Kane Talks About Why He Took His Mask Off And More

Thanks to the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling Podcast for sending us the following.

WWE Superstar Kane recently did an in-depth interview with the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling Podcast for what’s described as his most candid interview to date. You can download the entire 50 minute episode on iTunes at this link on on Player.FM at this link. You can also visit the official Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling website. Below are some highlights from the interview:

What are your most memorable thoughts reflecting on your participation at WrestleMania?

My most memorable WrestleMania ever was my first; At WrestleMania 14 in Boston against The Undertaker that was a huge high point in my career and an absolute highlight of my career. The next year I wrestled Triple H when DX was breaking up and that led to me and Xpac becoming partners and that was a really great time, after that was WrestleMania that was in Anaheim and I was teaming with Rikishi against X-Pac and his partner, which actually is terrible of me but I can’t remember who his partner was. Then the next year it was against Kurt Angle and after that another match with The Undertaker, there has been a lot of stuff.

What is your favorite WrestleMania match?

For me personally it was WrestleMania 14 against Undertaker. I believe that the story of Undertaker and Kane was some of the most epic storytelling WWE he’s ever done. It was something out of Greek Mythology and of course that was the culmination of that whole story and for that reason it made it very special. As for my favorite match as a fan, I would have to say that was Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania 25. If I were to tell anyone, that would be the match that I would point them to. In my opinion it is the greatest match in history and it is just incredible what those two guys did, two absolute icons of our industry and they put on a spectacular performance.

Wrestling Undertaker again at WrestleMania 20?

That one was special because Undertaker had just come back after a hiatus a it was the first time he had been seen and it was completely different than the first WrestleMania match. That was two supernatural figures duking it out essentially and leaving a path of waste wherever they went. Whereas WrestleMania 20 was a little more conventional and that you had just a bad guy versus a very popular good guy so in that respect the build was different and certainly my character was different so if you ask is it one of my favorites? I would take WrestleMania 14 over WrestleMania 20.

Taking Kane’s mask off:

Actually, it was my idea because I did feel it was at the point where the mask was restricting what I could do. People ask what the advantages are of wearing a mask and the first thing of course is the mystery people don’t know exactly what Kane is thinking. Taking it off, it also made me a much better performer and that really is what our business is all about. What do you do with the emotion of the audience? Do you want them to you empathize with what you’re doing if you’re the bad guy? You want them to hate you. If you are the good guy, you want them to have sympathy for you. It could be thought of as a form of communication in that respect and because I didn’t have my face, which is how we normally show emotion. I had to rely a lot more on body language and I think that really helped me because I had to concentrate on that and had to think of different ways to be able to betray that emotion without using my face. But then I’m thinking it became a hindrance because at a certain point the novelty is gone and at a certain point it’s time for us all to move along and I think that the most successful characters and most successful people in WWE have been able to reinvent themselves. We see that with Undertaker. He has always been able to reinvent himself and tweak his characters or sometimes change it entirely or Shawn Michaels. The Shawn Michaels that we see today or the one right before he retired is not the Shawn Michaels from 1995. Triple H is that way, John Cena is that way. It is just the nature of our business. Eventually, the novelty is going to wear off. The only people who are behind that decision probably were the only two people that counted and that was Vince and I. Everyone else is of the opinion if it isn’t broke don’t fix it but I think Vince had enough confidence in me as performer that he knew I could pull off and I knew that I could pull it off as well. Not to say there was some trepidation because it is true that if you have something successful you don’t want to mess with it. To me it wasn’t that huge deal because you know you could always put the mask back on, which we would eventually do. At the time it was a pretty big risk and what it did actually was gave me an entirely new career and an entirely new character. It allowed me to do things that I had not been able to be before. Which always makes my job a lot more fun.