most destructive force in history.
- Why is it everyone feels it necessary
To anger kane and I?
- The brothers of destruction was another dream come true.
It was awesome to be the undertaker's opponent.
It was even better to be his teammate.
- Oh, my! - Wait a minute.
- No! No! No!
- The real chokeslams to hell!
- These are the tag team champions!
What? - There is nobody--
Nobody that matched up with us, right?
So we just basically killed just about everybody
That we got in the ring with-- we just murdered 'em.
♪ ♪
- Double chokeslam!
Covered by kane. - Kick out!
Kick out! - Covered by taker!
[bell dinging] oh, it's over!
We have new tag team champions!
♪ ♪
- The audience just bought it hook, line, and sinker.
Feel like they thought, "oh, this is awesome.
Undertaker and kane are together."
♪ ♪
- Within the period of its run,
I think it was pretty damn good.
- The landslide!
[ring bell dings] and this one's over!
The undertaker and kane,
Double tag team champions!
♪ ♪
- At least once a week, I get that question,
"are you and kane really brothers?"
I tell him, "we're half-brothers, yeah,"
And then, you know, brothers in spirit.
Sometimes I'll say,
Yeah, we're brothers."
I look at him as a brother, so might as well.
- Mark calaway is one of my idols.
He was a mentor to me.
There wouldn't be a kane
If there hadn't been an undertaker in the end.
If it hadn't been for him,
My life would not be where it is today.
♪ ♪
So I owe him a lot,
Both professionally and personally.
♪ ♪
- The natural evolution at that time
For sports entertainment
And professional wrestling meshing...
You had this guy, where, yes, you can still tell
That mythological story about kane and taker,
But you had to evolve.
I think that's the natural progression of any character.
♪ ♪
- As an artist in wwe,
Part of what keeps you going is that creativity.
♪ ♪
You're creating your character,
Evolving it,
And I also took it as a personal challenge
Because I wanted to prove to people
That kane is not just a guy-- glenn jacobs is not just a guy
Whose character has to stand there and not say anything
All the time.
He can do a lot more than that.
- You know the stipulations!
Take that mask off!
- What is it gonna be like? What is it gonna look like?
Oh, my god! - God.
- You know, kane, you're hiding something.
It's a lot more than that face behind the mask, too.
[mysterious music]
- Triple h, the world heavyweight champion,
Putting it on the line against kane,
And kane must win and become the world champion,
Or he must unmask and reveal his identity.
- What--oh, my gosh! - Oh.
- [screams] - oh!
He's knocked out! - Here comes the chokeslam!
Oh! - Oh!
And randy orton taking kane face-first down!
The referee didn't see orton's interference!
Kick out! Kick out! - Yes!
- And, oh! - Oh, my god!
- The game wins it!
- You know the stipulations!
Now take that mask off!
- We had a big change in 2003
When we took the mask off.
A lot of folks thought that that was a huge mistake.
♪ ♪
- He should've stayed under a mask.
- [shouts]
- I thought, when you do that unmasking thing,
I get there has to be an evolution to the character,
But for me personally, I was a little disappointed with it.
I just didn't see the need.
- I prefer the michael myers-type character.
I don't know if it needed that evolution.
I would've been happy with just that monster for 20 years.
- Unmasking kane was probably
One of the top debates over the years
That we've had--is, do you take this character
And take away the mystique
By unmasking him,
Or do you take the next step
With him, unmasking him,
And allowing him
To be more human?
- It's something that you have to do at some point.
They wanted him to be able to express himself.
With a mask on, it's really hard to express yourself.
It's hard to get sympathy.
It's hard to get people
To feel like someone's in peril
Without that facial expression.
- The only people that were really for it
Were vince mcmahon and me.
But those were the only two people
That needed to be for it,
'cause it was the most important people.
- What's kane gonna do?
- As they were shaving my head,
Bruce prichard walks in,
And my head's about halfway shaved, and bruce said,
"hey, stop right there! Let me get vince."
Vince came in. He's like, "oh, you're exactly right.
I think it's great."
- He's gonna do it, jr. He's gonna do it!
What is it gonna be like? What is it gonna look like?
Oh, my god! - God.
Is that a human?
- Look at that grotesque face!
- I remember him being terrifying.
He looked horrifying.
When you think about other,
Like, movie monsters with masks,
That's, like, kind of what you're thinking
When you see them take their mask off.
- What the hell is that?
Get a shot of that face!
- My daughter and I, the youngest,
We're sitting on the bed.
We were watching the match,
And she's like, "that's not dad."
♪ ♪
And I said, "oh, hell, yeah, it is.
That's him."
[crowd clamoring]
- She was not happy with my judgment
On that decision,
Because she really liked my hair.
At the time, I had long flowing hair, very thick
That went halfway down my back.
♪ ♪
- It was awful. It was frickin' awful.
[chuckles] and...
So he calls.
"what'd you think? It's great, isn't it?"
And I'm like,
"where in the hell is your hair?"
He said, "it's in a bag."
That's exactly what he told me--"it's in a bag."
And I'm like...
"well, get it back." [chuckles] you know?
