Veteran wrestling fans are familiar with the classic site Wrestlecrap.com. This site is dedicated to the absolute worst that professional wrestling has given us. For the last few years, I’ve been doing a similar thing in Israel. Every year, at the year-end awards that are given on Israel’s largest wrestling online community, I’ve been writing the recaps of the worst things that happened in wrestling that year. And if you think that I was bitter and offensive when I wrote about Cena haters or fanboys of ECW or TNA, you should see the stuff I’ve been writing there, as nasty as can be. But I digress. The one thing that became clear to me after doing this thing for so long, is that World Heavyweight Champion Kane (At least he’s the champion at the time of writing) has been part of the worst things that WWE gave us in the last decade, and for that he should be honored.
Here’s a recap of Kane’s worst accomplishments. Granted, sometimes he was on the victim side rather than the offender, but he was still involved: The Katie Vick saga, his feud with Matt Hardy and Lita (The black wedding), his feud with Snitsky (After Lita lost the baby), his 2004 feud with Undertaker (All the stupid supernatural stuff), his feud with Viscera, his 2005 feud with Edge and Lita, May 19th and the feud with the fake Kane (The future Festus/Luke Gallows), The ECW Championship match at WrestleMania 24 (All 8 seconds of it), his 2008 feud with Rey Mysterio (Where we never learned why they were feuding), his 2009 feud with The Great Khali (Like this could have been anything other than crap), His 2010 feud with Edge (Yes, again), his 2010 feud with Rey Mysterio (Yes, again!) and his 2010 feud with Undertaker (YES, AGAIN!!!). In fact, 2010 has been a “Best of the Worst” year for Kane, with repeat feuds against Taker, Edge and Mysterio.
The question is why. Why does WWE keep putting Kane through those absolute terrible feuds and storylines? Why are they so intent on making Kane synonymous with crap? Granted, he’s not a good wrestler anymore (I don’t care that he was a decent bigman ten years ago, he hasn’t had a good match in years) but that’s no excuse. Glen Jacobs has been a loyal company man, from the days of Fake Diesel and Isaac Yankem. He has done every stupid thing that WWE has told him to, and he did with his head up high. Sure, they rewarded him with a lengthy title reign this year but that reign has covered the extent of his three crappy feuds of 2010.
But perhaps we shouldn’t even as why. Perhaps we should just look at Kane’s career and thank him. Thank him for the countless hours of laughter that we had while watching his feuds. Thank him for the countless hours we saved when we closed the TV and did other things when he appeared because we knew that nothing good will happen. Thank him for doing so much crap that he made other things look so good in comparison. Thank him for challenging us to find new ways to defend wrestling when people saw his stuff and asked “You really like this crap?”.
Yes, I realize it’s not his fault. The WWE “creative” team is responsible for creating all of this and he’s just delivering it, doing the best he can with the absolute worst he’s handed. All the backstage gossip paints his as a nice, down to earth, responsible guy. But it’s not working. I can’t remember the last time I actually enjoyed watching Kane. I’ve heard several rumors that his current title reign is his swan song before retiring. I hope it’s true because I have no idea how much this writer, and I guess many other wrestling fans, can take. Kane’s spot in wrestling’s Hall of Shame is already guaranteed. In fact, to paraphrase Triple H, he should have an entire wing dedicated to him. Really, we don’t need any more of this.
