Kane Reveals His Character Was Created Because A WWE Star Got Arrested (Vader in Kuwait) - Lemmy.zip

Here’s the main point of the article, but the whole thing is worth a read. Granted, it is a story being told by a wrestler, so who knows how close to the truth it is. >Speaking at a panel interview on the Going Ringside podcast at River City Wrestling Con, Kane explained that Vader had been in a rivalry with The Undertaker when the incident occurred during an overseas tour. A talk show host in Kuwait asked Vader the standard question about whether wrestling was fake, and Vader responded physically. > >“The talk show host said something to Vader, the old ‘is wrestling fake,‘” Kane said. “So Leon kind of roughed him up a little, not terrible, but kind of grabbed him. Which led to his arrest in Kuwait, not the place you want to be. Middle Eastern country, probably not the most progressive criminal justice system.” > >Kane said WWE did not know how long Vader would be held or what the resolution would be. Vader was detained for approximately a week, but at the time, the situation was uncertain enough that the company needed to act immediately. > >“Leon is literally out of the picture, and we don’t know for how long,” Kane said. “Like, we’re gonna have to send in the airborne troops to get him out, or what’s gonna happen there. And they needed an opponent for Undertaker.” > >A One-Match Idea Becomes a Career > >WWE came up with the concept of Kane as The Undertaker’s long-lost brother who had been burned in a fire. Kane said the company put him under a mask specifically because he had already appeared on television as two previous characters, Isaac Yankem, DDS and the fake Diesel, and they did not want the audience to recognize him. > >“They come up with this idea of Kane, who was the Undertaker’s long-lost brother,” Kane said. “Put me under a mask, because obviously I’d had those two characters that we should not talk about.” > >What changed the trajectory of Kane’s career was that Vince McMahon saw more potential in the concept than a single match. McMahon decided to invest in the character as a long-term storyline rather than a one-off program with The Undertaker. > >“What ended up happening is Vince liked the idea so much that he’s like, ‘Why are we wasting this on one match? This is much more of a storyline than that,’” Kane said. “And that’s kind of where the whole thing took, for me especially, a very good turn. They decided to really invest in the Kane character. In the end, it became a standalone character, even though the Undertaker obviously was a very important part of that. It wasn’t just as an opponent for Undertaker. It became more than that.”