1
00:00:05,810 --> 00:00:07,990
I think of how far I've come.

2
00:00:08,290 --> 00:00:14,990
And if you'd asked me back in 1995, here
you are, and this is your first match

3
00:00:14,990 --> 00:00:16,650
in Knoxville, Tennessee.

4
00:00:17,350 --> 00:00:21,450
And you're going to stay here for
probably the rest of your life, and at

5
00:00:21,450 --> 00:00:22,970
point you'll become mayor of the county.

6
00:00:23,210 --> 00:00:24,470
I'd have said you're crazy.

7
00:00:25,090 --> 00:00:28,150
You're nuts. But that's kind of how my
life has turned out.

8
00:00:29,450 --> 00:00:30,970
It seems like a recurring theme.

9
00:00:31,640 --> 00:00:33,160
Didn't know quite what I was getting
into.

10
00:00:34,440 --> 00:00:39,020
But I knew that I couldn't run from the
WWE stuff.

11
00:00:39,400 --> 00:00:41,180
Didn't want to. It's part of my life.

12
00:00:43,880 --> 00:00:50,440
Kane is probably the greatest

13
00:00:50,440 --> 00:00:53,160
story WWE's ever told.

14
00:00:55,780 --> 00:00:58,860
But he paid heavy dues.

15
00:00:59,600 --> 00:01:01,420
This is the Christmas creature.

16
00:01:01,800 --> 00:01:03,140
That's a feast.

17
00:01:03,420 --> 00:01:04,420
I think he ain't good.

18
00:01:04,660 --> 00:01:06,560
I sometimes make chicken soup out of
chicken.

19
00:01:07,520 --> 00:01:10,780
He did not think this gimmick was going
to be the best.

20
00:01:11,020 --> 00:01:13,020
The deck was completely stacked against
me.

21
00:01:13,480 --> 00:01:19,060
He persevered. It says a lot about him.
We needed to create an opponent for The

22
00:01:19,060 --> 00:01:23,960
Undertaker. I got a call that WWE had an
idea for me.

23
00:01:24,260 --> 00:01:29,040
I realized at that moment that this was
the opportunity of a lifetime.

24
00:01:29,440 --> 00:01:33,900
It looked like something stopped on the
machine, like Mike Myers or Jason. It

25
00:01:33,900 --> 00:01:35,300
was something out of a comic book.

26
00:01:35,640 --> 00:01:37,000
My God, he's on fire!

27
00:01:38,700 --> 00:01:40,260
What the hell is that?

28
00:01:40,960 --> 00:01:45,240
He was portrayed as a bad guy for so
long, but he is a tremendous father.

29
00:01:45,860 --> 00:01:52,680
We learned early on with the family that
the WWE would always be right up

30
00:01:52,680 --> 00:01:55,620
there, equal to us.

31
00:01:56,300 --> 00:02:02,000
This looks on paper like a one
-dimensional character, and he made it

32
00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:06,700
more. If you needed something, you could
go to Kate. You needed a monster. You

33
00:02:06,700 --> 00:02:09,460
needed a great match. You needed
something entertaining and funny.

34
00:02:11,480 --> 00:02:14,300
I'm the greatest big man to ever do it.

35
00:02:15,640 --> 00:02:20,680
I don't think anyone thought, there's
the future mayor of Knox County.

36
00:02:21,390 --> 00:02:26,810
Are you bleeping crazy? A big win for a
big man. My goal is to be the best Knox

37
00:02:26,810 --> 00:02:28,230
County mayor that I can be.

38
00:02:50,800 --> 00:02:55,820
This is Glenn's birth certificate. He
was born in Spain, and we had to take

39
00:02:55,820 --> 00:03:00,300
down to St. Louis, the federal building,
and swear that this was our child we

40
00:03:00,300 --> 00:03:01,720
were bringing back from overseas.

41
00:03:03,520 --> 00:03:07,840
He was 17 months old when this little
picture was taken, when he was

42
00:03:07,840 --> 00:03:08,840
here.

43
00:03:11,020 --> 00:03:15,680
I was born in Madrid, Spain, at Torjon
Air Base. My dad was in the military for

44
00:03:15,680 --> 00:03:16,680
21 years.

45
00:03:17,210 --> 00:03:22,350
Ten years in the Navy, he served in the
Korean War on the USS Antietam, and then

46
00:03:22,350 --> 00:03:26,070
switched services to the Air Force, and
he was in the Vietnam War. He was a

47
00:03:26,070 --> 00:03:28,430
loadmaster on C -130 cargo planes.

48
00:03:29,790 --> 00:03:34,370
Glenn had a lot of attention because he
was the youngest.

