The Gilded Career of Kane And The Continuing Search For Hope

The black sheep is the quintessential element of a dysfunctional family. As much as you want to distance yourself from them because of what they continue to do over and over to make you face-palm with embarrassment, you ultimately can't because they're still family, and, in the end, you have to stick with them.

As this pertains to Monday Night RAW, I hate to say that Kane is very quickly becoming the black sheep of the show. I hate the fact that I even wrote that because I was a teenager during the Attitude Era, where Kane was a mainstay. But what's currently going with him, Cena, and now Zach Ryder is crossing into familiar territory as silly as demeaning to a guy who has put in his time with WWE.

Maybe it was the expectations I set upon Kane's return when the vignettes appeared with him re-donning his (half) mask. It struck a nostalgic cord, even though, it's hard to believe that the Attitude Era is bordering on nostalgia now (if it hasn't crossed over already).

It was billed as the "resurrection" of the Big Red Machine; the guy who ripped off the door of the Cell and dominated The Undertaker for almost a year without ever cutting a promo.

But what did we get instead in 2012? A heavily talking Kane with a new affinity for psychoanalysis, which makes him actually seem less like Sigmund Freud and more like an emo middle school kid.

His first promo, which had more pauses between words than a William Shatner monologue, became a ridiculous psychological examination of why Cena needs to embrace hate. The one redeeming snippet of the whole thing was hearing him repeat "Cena sucks" over and over while punching every consonant. (Masked Kane Chants "Cena Sucks" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNXRft2pRZY)

Why is this so irritating?

Because this is Kane! It's not Bastian Booger or Great Khali. This is one of the all-time recognizable and popular big men in the modern wrestling era. That's why it seems so demeaning for him to work such a mediocre segment. Attacking Cena on a loading dock and disappearing into the myst? Stalking Ryder in the bathroom and trying to drag him under the ring? And then you put him on the mic to cut these promos to demonstrate how he's a "thinking man's" villain? It's sad. It's very sad.

In the end, we all know how this storyline will end. Cena will overcome evil like he always does, and Kane will look as beatable as he's been in the post-Attitude era. If there is a silver lining, hopefully it's the fact this feud will be a further hint of a heel turn by Cena, but that might even be wishful thinking at this point.

Then again, when you look at Kane's career up to this point, the short end of the stick has been his more than a few times from his epic debut in 1997 as The Undertaker's burn scarred brother (or half brother as it would be later confirmed). He's won two world championships in 14 years (the first of which only lasted 24 hours), "killed" The Undertaker at least three times, tagged with The Undertaker at least three times, learned how to talk from X-Pac, supposedly committed necrophilia, "married" Lita, "impregnated" Lita, lost child with Lita, got dumped by Lita, set J.R. on fire, and beat his imposter out of the building and out of the WWE.

A few times in between he was tossed a bone or two with a mid card title but ultimately became more and more diminished after his unmasking in 2003. If there was a distinct focal point where Kane became irrelevant, it was losing the mask. After that, it seemed like anyone at anytime could beat Kane, and the mystique was gone.

But now they've brought the mask back and tried to put some life back into the mystique that was once Kane. And yet, he seems like the same lame duck he was boxed into years ago. After Cena, will it be one last feud with The Undertaker? Possibly the last Wrestlemania match of Taker's career? Who knows? Part of me wouldn't mind seeing it because the two are nearly synonymous with one another.

And dare I say it, would it not be the most fitting end, if you were going to break the streak, to have Kane do it? At least you would know it's not ego-fueled like it would be for Triple-H or Shawn Michaels if they broke it. But that's another debate for another time.

Of course this is all the rambling of a disgruntled fan who might look too hard for consistency within wrestling storylines. But I can't help but wonder if any of this bothers Glenn Jacobs when he looks back on his career. Probably not. He's tenured, he's getting a steady paycheck, and he's been tossed film parts. It's probably irrelevant to him in the grand scheme of things.

But here's where I get fleetingly romantic and naive. I'm still holding out hope that Jacobs can spin this re-masked Kane out of the mediocrity of trying to alienate Cena and into some kind of gold. Sort of like when Hunter S. Thompson was hired by ESPN to write for their website. In the twilight of his Gonzo career, Thompson was expected to bring a playful irreverence to sports ala Bill Simmons and others.

But Thompson proved after 9/11 that he could take his little "sports column" and turn it into a mirror reflecting indictment of American culture and the international turmoil gripping the world. I don't know if it's possible for Kane to find a little Gonzo in him, but you can't help but hope.