Kane

[Grimmas]

KetamineEnjoyer said: "Kane may not be a wrestler with a huge amount of great matches to his name, at least not singles matches, but in terms of being able to run with a gimmick and create some of the most memorable segments of all time, I would argue that Kane is the best guy ever in that regard. Arguably his most impressive feat is being one half of the best comedy stuff WWE has ever done, in the form of Team Hell No in the early 2010s, a feat made even more impressive by the fact that it took place in the PG era, where their comedy misses far more often than it hits. Along with this, Kane has some of the best "moments" in wrestling history, mainly his debut at the climax of the Undertaker vs Shawn Michaels cell match. I wouldn't say Kane is truly up there with my all time favourites, but he's definitely in the conversation."

[NotJayTabb]

I'm kinda surprised he wasn't nominated last time. I'm not voting for him, but I think he's someone who's better than his reputation. He's rarely outright bad in a match, you don't see him messing things up or blowing spots. His offence looks fine and he's had a few fun tag runs with Bryan and the Hurricane. He's just not particularly interesting, but he's been solid enough for years. 

[Tetsujin]

Mediocre-to-decent wrestler. Good sometimes. Just a few matches in his career are great (I love the Ryback and HellNo vs Shield TLC). Definitely not a contender.

 

[Jetlag]

I think putting him in a Top 100 would be OK if you've only ever watched WWE.

[The Man in Blak]

He has more of a non-WWE career than you might think - a few matches in PWFG as Glenn Jacobs, a tag team stint with Al Snow in SMW, and some Puerto Rico matches (for starters). That said, I think any case he would have is going to hinge on longevity and tag work and those might be the two criteria that I factor the least.

I’ll be digging back into his catalogue, though, since I want to take full advantage of the five-year period to do my due diligence on all the candidates. Any of his very early St. Louis stuff out there?

[Cap]

I suppose I could fathom an orientation to wrestling that wasn't exclusively into WWE, but would certainly be very WWE centric, that would place Kane in a top 100. It isn't my orientation, but I could imagine it. I enjoyed the very early stages of the Kane run and there were things here and there I enjoyed form him, but I doubt I'll personally spend much time thinking about him unless someone makes a really compelling case.

[Rah]

4 hours ago, The Man in Blak said:

He has more of a non-WWE career than you might think - a few matches in PWFG as Glenn Jacobs, a tag team stint with Al Snow in SMW, and some Puerto Rico matches (for starters).

Kane also ended up in AAA for a tiny bit. That Cibernetico/Canek vs Kane/Fake Razor was... something.

I do think he's slightly underrated, in comparison to how he's viewed by some here, but he's so bog-standard once the bell hits. Comedy is subjective, but I think Kozlov/Santino smokes him. His early work as Kane is fine from memory, character wise, but he quickly devolves into Days of Our Lives soap opera nonsense - especially in the mid 2000s. I'm drawing a blank in thinking of a better "monster" in terms of a WWE contemporary (Boogeyman?) but he's certainly not the best character worker in WWF/WWE, let alone worldwide.

Look, I wouldn't skip his matches, if I'm watching a card, but I'm not seeking him out, either (unless it's novelty factor like I did for his Mexico/PWFG work). 

[SegundaCuerda]

Ok wrestler, and his character made him loved by the fans. He had great matches against Angle and Benoit, the tag with Bryan was also amazing in a point that I tought his career wasn't interesting anymore.

No chance to be on my list, because is not that good for me, but not a bad wrestler by any means.

[WingedEagle]

He'd probably insist that we ignore the years he wore a mask, in which case his candidacy holds no water.

[Ma Stump Puller]

His gimmick restricted his ring abilities a lot I feel. Watch his Unabomber SMW or PWFG work and he's a LOT more varied than you'd expect: seeing him doing a springboard leg drop in the match with Undertaker was bonkers. That said, for a guy his size and weight, being able to do stuff like top rope shit is most assuredly not easy, let alone doing it consistently for 15+ years. Longevity wise, he stays the same in terms of quality until about 2012, with his last truly solid match being the 2014 one with Bryan (through how much of that you can apply to his opponent is up for debate....) but after that he's mostly just bad and sluggish, with even Cena (who's usually quite good at monster bouts) struggling to get anything good out of him.

If you made a WWE only list, he'd definitely be on it given his numerous memorable feuds, segments and general consistency over the years, with his best work being the early 2000's where he was less constrained by the gimmick/trashy booking (mostly....) and was actually having a lot of enjoyable work. The catch-wrestling match he has with Big Show on a random 2006 RAW is a definite highlight as well lol.

 

 

[Chess Knight]

I don't think I'd have him top 100 on a WWE list at all. I'd easily rate Chuck Palumbo as a worker over him for example, who maybe doesn't have Kane's highest tier matches but also didn't work with World Champion Chris Benoit in a PPV singles, and was way more consistently good. If Kane showed up regularly on Velocity the way Palumbo did, I think I would have leaned toward dreading it, instead of wondering what cool ways he'd punch people in the face like I did Palumbo. Hell there are like three to five year runs in NXT recently (O'Reilly, Strong, Bate, Dunne) that I think have had a better in ring career than Kane's 15-something year one pretty easily. Good big man at times and obviously has his very good matches but it's spread pretty thinly over years and years of mediocre-to-worthless work that a lot of others just don't have imo. 

[DMJ]

When we did this last time, I had a very WWE/WCW-centric list with a very small number of 2000s Indie/TNA/ECW/international talent just because, at the time, that was what I was most knowledgeable about and comfortable ranking. 

Kane didn't crack my top 100 but I had room for Buff Bagwell and Tom Zenk.

Even if I hadn't tried to educate myself a little over the past few years and watched some of the more hyped AJPW, NJPW, and territory matches and strictly watched WWE (no AEW) since the last time we did this, Kane still wouldn't make my list. 

Simply put, since when we did this last time, I've seen Becky Lynch, Bayley, Charlotte, Roman Reigns, Bobby Lashley, Cesaro, and probably a half-dozen other WWE/NXT wrestlers earn a spot on my list like this before Kane would ever move up. There's just nothing I've seen - new, old, or in-between - that would propel him past those people.

So, no, I contend that if Kane is making anyone's list, it's likely that he's on there as a "nostalgia pick" more than anything. Being "WWE-centric" wouldn't be enough. You'd have to be "WWE Attitude and Ruthless Aggression Era-centric," in which case, sure, I guess I'm willing to say Kane was probably in the top 100 WWE wrestlers active between 1997 and 2007. Maybe.