49
00:03:34,610 --> 00:03:39,530
This one, I think he was about six on
this one.

50
00:03:41,050 --> 00:03:44,390
This was first grade, and this one was
third grade.

51
00:03:47,210 --> 00:03:49,290
He was a adorable little kid, wasn't he?

52
00:03:51,710 --> 00:03:53,590
George was in military service.

53
00:03:54,010 --> 00:03:58,770
We did travel around a lot, and we came
back to Missouri, went up to Bowling

54
00:03:58,770 --> 00:03:59,770
Green, Missouri.

55
00:03:59,930 --> 00:04:04,330
We bought a small farm up there, and the
older kids were in high school. Glenn

56
00:04:04,330 --> 00:04:05,430
was still in grade school.

57
00:04:08,970 --> 00:04:13,550
My mom was a homemaker. She took care of
the family after Dad retired from the

58
00:04:13,550 --> 00:04:17,320
military. He worked a lot of graveyard
shifts at factories.

59
00:04:18,120 --> 00:04:21,480
I didn't actually see him a whole lot
because it seemed like he was just

60
00:04:21,480 --> 00:04:23,080
working trying to provide ends meet.

61
00:04:23,700 --> 00:04:30,620
When you envision hardworking, just
decent, average people, you

62
00:04:30,620 --> 00:04:32,040
think of folks like my mom and dad.

63
00:04:35,360 --> 00:04:39,020
He was almost a head taller than his
friends.

64
00:04:39,220 --> 00:04:42,380
And his friends all teased him about
being tall.

65
00:04:43,340 --> 00:04:49,880
I was picked on a lot because I was just
tall and awkward and everybody made fun

66
00:04:49,880 --> 00:04:52,720
of me and I couldn't hide because I
stuck out like a sore thumb.

67
00:04:54,400 --> 00:05:00,340
By the time that I got to high school, I
became a lot more popular because I

68
00:05:00,340 --> 00:05:04,400
fell in with the jocks and was a pretty
good basketball player.

69
00:05:05,720 --> 00:05:09,580
The other teams kind of wanted to beat
up on me because he was pretty good.

70
00:05:10,140 --> 00:05:12,400
Sometimes their coach would put him in.

71
00:05:13,310 --> 00:05:15,970
because he would intimidate some of the
other teams.

72
00:05:17,590 --> 00:05:23,790
I spent a year and a half at Quincy
College, and then I decided to transfer

73
00:05:23,790 --> 00:05:25,090
Northeast Missouri State University.

74
00:05:27,050 --> 00:05:30,410
One of my great regrets in life is I
probably could have been a much better

75
00:05:30,410 --> 00:05:33,310
basketball player than I was. I didn't
really work hard enough at that.

76
00:05:33,890 --> 00:05:37,510
But I still had this dream that I wanted
to be a professional athlete.

77
00:05:39,210 --> 00:05:43,850
By this time, I weighed close to 300
pounds. The football coach actually came

78
00:05:43,850 --> 00:05:49,030
me at Northeast Missouri State and said,
with your body, you might be able to

79
00:05:49,030 --> 00:05:50,030
play professional football.

80
00:05:51,290 --> 00:05:56,610
So, yeah, if I switched sports, I had
some eligibility left and just decided

81
00:05:56,610 --> 00:05:58,630
that I didn't have anything to lose.

82
00:06:00,150 --> 00:06:05,950
And so here, when he was in college,
this is when he was playing football,

83
00:06:05,950 --> 00:06:06,950
he loved it.

84
00:06:07,520 --> 00:06:08,640
He loved football.

85
00:06:10,080 --> 00:06:11,720
And this is when he got hurt.

86
00:06:12,700 --> 00:06:19,000
He got hurt on the last day of practice
before the season started.

87
00:06:19,720 --> 00:06:24,740
My cleat got stuck in a hole as I was
turning my knee, trauma ACL and some

88
00:06:24,740 --> 00:06:25,740
meniscus.

89
00:06:28,120 --> 00:06:29,340
He was devastated.

90
00:06:30,340 --> 00:06:34,900
He'd almost cry because, you know, he
said, why did I have to do that? Why did

91
00:06:34,900 --> 00:06:35,900
it have to happen to me?

92
00:06:37,400 --> 00:06:40,280
And yes, you know, I can understand
that.

93
00:06:41,840 --> 00:06:46,260
I've never gotten my knee fixed, just
never really had the opportunity to do

94
00:06:46,260 --> 00:06:47,260
that.

95
00:06:48,720 --> 00:06:51,680
I did go to the Bears camp. I was
invited to their rookie mini camp.

96
00:06:52,040 --> 00:06:56,980
The first day of an NFL camp back in
1991, go through all these physicals.