"I can't."
And I'm like, "uh-huh. We're gonna talk about this
When you get home," or something like that.
I mean, I wasn't impressed at all,
But he thought it was great.
- Aah! - Oh.
- I imagine it was probably scary for him.
Being under that mask
Is a comfort zone for you for a long time,
And now you're doing something completely different.
- Oh, my god, there he is. - There's kane!
- He knew this was just another dimension
For this character to go.
I'm thinking this is the person
That's going to be home with me
And going to events with the kids...
With this half-shaved head,
And it just got worse from there,
'cause it went from half-shaved head to full-shaved head
To no eyebrows, yeah.
- That's really not only breathed new life into kane,
It almost gave me a second career.
["devil's yard" by christopher lewis]
- His character had so many levels,
And his range was just amazing.
- ♪ medicine man came up from the valley ♪
- This is just the beginning!
- He ends up cutting all these incredible promos.
- You want to know why I became a monster?
- ♪ has dried, and the skies turned... ♪
- Why don't you come down here and find out?
- No, he's not! - No, you can't--oh!
- The tombstone!
- I think you need to feel my pain!
- No, don't do it! - Put 'em down!
- Don't do it, no!
- [screaming]
- Where they needed him to go, he was able to go
And make it work exceptionally well.
- ♪ dies in the devil's yard ♪
- Do what I want!
Let's go! Let's finish this!
- Do you take lita to be your wife?
- I do.
- On paper, that kane character
Seemed exciting
But with a limited shelf life...
Because he was covered from head to toe.
You saw nothing except his eyes.
- ♪ the water burned, and the sun started to cry ♪
♪ as the black-eyed angel... ♪
- If you ain't down with the big red machine...
[distorted voice] suck it.
- And yet, we're talking about him
25 years after he made his debut
Because he was able to inject humanity
Into an inhumane character.
He made you care about him
With just the slightest tilt of his head.
♪ ♪
- [distorted voice] you hurt me.
Tonight I'm gonna hurt you.
[crowd cheering]
- One of the things I gleaned from glenn
Very early on was his adaptability.
That's what you really want out of a good character.
You want a character that can do comedy.
- The question is, brothers...
What you gonna do--
What you gonna do when hulk hogan
And the rock and the big red machine
Run wild on you?
- They can do wild storylines.
It's also a badass or a movie monster
That has some emotional range.
- Who's speaking to you right now?
Some demon
From the depths of hell
Or a man in a suit, your friend kane?
- The fact that he's been able to do that
Over the course of his career
Speaks volumes to him as a performer.
- If you needed something, you could go to kane.
Like, you needed a monster, you needed a great match,
You needed somebody agile, you needed somebody
To pull off something entertaining and funny...
- Okay, kane, uh, thank you for coming.
Remember, sharing is caring.
- I buried my brother alive twice,
And I've set a couple of people on fire
And abducted various coworkers,
And I, uh,
Once electrocuted a man's testicles.
- [screams]
- Years ago, I had a girlfriend named katie,
But, um, let's just say that that didn't turn out so well.
And for reasons never quite explained,
I have an unhealthy obsession
With torturing pete rose.
♪ ♪
- Okay.
- The monster and the beauty,
I think people also can relate to,
Because everybody needs love,
And for the monster to fall in love
And for the monster to actually show emotion
And to show emotion through a mask
Is very difficult to do.
[cell phone ringing] - hello?
- Is this halle berry?
- Uh, yes.
- Why don't you ever return my fan mail?
I feel like we've made a connection.
I mean, I even included a picture.
- You wrote that your home address
Is the depths of hell.
What do you expect me to do with that?
- Does this mean we're not going on that picnic?
♪ ♪
- I've been very fortunate
To have worked with all the people that I've worked with,
Everybody from undertaker to daniel bryan,
And they've been instrumental in allowing me to do that--
That process of continually reinventing yourself,
Because, frankly, our audience
Is just like any other audience.
It's really cool.
When you're there for a while,
You get stale, and they want to see something new.
What can I say?
Chicks dig the mask.
- [laughs]
- I've been blessed
To have a fantastic wwe career,
But the greatest blessing I've had is my family.
Without them, I never would've been able to do
What I did in wwe.
♪ ♪
Crystal's plan for our life
Was that when I retired from wwe...
We would, I guess, just kind of enjoy each other
And live life.
Then I get this wild idea.
I want to get into politics,
Which was not something that she had ever planned on.
- I'm in a unique situation because of who I am
And because of the wrestling thing
And now because I'm mayor.
I'm trying to, you know, show the rest of the world,
And even people here within our community,
What a great place this is,
The assets that we have, the things that there are to see,
And, you know, things that we need to work on.
[festive music playing]
♪ ♪
We're at schulz brau in knox county,
And we're kicking off oktoberfest.
I just got to tap the kegs
At the same time that the mayor of munich, germany,
Kicks off oktoberfest there.
[laughs] - whoo!
[all cheer]
- This is a lederhosen-- a traditional bavarian outfit.
These are extremely uncomfortable, actually.
It's all leather, so you can't really move that well in 'em.
