Kane. What can you say about the Big Red Machine that hasn’t already been said? Well, hopefully a lot, otherwise this list is going to be pretty pointless. Anyhow, Glenn Jacobs has been with the WWE since 1995 in one form or another, but has been performing under the guise of Kane since 1997. From The Undertaker’s villainous half-brother to demonic pseudo-serial killer to Director of Operations with his funny little mug, Kane has done it all in the WWE and has been rewarded for his loyalty with lengthy title runs, high-profile feuds and a position of respect backstage.
With a wrestling career older than me (feel old yet?), Kane has racked up an immense amount of trivia about his character and today, we’ll be focusing on the things that Kane has either done the best or did first. Whether it’s to do with championships, specific events or just odd little accolades that WWE have given the Demon over the years, these fifteen (plus) records and firsts cement Kane as a future Hall of Famer and as a true legend of the WWE and wrestling in general. Just try and forget about Katie Vick whilst you’re reading this. Or the whole Lita miscarriage thing. Or that fake Kane thing that was a bit rubbish, but I digress. Here are fifteen incredible firsts and records held by Kane.
15 15. A Hellish Debut
Achievement: Debuting during first ever Hell in a Cell match
It all had to begin somewhere, and what a way to start for Kane.
The WWE audience was first introduced to Kane on October 5th, 1997, at Badd Blood: In Your House during the first ever Hell in a Cell match. The match was between Shawn Michaels and Kane’s kayfabe brother, The Undertaker, and was for the number one contendership for the WWE Championship. The match was an absolute classic with Taker battering HBK around the cell and even outside of the structure, causing Michaels to fall from almost the top of the Cell through the announce table. And this was back when people didn’t do that all the time.
It looked like Taker was about to pick up the win when the lights went out and eerie music filled the air. To Undertaker’s horror, Kane had arrived, being led by Taker’s former manager, Paul Bearer. Kane made an impact immediately, ripping the cell door clean off its hinges before attacking his brother, delivering a vicious Tombstone Piledriver, then leaving. This allowed Michaels to pin Taker for the win and he would go on to face WWE Champion Bret Hart at the next month’s Pay-Per-View, Survivor Series. So, I guess in a way, Kane was responsible for the Montreal Screwjob, which is awesome. Unless you’re Bret Hart, then nothing is awesome.
14 14. Raw is Hell
Achievement: Wrestling in first ever tag team match inside Hell in a Cell
No, this isn’t an article about the current state of WWE’s TV product. There’s not enough time in the world for that.
Kane’s debut in the first ever Hell in a Cell match made him an obvious choice for future Cell appearances and he didn’t have to wait long to step inside Satan’s structure for the first time. On June 15th 1998, in the build up to the King of the Ring Pay-Per-View, Kane teamed up with Mankind to battle ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin and The Undertaker in the first ever Hell in a Cell tag team match.
This was also the first ever Hell in a Cell match to take place on Raw and is one of only three to ever take place on free TV (although one was technically a dark match). The match only lasted ten and a half minutes and isn’t the best Cell match ever, but it was still an achievement for Kane to be involved in such a landmark match for one of WWE’s trademark gimmick bouts. Kane may have lost the match (albeit off air) but he’s actually undefeated in singles Cell action; he beat The Undertaker at Hell in a Cell 2010 and his match with Mankind inside the Cell in 1998 went to a no contest. Despite the fact that Hell in a Cell is no DQ. Umm.....
13 13. Blink and You’ll Miss it at Mania
Achievement: Shortest WrestleMania championship victory
From one hellish entity to another now; WWE’s version of ECW. Bleugh.
The year was 2008 and the place was WrestleMania XXIV. Before the show, a battle royal took place to determine a challenger for Chavo Guerrero’s ECW Championship. That last part does not sound right to me. The battle royal had everyone from Jimmy Wang Yang to Jim Duggan (no idea why) in it, but was eventually won by our guy, Kane, earning him a shot at Chavo Guerrero’s ECW Championship. Nope, still doesn’t sound right.
