Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
When Kane made is WWF debut on October 5, 1997, he quickly became the most feared superstar on the roster. ‘The Big Red Monster’ was one of the most successful masked wrestlers in WWE history. His feud with his “brother” the Undertaker was classic. He was also the first masked wrestler to win the WWF title. After six years of donning a mask, it was time for a change.
On June 23, 2003 at Madison Square Garden, Kane challenged Triple H for the World Heavyweight title. If Kane lost the match, however, he would be forced to remove his mask. Triple H did indeed win the contest and Kane was obligated to unmask for the very first time. After he removed his mask and revealed his face…Kane went berserk and attacked everyone in sight…including his then tag team partner Rob Van Dam.
At the time, Vince McMahon was wondering how he could freshen up the Kane character. McMahon started to feel that he was becoming stale. Glenn Jacobs also started to feel trapped wearing the mask. He said that he couldn’t fully utilize his facial expressions during promos and matches and that was a very important part of the wrestling business. According to Bruce Prichard, McMahon said…“What if we unmask him?” Vince then left it up to Prichard to come up with a new look and vision for the character. Prichard said he let his warped mind take over and began coming up with various concepts.
The main thing Bruce Prichard wanted to achieve was continue the theme that Kane was a burn survivor and that half his body was still scarred from being burned alive as a child. Glenn Jacobs had naturally grown his own hair long for the character. Prichard wanted to cut most of it off, leaving patches of his real hair on different spots on his head. The gimmick was that Kane wore a wig this entire time. It was Prichard, who cut Jacobs hair giving him his new look.
While Jacobs was certainly beginning to look the part of a monster, there was one person who wasn’t a fan of the “new” look Kane. That person, was Glenn’s wife Crystal, who absolutely hated it. Glenn Jacobs, himself wasn’t crazy about looking like that outside of a WWE ring. He and Prichard came to a compromise, he would do the unmasking spot looking like he did, but after it was done, he would be allowed to shave his head bald to at least appear semi normal while home with his family.
Jacobs still wasn’t completely thrilled with his altered look, but was better than originally planned. The new look Kane became more evil and sadistic and it ultimately worked.