Kane has revealed the unexpected origin of his WWE character.
The Big Red Machine recently appeared on a River City Wrestling Con panel. He talked about things such as his gimmicks before becoming the brother of Undertaker, who was his favorite opponent and more.
During the talk, Kane also revealed how the idea for the most successful character came about. He mentioned that Taker had been in a feud with Vader at the time, but they needed a new one-time opponent for the Dead Man after the late WWE star was imprisoned in Kuwait:
So, what had happened was, Undertaker was in a rivalry with Big Van Vader, and they were in Kuwait. Some of you guys remember this — the talk show host in Kuwait which is a Middle Eastern country, probably not the most progressive criminal justice system.
The Original Idea For Kane
Kane detailed the incident that led to Vader's arrest. He mentioned that at the time, nobody was aware how long the WWE star, real name Leon Allen White, would be out of the picture. So they came up with the idea of Undertaker's long-lost brother and put him under the mask so no one would recognize him as his previous characters:
The talk show host said something to Vader, Leon, like, you know, the old ‘is wrestling fake?’ So Leon kind of roughed him up a little — not terrible — but kind of grabbed him, and he was like, ‘This fake?’ which led to his arrest in Kuwait. A Middle Eastern country is probably not going to have the most progressive criminal justice system, right? So they needed an opponent for Undertaker, and that was where the original idea for Kane came from.
The former World Champion revealed that in the end, Vader got out of jail in a week. Thankfully for Kane, Vince McMahon liked the character so much that he decided to use it more instead of retiring it after one match.