The two went on after Batista vs Umaga in the show’s fourth match. Chavo came out first (because traditions mean literally nothing) and waited for Kane. However, using his super-duper-spooky powers, Kane burst through the ring and took Chavo by surprise. The bell rang and Chavo lunged for Kane with about as much intimidation as a pet rabbit with asthma, but the Big Red Machine countered with a Chokeslam, planting Guerrero and covering him for the 1,2,3, crowning Kane the ECW Champion. Sounds a little better, but still weird. This gives Kane the distinction of having the shortest WrestleMania championship victory of all time. He would have had the shortest WrestleMania match of all time, but that was beaten this year by The Rock against Erick Rowan. That’s probably the weirdest sentence I’ve written so far.
12 12. Cross-brand Champion
Achievement: First and only man to carry a championship across all three of WWE’s brands
Here's another record for Kane concerning the ECW Championship. Well, gotta give it something I suppose.
Younger wrestling fans might find the current brand split a bit odd, so they’ll be even more surprised to find that, back in the day, there were three different brands. Alongside Raw and Smackdown, ECW operated as a third brand from 2006-2010 with its own roster and set. When Kane won the ECW title at WrestleMania, he was a member of the Smackdown brand, which made the title property of the blue show. ECW Championship on Smackdown held by a WWE mainstay. WWE’s ECW in a nutshell really.
Balance was restored just two days after Mania when Kane officially joined ECW, returning the championship to its rightful home. Kane helmed the ECW brand for a few months before being drafted to Raw on the 23rd June 2008, taking the title with him, only to lose the belt to ECW’s Mark Henry just six days later. Kane’s brief runs on Raw and Smackdown with the title, along with his time spent on ECW, make him the first and only man in history to carry a championship across all three of WWE’s brands. He may have only held the title for a grand total of eight days across both Raw and Smackdown, but it’s still a sign that WWE trusted Kane to work in any environment and he took it in his stride. Great job, Kane. Shame you couldn’t save ECW as a brand.
11 11. Mr. Money in the Bank
Achievements: Most appearances in Money in the Bank matches; first man to win Money in the Bank on its own PPV
Money in the Bank; giving world champions heart attacks since 2005.
Kane was a participant in the first ever Money in the Bank ladder match at WrestleMania 21, but lost out to Edge. The Big Red Machine has made seven appearances in Money in the Bank matches, the most of anyone ever with Kofi Kingston hot on his heels with six matches. Let’s hope the power of positivity can beat the power of hell. Not likely.
This isn’t the only claim to fame Kane has relating to MITB. Kane holds the distinction of being the first man to win Money in the Bank on its own Pay-Per-View. The ladder match was moved from its original spot at WrestleMania in 2010 and got its own pay-per-view in July of that year, a Pay-Per-View that still exists today. Kane bested Big Show, Matt Hardy, Christian, Kofi Kingston, Cody Rhodes, Drew McIntyre and Dolph Ziggler to win the contract for a World Heavyweight Championship match. After years in the company, giving Kane the honour of opening the first ever Money in the Bank pay-per-view felt completely justified. And his impressive accolades that night don’t end there.
10 10. Long-term Investment
Achievements: First man to cash in his MITB contract on the same night he won it; longest reigning World Heavyweight Champion to win the belt from Money in the Bank
I’m so proud of the title for this one.
Around an hour after his ladder match victory, Kane surprised everyone when he appeared at the end of Rey Mysterio’s World Heavyweight Championship defence against Jack Swagger. Jack Swagger in a world title match - now there’s a depressing thought. Kane made full use of a Swagger beat down on Mysterio after his match and delivered a vicious Chokeslam and Tombstone to pin Mysterio and win his first ever World Heavyweight Championship. For a man who was in the company when the World Heavyweight Championship was brought in, and to win that title eight years later, had to feel pretty good. That’s if Kane actually feels anything. I’m not convinced.