97
00:06:57,660 --> 00:06:59,240
No one said anything about my knee.

98
00:06:59,480 --> 00:07:03,020
The next day came, got on the bus, went
to the training facility.

99
00:07:03,800 --> 00:07:09,160
As everybody else was taken to the
practice field, I was escorted up to the

100
00:07:09,160 --> 00:07:13,420
player personnel office and told that my
knee injury precluded me from playing

101
00:07:13,420 --> 00:07:15,000
in the NFL and giving a plane ticket
home.

102
00:07:15,300 --> 00:07:17,120
I'd been there for less than a day.

103
00:07:18,740 --> 00:07:24,520
I picked him up from the airport, and he
says, Mom, this is the worst day of my

104
00:07:24,520 --> 00:07:25,520
life.

105
00:07:25,740 --> 00:07:27,120
He was 24.

106
00:07:27,360 --> 00:07:31,560
It was his birthday. He had to give his
$3 ,000 advance back.

107
00:07:32,460 --> 00:07:34,820
So he got absolutely nothing out of it.

108
00:07:35,400 --> 00:07:37,620
But, yeah, that was really bad.

109
00:07:38,120 --> 00:07:42,740
That trip home was one of the most
devastating things that's ever happened

110
00:07:42,740 --> 00:07:47,740
because I'd wanted to play professional
sports ever since I could remember.

111
00:07:48,780 --> 00:07:53,320
I went into a depression for weeks,
months afterwards.

112
00:07:55,100 --> 00:07:56,780
I didn't want to leave my room.

113
00:07:57,580 --> 00:07:59,520
It was extremely difficult.

114
00:08:01,360 --> 00:08:05,840
There came a point where I realized that
I had to quit feeling sorry for myself,

115
00:08:05,960 --> 00:08:11,860
that life was going to go on whether I
participated in it or not.

116
00:08:13,060 --> 00:08:16,420
At the time, I was doing some substitute
teaching.

117
00:08:16,660 --> 00:08:21,300
My degree is in English, so I wanted to
teach and to coach.

118
00:08:21,880 --> 00:08:24,880
But man, I still had this bug. I still
wanted to play sports.

119
00:08:26,260 --> 00:08:28,660
That was my dream in life.

120
00:08:29,220 --> 00:08:35,299
And one night, A friend of mine, Mark
Morton, and I are watching WWE on TV.

121
00:08:37,020 --> 00:08:41,780
Mark looked at me, he's like, you know,
man, you could do that. And I thought to

122
00:08:41,780 --> 00:08:45,860
myself, I'm a really big guy like these
guys on TV.

123
00:08:46,400 --> 00:08:50,060
I'm a good athlete, despite having the
bad knee.

124
00:08:50,840 --> 00:08:52,820
Yeah, I should try that.

125
00:08:54,960 --> 00:08:59,420
I didn't understand how he didn't break
every bone in his body.

126
00:09:01,670 --> 00:09:05,810
They would throw each other out in the
yard, in our backyard, in the grass.

127
00:09:06,130 --> 00:09:09,450
They would just get out there and just
smack each other around.

128
00:09:13,010 --> 00:09:14,770
Well, yeah, I thought it was funny.

129
00:09:15,850 --> 00:09:17,970
He did go to wrestling school.

130
00:09:18,370 --> 00:09:21,070
They had him in the ring in about two
weeks.

131
00:09:23,230 --> 00:09:25,930
He thought it was so much fun.

132
00:09:26,270 --> 00:09:28,310
Hey, maybe there's something to this.

133
00:09:29,070 --> 00:09:31,630
My first lessons were actually in a
barn.

134
00:09:31,890 --> 00:09:36,310
Trained there long enough to kind of get
some rudimentary how to fall down

135
00:09:36,310 --> 00:09:41,350
without getting hurt too badly, how to
do some of the moves, and had some early

136
00:09:41,350 --> 00:09:42,350
matches.

137
00:09:45,550 --> 00:09:50,270
I made him a costume for him to wrestle
as Angus.

138
00:09:51,090 --> 00:09:54,310
More than one, and this is the only one
I could find I had left.

139
00:09:55,010 --> 00:09:57,550
So this is one of his shirts, you know.

140
00:09:58,270 --> 00:10:04,890
that I made with Angus on it, and his
pants would have been black, and we put

141
00:10:04,890 --> 00:10:07,150
those down the sides of the legs.

142
00:10:08,070 --> 00:10:11,430
So, yes, I made those. I made all of his
costumes.

143
00:10:13,450 --> 00:10:18,650
You could say that professional
wrestling lifted me out of that funk and

144
00:10:18,650 --> 00:10:19,650
something to live for.

