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For a long period of time, Undertaker was the only credible supernatural character in WWE. The Deadman debuted in 1990 and for the next seven years, Mark Calaway remained an important part of WWE television. You had oddities like Papa Shango, but Undertaker was the only character that inspired a certain level of dread, as well as intrigue.

RELATED: Undertaker & Kane Were Always At Their Best With Paul Bearer

Then, in 1997, WWE introduced the storyline half-brother of Undertaker through a series of spooky vignettes. The debut of Kane was hyped up for weeks and at Bad Blood 1997, the Big Red Machine made his debut and in a span of a couple of minutes, Kane cemented himself as another terrifying character, on par with the Undertaker himself.

Kane Wore A Mask For Six Years

For the first six years of his run as Kane, Glenn Jacobs wore a mask. In kayfabe, the mask hid the gruesome burns that he had sustained from the fire at the funeral home. Initially, the Kane character was mute as his vocal cords were burned in the tragedy but eventually, Kane started to talk.

The big red monster then went on to form friendships and even took part in a few romance angles but the mask remained on his face. The mask became the character itself at one point but in 2003, WWE finally pulled the trigger, and Kane was unmasked on live television.

Triple H, then world heavyweight champion, had offered Kane a spot on his stable, Evolution. Batista was out nursing an injury and Triple H needed a big man to watch his back but before Kane could give him an answer, co-general manager of RAW, Steve Austin, presented Kane with another option: If he refused the spot on the stable, Kane would face Triple H for the title.

kane-vs-triple-h-casket-match-2002

Kane readily accepted Stone Cold’s offer but his counterpart, Eric Bischoff, intervened and declared that should Kane lose the match to Triple H, he would have to remove his mask. The contest took place at MSG and in the end, with the help of his cronies, Triple H won the match and as per the stipulation, Kane had to remove his mask.

And he did. The crowd back then was somewhat horrified but maybe it was due to the fact that the company put on the worst burn makeup possible. After all those years, it was also revealed that Kane was actually bald and he wore a wig alongside the mask. The big red machine turned heel seconds after unmasking and he commemorated the heel turn by choke slamming his partner, RVD.

Initially, the unmasking of Kane was not well-received. The finish of the Mask versus Title match was overbooked and the bad makeup became a meme. In the eyes of many fans, Kane had lost a lot of mystique but the performer went on one of the terrifying monster runs of all time, demonstrating that he was as scary as ever, even without the mask.

By removing the mask, Kane doubled his charisma and inspired another layer of fear as fans could now see his twisted facial expressions. Most of the time, Kane wore a scowl on his face but during his matches, he would smile gleefully, ecstatic at the fact that he was hurting another human being. Facial expressions are an important part of working a gimmick and now that Kane was able to convey his emotions through facial tics and expressions, the scary factor went up two-fold.

RELATED: Every Year Of Kane's WWE Career In The 2000s, Ranked Worst To Best

Years later, Glenn Jacobs echoed the same sentiments during an interview with Edge and Christian. He noted that most of the creative team was against the idea of him unmasking but the angle was approved with the blessings of Vince McMahon and Kane himself felt that the time was right, as the unmasking would freshen up his character.

The Prop Had Run Its Course

The big red monster stressed the importance of facial expressions in wrestling and said that while he had the mask on, he had to rely on body language and mannerisms to excite the crowd. Eventually, Glenn felt trapped and realized that he couldn’t perform to the best of his ability with the mask on.

Newer fans remember Kane for his awful stint as the director of operations and the subsequent meme of him interfering in every match but in 2003, the unmasking made Kane more unhinged and sadistic. That is the power of emoting and Glenn Jacobs realized that, hence why he opted to remove the mask.

More importantly, Glenn Jacobs felt that the mask was uncomfortable and from time to time, it interfered with his vision during his wrestling matches. Imagine wrestling with a mask on for 6 years plus.