This made Kane the first man in history to cash in his contract on the same night he won it and, until Dean Ambrose did it in 2016, he was the only performer to employ this tactic. He also holds the record for the shortest time between contract victory and cash in at 49 minutes. Wow, that’s like, half an Authority promo. Following on from this, Kane reigned as World Heavyweight Champion for 154 days before losing the title to Edge at TLC. Kane’s time at the top makes him the longest reigning World Heavyweight Champion (not WWE champion, I stress) to win the belt from Money in the Bank. Seven others tried and failed to reign for longer than Kane after cashing in MITB, but none could do it, which kinda makes Kane the man. Also, his reign was the fifth longest of all time. Damn, that’s a lot of records for one match type. I think we need to move on.
9 9. Leading Man
Achievement: The star of WWE Studios’ first ever major film
Time to take a break from wrestling now and look at the wonderful world of WWE Studios. Earplugs and blackout glasses on, people.
WWE Studios is a side project of Vince McMahon’s that makes movies and the like. The studio has given us such, umm, “classics”, as The Marine franchise, Knucklehead and the Oscar-nominated Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery. I’m lying about the Oscar nomination, please don’t tell people that, they’ll stop being your friend. All these wonderful films can thank Kane in some part for their existence as he was the star of WWE Studios’ first ever major film, See No Evil.
Released through the then-titled “WWE Films” (it would become WWE Studios in 2008), See No Evil tells the story of a demented serial killer, Jacob Goodnight (played by Kane), who targets a group of teens in an abandoned hotel in a stereotypical slasher-flick manner. Kane is actually very good as Goodnight and the film isn’t overly terrible, but it was never going to set the world on fire and the critics did not like it. 8% on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s just mean. With WWE Studios still going strong today, a lot of that success comes down to Kane’s appearance in their debut film. Fun fact: Vince McMahon, one of the film’s producers, wanted there to be a shot in this film of Kane naked and he wanted his genitals to be three feet long. That man is crazy.
8 8. Royal Rumble Rampage
Achievements: Most Royal Rumble appearances; most Royal Rumble eliminations
Oh no, another match type Kane has dominated in. I thought we were done with these.
Kane holds a whole bunch of records relating to WWE’s most signature match, so let’s get started, shall we? First of all, Kane has made the most appearances in the royal rumble match of anyone ever; from his debut appearance in 1996’s match as Isaac Yankem to his most recent appearance in the 2016 Rumble, Glenn Jacobs has participated in 19 of these matches in his career, a whopping seven more than his nearest rival, Shawn Michaels. His nearest active competitors are Goldust and Big Show with 11 appearances so, you know, there’s still a chance this could be beaten. But that would mean another nine years of Big Show. Maybe not then.
Kane also holds the record for the most people eliminated across cumulative rumbles. In his 19 appearances, Kane has eliminated 44 men in total, averaging just over two eliminations per Rumble. He overtook Shawn Michaels at the 2015 Rumble to take this honour, now standing five eliminations higher than HBK. He used to hold the record for most eliminations in one Rumble with 11 in 2001, but then someone (looking at you, Roman Reigns) had to go and ruin that in 2014. Come on, Roman, what did Kane ever do to you? Well, except all those times he tried to get you fired as a part of The Authority and tried to make your life a living hell. But besides that.
7 7. Tag Team Specialist
Achievement: Only wrestler to win Tag Team Championships with 7 different people
People do love to team up with Kane, don’t they?
Despite being known as a bit of a loner, Kane has actually been involved in plenty of tag teams over his long career. He’s reigned ten times with the tag team titles (both World and WWE), which is no record, but, what does make him stand out is the number of different partners he’s reigned with. As World Tag Team Champion, Kane has been partnered with Mankind (with whom he won his first tag title in 1998), X-Pac (why would anyone team up with X-Pac is beyond me, but there you go), The Undertaker (obviously), The Hurricane, Rob Van Dam and Big Show (with whom he was also WWE Tag Team Champion) and had one reign with the WWE Tag Team Championships with Daniel Bryan as Team Hell No.