145
00:10:20,270 --> 00:10:21,450
I was on my way.

146
00:10:25,030 --> 00:10:27,350
My dad was a big wrestling fan.

147
00:10:27,960 --> 00:10:32,180
But George and I would never in 100
years ever thought that one of our kids

148
00:10:32,180 --> 00:10:34,640
would have been interested in something
like wrestling.

149
00:10:35,240 --> 00:10:38,980
The first group I trained with was some
folks out of Hannibal, Missouri.

150
00:10:40,640 --> 00:10:44,460
Traveling through the Midwest on
weekends, going to shows where you'd

151
00:10:44,460 --> 00:10:45,800
a dozen people in the audience.

152
00:10:46,100 --> 00:10:49,620
Wasn't learning anything because the
people that I was working with, in many

153
00:10:49,620 --> 00:10:53,580
cases, only had as much experience as I
did, and had never really been outside

154
00:10:53,580 --> 00:10:57,060
of that very low -level independent
circuit.

155
00:10:57,800 --> 00:11:02,480
They were all wrestling, and Glenn was
pretty near the last one, if not the

156
00:11:02,480 --> 00:11:03,480
one to come out.

157
00:11:03,600 --> 00:11:07,820
And this kid saw him, and he hollered,
kill him, kill him, that's my teacher,

158
00:11:08,000 --> 00:11:09,000
kill him.

159
00:11:10,000 --> 00:11:11,040
We thought it was funny.

160
00:11:12,620 --> 00:11:15,200
George and I would go, and I would root.

161
00:11:15,540 --> 00:11:20,120
George is not very, he's not very noisy,
as I am.

162
00:11:20,720 --> 00:11:22,240
Glenn finally told me, he says, Mom?

163
00:11:22,910 --> 00:11:24,970
He says, you can't go anymore.

164
00:11:25,270 --> 00:11:26,269
And I said, why?

165
00:11:26,270 --> 00:11:27,530
He says, you're too noisy.

166
00:11:29,210 --> 00:11:30,210
And there they are.

167
00:11:30,590 --> 00:11:33,990
I was traveling all over the place just
looking for a break. I did some work

168
00:11:33,990 --> 00:11:34,969
with Jerry Lawler.

169
00:11:34,970 --> 00:11:39,670
One year around Christmas time, Kevin
Lawler, who's Jerry's son, called me.

170
00:11:39,670 --> 00:11:44,390
like, hey, I got this idea for a
gimmick. At this time, everybody had a

171
00:11:44,390 --> 00:11:45,390
character.

172
00:11:45,450 --> 00:11:49,990
All the way down to being a garbage man
or an alligator skinner. You know,

173
00:11:50,010 --> 00:11:52,070
everybody was something. Even a plumber.

174
00:11:52,670 --> 00:11:56,810
One of them that really caught my
attention was called the Christmas

175
00:11:57,150 --> 00:12:00,330
This is the Christmas Creature. He is
huge.

176
00:12:02,590 --> 00:12:07,350
That Christmas Creature is a little
vicious, isn't he? He sent me a picture,

177
00:12:07,350 --> 00:12:09,150
he's like, hey, do you think you can
have that outfit made?

178
00:12:09,390 --> 00:12:12,330
So what did I do? I'm like, hey, Mom, do
you think you can make this? Because

179
00:12:12,330 --> 00:12:13,930
Mom was pretty good on the sewing
machine.

180
00:12:14,790 --> 00:12:16,970
I did have to sew the...

181
00:12:17,480 --> 00:12:22,720
Little light bulbs on and the tinsel and
all that kind of stuff and the sleeves.

182
00:12:22,860 --> 00:12:24,660
Yeah, that kind of stuff I put in there.

183
00:12:25,740 --> 00:12:29,700
And then he had to have white gloves and
they had to be decorated up and

184
00:12:29,700 --> 00:12:33,660
whatnot. Those light bulbs, they had to
have a battery so that he could turn

185
00:12:33,660 --> 00:12:34,660
that on.

186
00:12:35,460 --> 00:12:41,280
It was really ahead of its time. It was
a technological innovation.

187
00:12:41,760 --> 00:12:45,120
This guy is huge. Jerry made him dress
up like a Christmas tree.

188
00:12:50,010 --> 00:12:52,030
And wrestling at Christmas tree.

189
00:12:52,690 --> 00:12:56,870
Oh, my God. He still to this day gets
pissed off about it. I don't know what

190
00:12:56,870 --> 00:12:57,870
people were thinking.

191
00:12:58,150 --> 00:13:00,330
I don't know how he did it. I mean,

192
00:13:01,390 --> 00:13:04,350
that says a lot about the human being
right there.