♪ ♪
- It's awesome that you come and do this.
- It's fun, man.
♪ ♪
All: Whoo!
- There's a big learning curve.
It was almost like being back in my first match
In professional wrestling.
Oh, my gosh.
Here I am. What am I gonna do?
- Yes!
- Hey, chad. What's going on, buddy?
That's a good shirt, dude. I like that.
'cause now it wasn't just about me and wwe.
It was also now about 500,000 people
In knox county.
- Chad is his biggest fan.
- Hey, good morning. No, I'm not president.
- Mayor jacobs-- can you give him a big clap?
[applause]
♪ ♪
- This is something people look forward to every year--
The dogwood arts festival
And the official opening of the dogwood trails.
- I don't think any of us thought,
"there's the future mayor of knox county
With the hall-of-fame career."
[all cheering] - thank you very much.
[applause]
One day I woke up and had this idea.
The current county mayor wouldn't be running again.
Good to see you, bud. Nice to see you.
Open seats don't come up that often,
And I thought to myself, "huh, that might be something
"that I would be good at, would like to do.
Maybe I'll do that."
And bounced the idea off a couple friends.
- "are you bleeping crazy?"
I think probably was my first things out of my mouth,
And then, "really?"
- ♪ oh ♪
- That's pretty damn cool, man.
- No, we really didn't know that he was going to do that.
I said, "oh, my goodness."
And then he told us what he had in mind to do,
Which was to encourage young people to go to school,
Get an education, be ready to go to work,
And I said, "this is wonderful."
- How are you, sir? - Hey.
- You guys getting some hot chicken?
One of the first things I did after I made the decision
To run for mayor was fly up to stamford and talk to vince.
♪ ♪
As soon as I said this is what I wanted to do,
He got a big old grin and told me that's what I should do,
And that meant a lot to me, having his support,
Because, you know, I mean, he could've said,
"well, that's stupid. Why would you want to do that?"
And that would've pretty much
Shot down any ambition that I had.
So the fact that he was supportive of it
Really meant a lot to me.
- Just a big win for a big man you probably know.
Glenn jacobs is 6'8", and, yes, he's certainly feeling
Like he's towering tonight.
- Glenn's a very a smart guy,
And glenn is a guy that has no detractors.
There are people that may disagree with his politics.
Nobody disagrees with glenn jacobs as a man,
Because they love him.
♪ ♪
- I think that my career in wwe made it a lot easier
For me to transition into politics
Because I'm already used to being in the public eye,
And I developed a thick skin.
♪ ♪
- Kane!
♪ ♪
- In my case here, I just try to do the best that I can...
And I try to do what I think is right no matter what.
When I first got into professional wrestling,
I had no idea where it was going to end up.
I didn't have any other plans for my life.
I thought wherever it would take me
Was wherever it would take me.
- This is gonna be a damn fistfight.
- And how much can their anatomies take?
- 'cause things have broken down with a chokeslam!
- There were a lot of moments
Where I didn't necessarily know if it was worth it.
I didn't know where I was going to end up--
Didn't know what was gonna happen,
But that was not enough to ever make me quit.
I never had the moment where I just threw my hands up
And said, "it wasn't worth it."
♪ ♪
- I'll go out on a limb and say
That the kane/undertaker story
Is probably the greatest story
Wwe's ever told.
- Oh! That is hot!
- It spanned 25 years.
♪ ♪
There's so many different layers to it,
Levels to it.
- How was your week?
- It's like every man for himself now!
- Don't do it, no!
- Kane just chokeslammed the rock!
- I can't emphasize enough
That glenn making this work was impossible.
- Yes, it was funny.
- There's no wrestler alive that could've done this
Except for glenn jacobs.
He's that good.
["hear the thunder" by andrew michael britton]
- I'm the tag team champion!
- He could work with anybody.
He was really gifted on the mic.
- He's a freak just like me.
- He is a bona fide top-20 guy in all of wrestling.
- Thanks. I'm starving.
- No! Animals are our friends!
- He was a guy that was loved and appreciated
By all his peers.
They say good things happen to people that deserve it,
And, you know, you don't find guys like him every day.
- ♪ oh, the storm is coming ♪
♪ raining down on my soul ♪
- Pro wrestling can be anything you want it to be,
Taking people on a white-knuckle ride.
- But why?
- Oh, oh, my god!
Ooh!
- [screams] - oh, my god!
- God! God alm--
- And then you can make them laugh
The next week.
♪ ♪
So it's a balancing act,
And kane did it as well as anybody.
♪ ♪
- Oh, god!
Oh, for god sakes! The big red machine!
♪ ♪
- He paid heavy dues,
And he persevered,
And he rolled with the punches
And got himself into a position
Where he could be one of the biggest stars
In wwe history.
It says a lot about him.
- Thank you for making kane
One of the most memorable characters ever.
And kane would like to leave you with this.
- The story has lasted all these years.
The man behind that character
Has so much character that he's been able to endure.
He's been able to adapt for the audience.
To be on this journey with kane
Through all of these different identities
Helps the lasting impression that kane will have
On everyone that's ever invested in that character.
♪ ♪