This means that Kane has had seven different tag team championship winning partners, which is a record in WWE. Over his career, Kane has spent a total of 672 days as a tag team champion, which is no record, but is still mighty impressive, and has reigned 11 times as tag team champ. Whether we’ll ever see Kane come close to Edge’s record of 14 tag team title reigns is doubtful, but what there is no doubt of is that, if you’re looking for a tag team partner, Kane is probably a safe bet. Maybe not so much now, though; he is pretty old.
6 6. Streak Sequel
Achievement: First man to wrestle The Undertaker twice at WrestleMania
Of course, we’re going to mention The Undertaker, we couldn’t not.
Kane and his kayfabe half-brother, The Undertaker, have been linked since the day the character of Kane first appeared in WWE. The two have done battle many times over the years and have teamed up just as often. They’ve fought for titles, done battle in every match type imaginable and always had each other’s back, so you know that, when it comes to Undertaker trivia, there’s plenty of mentions of The Demon. This particular bit of trivia focuses on Taker’s crowning achievement: The Streak. For those of you who don’t know (and if you don’t know, how the hell did you find this page? Are you stalking me?), The Streak is the name given to the twenty-one straight victories amassed by The Undertaker at WrestleMania, beginning at WrestleMania VII and ending at WrestleMania XXX (booo!!!).
Despite winning 21 matches, Taker only defeated 18 different men. This was in part due to Kane, who battled The Deadman twice; first at WrestleMania XIV and then again at Mania XX. This makes Kane the first man to battle Taker twice at WrestleMania, a feat later achieved by Triple H, who’s fought Taker three times at Mania, and Shawn Michaels, who was the first to do it back to back. Kane was also responsible for the return of Taker to his “Deadman” gimmick when he buried him alive at Survivor Series 2003, leading to Taker’s return at WrestleMania XX to battle Kane under his old gimmick. Another awesome thing Kane is responsible for. Again, unless you’re Bret Hart. Come on, Bret, smile, just once. Please?
5 5. Rest In Peace?
Achievement: First man to kick out of The Undertaker's Tombstone
More Undertaker trivia now, so, if you don’t like Taker, then I’m very sorry. Except I’m not, because everyone should like Taker.
The Undertaker has been around for donkey’s years, but one thing that has stayed with him through all of his twenty-five plus year career has been the Tombstone Piledriver. The move has become so iconic that it survived the piledriver ban WWE implemented and still remains one of the most protected finishers of all time with only eight men in history ever escaping the pinfall from it. Guess who the first man to do that was? I’ll give you three guesses...
Of course, it was our boy, Kane, and it took place during his first battle with his brother-from-another-father, The Undertaker, at WrestleMania. At Mania XIV, Kane actually survived two Tombstones from The Phenom before finally being put away. Taker himself kicked out a Tombstone from Kane in this match, really exemplifying the power these two men had and displaying how evenly matched they are. In a world where finishers are kicked out of on Raw and Smackdown, let alone WrestleMania, Taker’s Tombstone still only having eight survivors is incredible and for Kane to be the first is a true honour. As for Kane’s Tombstone, well, let’s not talk about that.
4 4. One Day, Bloody One Day
Achievement: First and only man to win the WWE Championship in a First Blood match; participant in the first ever First Blood match
That title works on so many levels, someone please appreciate it.
The first part relates to Kane’s time spent as WWE Champion. Kane won his first WWE Championship at King of the Ring 1998, however, would lose it the next night on Raw, ending his run at just one day (you see). Whilst this was not the first time this had happened (that was Hulk Hogan in 1991), Kane is the only man in history to have held the title for one day and one day only, as he would never win the top prize again. Poor guy.