193
00:13:04,750 --> 00:13:07,570
Coming through the curtains right now, I
got the Christmas creature.

194
00:13:07,810 --> 00:13:09,470
This guy is big and strange.

195
00:13:09,970 --> 00:13:11,870
He gave me the chance to work with Jerry
Lawler.

196
00:13:12,210 --> 00:13:16,750
Over the years, people have seen Lawler,
and he's wrestled everybody from...

197
00:13:17,340 --> 00:13:20,380
Andy Kaufman to movie monsters.

198
00:13:20,760 --> 00:13:26,240
In that regard, the Christmas creature
wasn't that much out of the ordinary for

199
00:13:26,240 --> 00:13:27,240
the Memphis territory.

200
00:13:28,020 --> 00:13:33,320
Jerry Jarrett, my partner, watched him,
and afterwards, Jerry said, have him

201
00:13:33,320 --> 00:13:34,520
come to Memphis TV tomorrow.

202
00:13:34,840 --> 00:13:36,440
So that's how he got started.

203
00:13:41,040 --> 00:13:43,680
You're about to see the hottest show in
town.

204
00:13:53,360 --> 00:13:56,480
Smoky Mountain Wrestling was the island
of misfit toys.

205
00:13:56,760 --> 00:14:02,700
You had a bunch of guys who really
didn't fit anywhere else in the big

206
00:14:02,700 --> 00:14:08,940
companies, and Jim Cornette was the mad
scientist behind it all. I'm looking for

207
00:14:08,940 --> 00:14:11,400
a few good men, and so far I've found a
bunch of them.

208
00:14:11,630 --> 00:14:15,370
Jimmy, like me, saw some tapes and
thought that I could do well there.

209
00:14:15,690 --> 00:14:18,110
He was spawned in the valley of death.

210
00:14:18,370 --> 00:14:21,190
The mighty Unabom is the demon of
destruction.

211
00:14:21,650 --> 00:14:25,290
Without him, I'd have never gotten my
career off the ground.

212
00:14:25,930 --> 00:14:31,950
We would do at least three to four live
events every single week in Knoxville

213
00:14:31,950 --> 00:14:36,250
and the surrounding areas of West
Virginia, eastern Tennessee,

214
00:14:36,250 --> 00:14:37,250
Kentucky.

215
00:14:38,250 --> 00:14:45,130
A lot of folks in Smoky Mountain
Wrestling were either great performers

216
00:14:45,130 --> 00:14:50,210
an established career or were folks that
were headed to WWE.

217
00:14:50,610 --> 00:14:57,330
Jim Cornette had a relationship with
WWE, so it was kind of a front door for

218
00:14:57,330 --> 00:15:00,030
getting to WWE, which is ultimately
where I wanted to go.

219
00:15:01,090 --> 00:15:05,070
I'd never been to East Tennessee, never
been to Tennessee at all.

220
00:15:05,290 --> 00:15:06,950
Didn't know what I was really getting
into.

221
00:15:08,590 --> 00:15:13,090
No one thus far has been able to derail
this big, huge man.

222
00:15:13,390 --> 00:15:20,010
Back in the day, you were so cognizant
of things that were topical. That was

223
00:15:20,010 --> 00:15:23,830
something that was in the news, the
Unabomber. So, hey, let's have a

224
00:15:23,890 --> 00:15:28,510
This is your invitation to my world, a
world of ugliness and a world of

225
00:15:28,510 --> 00:15:30,570
darkness. I think it was just a way
to...

226
00:15:30,780 --> 00:15:35,680
Put Glenn in a nondescript gimmick. Give
him an opportunity to learn from a guy

227
00:15:35,680 --> 00:15:39,200
like Al. I have somebody that's a dear
special friend to me that I want to

228
00:15:39,200 --> 00:15:42,340
introduce. The ultimate wrestler ought
to take the ultimate killing machine. He

229
00:15:42,340 --> 00:15:48,040
was a giant guy with a kind of looked
like a BDSM type of outfit with trunks

230
00:15:48,040 --> 00:15:52,640
wore a red and black painted hockey mask
when we did our interviews or our

231
00:15:52,640 --> 00:15:54,980
promos. Never spoke and had a cape.

232
00:15:55,660 --> 00:15:59,240
It was supposed to be this emotionless
monster, and he would have the mask on,

233
00:15:59,320 --> 00:16:03,620
and I would intentionally try to say
things to see if I could get him to

234
00:16:03,820 --> 00:16:05,780
to start laughing. Wait, where are you
going?

235
00:16:06,020 --> 00:16:08,440
Where do you think I'm going? I'm going
back to have some sex!