However, what does make Kane a record holder is the type of match in which he won the title. Kane won in a First Blood match, where the only way to win is to make your opponent bleed (oh, the Attitude Era, you were so messed up). Kane managed this after some interference from The Undertaker and Mankind (who had put on a hellacious Hell in a Cell match earlier on in the night) and won the match in controversial fashion. This makes Kane the first and only man to win the WWE Championship in a First Blood match as well as this being the first ever First Blood match in WWE history. With this match type likely never to return to WWE under the PG era, we’re pretty sure Kane will hold this distinction for a long time. Now, go back and read this article’s title again and laugh, then tell me how great I am in the comments. Do it!
3 3. Removing the Rattlesnake
Achievement: First man to ever defeat Steve Austin for the WWE Championship
King of the Ring ’98 was a pretty good night for Kane and here’s another fact to prove it.
As I mentioned, Kane won the WWE Championship at KOTR, but what I cleverly withheld from you was the name of the man he won that title from; the legend that is ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin. Austin had won the title at WrestleMania XIV in one of the best Mania main events of all time against Shawn Michaels. This was the first of Austin’s 6 world title wins and he carried the belt all the way until King of the Ring, where he would lose it to, well, if you haven’t figured that out by now then you don’t deserve to be told, quite frankly.
This makes Kane the first man to ever defeat Steve Austin for the WWE Championship and, considering how big of a deal Austin is in the wrestling world, this is a feat that Kane’s got to be proud of. Only The Undertaker, Mankind, Kurt Angle and Chris Jericho can also claim to have defeated Austin for the world title and putting Kane amongst those legends just proves how big a part of wrestling history The Demon is. The whole “holding it for one day” thing isn’t great, but we’ll let you off just this once.
2 2. Masked Marvel
Achievement: First man in WWE history to win their top prize while wearing a mask
Kane’s mask – great for people who watched WWE in the Attitude Era, terrible for everyone else.
Kane’s mask has undergone a great deal of changes over his long career. He began with a full-face black and red mask in 1997 and kept it until returning after an injury in 2002, sporting a red half-mask. He then unmasked on June 23rd 2003 in one of the most disappointing unmaskings of all time (he looked like a barbecued clown) and went without the facial accessory for several years. He made a return to masked action in 2011, wearing a weird welding mask for some reason, and the current version of his red mask followed shortly after. So, I hear you asking, why have I been banging on about masks for what felt like three hours of your life? Well, valued reader, let me tell you.
When Kane won the WWE Championship at King of the Ring 1998, he became the first man in WWE history to win their top prize whilst wearing a mask. This is a feat only achieved by two other men, Mankind in 1999 and Rey Mysterio in 2011, and, for a company in which masked wrestlers very rarely make it to the main event, to be the first to win the world championship really sets Kane apart from the competition. I’ll stop talking about masks now, promise.
1 1. ¡Viva la Kane!
Achievement: First and only WWE Champion born in Spain
Any opportunity to use the upside-down exclamation mark.
As you probably know, the first “W” in WWE stands for “World,” which is odd when you consider that, of the 47 men to hold the WWE Championship, only seven were born outside of the US and Canada. Bruno Sammartino, who holds the record for the longest single WWE Championship reign and most time spent overall as champion, was born in Italy; Pedro Morales, the first ever Triple Crown winner, was Puerto Rican; Sheamus was born in Ireland; The Iron Sheik (patooey!) is Iranian; Andre the Giant was born in France and; hailing from Madrid, Spain? Kane.
Yep, Glenn Jacobs’ family was involved in the United States Air Force and were stationed in Spain when he was born in 1967. Despite spending most of his life in the States, this makes Kane the first and only WWE Champion born in Spain and one of only four to have been born on the continent of Europe. Kane’s history is so rich and surprising that even his birthplace can come as a shock to many casual fans, which is part of what motivated me to write this list. He might get a bad rep these days, but you can’t deny just how big a role Kane has played in making the WWE a success. An always reliable employee who will no doubt spend the rest of his life continuing to make WWE great, wrestling fans have a lot to thank The Big Red Machine for and I for one am a huge fan. Good job, Glenn, may you never retire.