236
00:16:08,800 --> 00:16:13,800
And I'd just see him over there kind of,
you know, trying not to laugh, but he'd

237
00:16:13,800 --> 00:16:14,800
have the mask on.

238
00:16:15,080 --> 00:16:16,440
Demon of destruction!

239
00:16:19,950 --> 00:16:25,410
I met Glenn probably in the mid -90s. He
was working for Jim Cornette in Smoky

240
00:16:25,410 --> 00:16:28,730
Mountain Wrestling, and he was their top
heel.

241
00:16:28,990 --> 00:16:33,690
We detoured, made a trip to Knoxville,
and as soon as I worked with him, I

242
00:16:33,810 --> 00:16:36,190
I said, this guy needs to come to WWE.

243
00:16:36,810 --> 00:16:39,890
He's just so talented and such a nice
guy.

244
00:16:40,230 --> 00:16:43,370
I got back and I talked to Vince, and I
was like, we need to get this guy up

245
00:16:43,370 --> 00:16:48,070
here. It took a minute for him to work
his way through some horrible gimmicks.

246
00:17:01,710 --> 00:17:08,569
I had to go to Memphis and USWA and
spend a lot of time on the road, not

247
00:17:08,569 --> 00:17:10,849
making any money, and then go to Smoky
Mountain Wrestling.

248
00:17:11,170 --> 00:17:13,470
Gosh almighty, look at the size of that
guy.

249
00:17:13,770 --> 00:17:17,290
I wasn't a goofball. I was serious about
this and I wanted to succeed.

250
00:17:17,670 --> 00:17:21,730
It wasn't just like I got this handed to
me. I mean, I had to work really hard

251
00:17:21,730 --> 00:17:23,650
just to get into WWE.

252
00:17:30,760 --> 00:17:37,400
What made me fall in love with wrestling
was the mixture of storytelling with an

253
00:17:37,400 --> 00:17:38,400
athletic endeavor.

254
00:17:38,420 --> 00:17:43,800
To have something where you could
combine good and evil and the stories of

255
00:17:43,800 --> 00:17:49,440
nobility and betrayal and dastardly
characters and noble characters.

256
00:17:49,960 --> 00:17:53,460
There's nothing else like it. It's
always scary whenever Tom gets a great

257
00:17:53,760 --> 00:17:54,760
Oh, man.

258
00:17:55,940 --> 00:17:58,260
I think it's the greatest entertainment
in the world.

259
00:18:08,460 --> 00:18:12,560
When I first got into professional
wrestling, I had no idea where it was

260
00:18:12,560 --> 00:18:13,560
to end up.

261
00:18:13,900 --> 00:18:15,800
I didn't have any other plans for my
life.

262
00:18:16,020 --> 00:18:20,160
I was making a living, although
sometimes barely eating by.

263
00:18:20,380 --> 00:18:26,200
But nevertheless, I figured as long as I
could do that, that things were okay.

264
00:18:29,300 --> 00:18:34,880
Smoky Mountain Wrestling was big at the
time, and it was a freedom hall.

265
00:18:35,290 --> 00:18:38,050
which is a little center in Johnson
City.

266
00:18:38,370 --> 00:18:42,310
And we would go there, and sometimes we
would go to some of the high schools

267
00:18:42,310 --> 00:18:43,950
where they were going to be performing.

268
00:18:44,670 --> 00:18:48,550
The girls loved it. A friend introduced
me to Crystal. I thought that she was

269
00:18:48,550 --> 00:18:49,970
beautiful the first time I ever saw her.

270
00:18:51,750 --> 00:18:54,830
She was a single mom with two daughters.

271
00:18:55,090 --> 00:19:00,970
She was going to school at East
Tennessee State University, pursuing a

272
00:19:00,970 --> 00:19:02,210
degree in counseling.

273
00:19:02,810 --> 00:19:06,430
while she was also working full -time
and then working on weekends.

274
00:19:08,030 --> 00:19:10,170
And Unabombed catching there.

275
00:19:10,530 --> 00:19:16,490
Matt Hardy slingshot into the
turnbuckles. Looks like he was a five

276
00:19:16,490 --> 00:19:17,490
of flour.

277
00:19:17,850 --> 00:19:21,250
Crystal's daughters, Devon and Arista,
were big fans of Smoky Mountain

278
00:19:21,250 --> 00:19:27,090
Wrestling, so she was aware of what I
did, and she'd taken the girls to some

279
00:19:27,090 --> 00:19:28,090
shows.

280
00:19:29,100 --> 00:19:33,700
I loved it. I loved every bit of it. We
would spend hours beforehand. I would

281
00:19:33,700 --> 00:19:37,040
make my signs to hold up, and I loved
it.

282
00:19:40,540 --> 00:19:43,960
We were just kids, so everything was
fantastic and big and real.

283
00:19:44,200 --> 00:19:47,060
It was fun. I just loved the performers.

284
00:19:48,580 --> 00:19:50,220
It's something we always look forward
to.

285
00:19:50,520 --> 00:19:52,880
And he's going for the powerbomb!

286
00:19:53,460 --> 00:19:57,900
I remember that I thought he was
athletic from what I watched of the

287
00:19:58,810 --> 00:20:04,050
She was not impressed with my career at
that point. It seemed like he was much

288
00:20:04,050 --> 00:20:06,110
more agile in the ring.

289
00:20:06,670 --> 00:20:11,610
She told me that if her father had still
been alive, that she would have never

290
00:20:11,610 --> 00:20:15,030
been allowed to date me because he held
a very low opinion of professional

291
00:20:15,030 --> 00:20:16,030
wrestlers.

292
00:20:16,930 --> 00:20:20,830
He had been apparently wanting to go out
with me for some time, and I kept

293
00:20:20,830 --> 00:20:21,830
saying no.

294
00:20:22,250 --> 00:20:24,210
I never wanted to date a wrestler.

295
00:20:24,430 --> 00:20:25,430
I had friends.

296
00:20:25,800 --> 00:20:31,640
But we're wrestlers, and I didn't see
myself with someone that was a

297
00:20:31,640 --> 00:20:32,700
professional wrestler.

298
00:20:33,480 --> 00:20:39,760
My oldest daughter, Devin, she had broke
her femur in three places and was in

299
00:20:39,760 --> 00:20:40,920
traction at a hospital.

300
00:20:41,180 --> 00:20:45,600
When I walked in one day, he was sitting
there with her, and he had brought her,

301
00:20:45,660 --> 00:20:49,120
you know, coloring books and stuff to do
and flowers.

302
00:20:49,520 --> 00:20:54,040
And I was like, yeah, I've got to go out
with him now. So, you know, it was a

303
00:20:54,040 --> 00:20:55,040
guilt trip thing.

304
00:20:55,800 --> 00:21:00,680
I was able to convince her to go out
with me, and she realized that I'm a

305
00:21:00,680 --> 00:21:06,360
guy and really just an average, ordinary
person other than doing this thing that

306
00:21:06,360 --> 00:21:07,360
I did on TV.

307
00:21:07,520 --> 00:21:11,800
I knew that he would be doing this.

308
00:21:12,720 --> 00:21:17,180
Didn't know on what scale, but his
thoughts were, you know, he would do it

309
00:21:17,180 --> 00:21:21,560
year or two, make enough money, buy a
house, and be done.

310
00:21:21,800 --> 00:21:24,740
That was what I thought was going to
happen.

311
00:21:25,520 --> 00:21:26,880
That's not what happened.

312
00:21:28,140 --> 00:21:34,040
She became supportive of it, but that's
never been what's defined our

313
00:21:34,040 --> 00:21:37,820
relationship. That's just something that
I did for a living.

314
00:21:38,960 --> 00:21:42,600
It is not a power bomb that this man
does.

315
00:21:43,040 --> 00:21:45,360
We call it the Unabomb.

316
00:21:45,580 --> 00:21:48,440
I'll remember that from now on. When it
came to Smoky Mountain Wrestling, Jim

317
00:21:48,440 --> 00:21:50,420
Ross was doing their commentary.

318
00:21:50,660 --> 00:21:54,440
He was the person that got me in my
tryout that led to being signed with

319
00:21:55,020 --> 00:21:56,920
Can't keep up with me, that's just too
bad.

320
00:21:57,180 --> 00:21:58,360
No one beats you in a bomb.

321
00:22:03,720 --> 00:22:09,300
I was really excited because I had
previously had a tryout. It didn't turn

322
00:22:09,300 --> 00:22:12,320
very well just because I wasn't ready. I
knew now that I was ready. I knew that

323
00:22:12,320 --> 00:22:17,900
I could do this. So WWE signed me within
a few weeks and told me that they

324
00:22:17,900 --> 00:22:20,900
wanted me to fly to New York to meet
with Vince McMahon.

325
00:22:21,950 --> 00:22:26,470
This was the guy who was going to
dictate where my future went.

326
00:22:26,470 --> 00:22:32,710
was that outside factor that would
control where my life was going to go.

327
00:22:36,150 --> 00:22:37,850
I flew from...

328
00:22:38,080 --> 00:22:42,780
Knoxville, Tennessee, to LaGuardia
Airport in New York. I was picked up in

329
00:22:42,780 --> 00:22:45,980
limousine. Never been in a limousine
before in my entire life. So I'm

330
00:22:45,980 --> 00:22:49,640
to myself, man, I've made it. This is
the big time. I'm a WWE superstar.

331
00:22:50,080 --> 00:22:53,640
Limo takes me to Stanford, Connecticut,
and Vince looks at me.

332
00:22:55,360 --> 00:22:59,260
And he asked me, Glenn, have you ever
been afraid to go to the dentist?

333
00:22:59,480 --> 00:23:03,600
And I said, no, because I've never been
afraid of going to the dentist.

334
00:23:04,140 --> 00:23:09,410
So then he looks me square in the eye
and straight face says, Good. I've

335
00:23:09,410 --> 00:23:13,270
had this idea for a wrestling dentist.

336
00:23:15,230 --> 00:23:16,810
Isaac Yankum.

337
00:23:17,710 --> 00:23:19,590
I Yankum.

338
00:23:20,270 --> 00:23:23,890
Get it? And then he starts doing the
Vince McMahon laugh, which I had never

339
00:23:23,890 --> 00:23:24,890
heard before.

340
00:23:32,530 --> 00:23:37,150
Outside of my knee injury in football,
it was actually one of the most

341
00:23:37,150 --> 00:23:42,490
devastating moments in my entire life
because I had no idea how I was going to

342
00:23:42,490 --> 00:23:43,490
pull this off.

343
00:23:45,610 --> 00:23:50,490
Talked to Jim Cornette, and Jim told me,
oh, don't worry about it, man. They

344
00:23:50,490 --> 00:23:51,469
have these ideas.

345
00:23:51,470 --> 00:23:54,010
It'll be fine. That's not going to
happen. They'll figure out something

346
00:23:54,010 --> 00:23:59,310
for you. Then a few weeks later, Jim
comes to me, and he's like, well, I

347
00:23:59,310 --> 00:24:00,310
from WWE.

348
00:24:00,880 --> 00:24:01,819
It's the dentist.

349
00:24:01,820 --> 00:24:04,660
I'm like, I thought you said that they
weren't going to do that.

350
00:24:05,100 --> 00:24:10,000
Of course, the whole thing came about
because Jerry Lawler had lost a kiss

351
00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:15,520
-foot match to Bret Hart and figured the
way to get revenge on Bret Hart was to

352
00:24:15,520 --> 00:24:20,940
introduce his wrestling dentist, Isaac
Yankum, to take care of Hitman.

353
00:24:21,340 --> 00:24:23,940
He was being given a great opportunity.

354
00:24:25,260 --> 00:24:28,000
He tied into Lawler and Bret Hart.

355
00:24:30,300 --> 00:24:31,300
Extremely aggressive.

356
00:24:32,760 --> 00:24:38,580
Oh, my goodness. Take a look at Isaac
Yankovic. The big, powerful Isaac

357
00:24:38,580 --> 00:24:41,100
Yankovic. Controlled to the buckle and
moving right in.

358
00:24:41,860 --> 00:24:42,980
Oh, my goodness.

359
00:24:43,660 --> 00:24:44,880
Oh, my goodness.

360
00:24:45,620 --> 00:24:49,060
Isaac Yankovic. His breath is so fresh.

361
00:24:57,250 --> 00:25:01,590
Isaac Yankum was a terrible character
for Glenn. It didn't make any sense as

362
00:25:01,590 --> 00:25:05,470
as what Glenn could do. I don't think
WWE understood it. They just said, we're

363
00:25:05,470 --> 00:25:09,230
going to put out this bad guy dentist
out there that just was kind of doomed

364
00:25:09,230 --> 00:25:10,230
fail.

365
00:25:10,450 --> 00:25:15,310
Clearly it was not the greatest concept
or storyline or gimmick. I could see

366
00:25:15,310 --> 00:25:17,330
that there wasn't a lot of mileage in
it.

367
00:25:17,590 --> 00:25:19,610
It just didn't make any sense to me.

368
00:25:20,140 --> 00:25:24,860
Why did I get stuck with this? Why did
he think that I was going to be a great

369
00:25:24,860 --> 00:25:28,140
wrestling dentist? The gap between my
front teeth, is that it? I have no idea.

370
00:25:28,380 --> 00:25:33,020
At one point, you're really happy for
him because he's doing what he loves.

371
00:25:33,060 --> 00:25:38,140
Maybe not the character he loves, but
he's doing something to begin that

372
00:25:38,140 --> 00:25:42,680
stepping stone of showing other people
what he could do. But just the whole

373
00:25:42,680 --> 00:25:47,560
rotted teeth, because I was like, what
have they done to your teeth?

374
00:26:00,750 --> 00:26:01,750
I felt ridiculous.

375
00:26:02,010 --> 00:26:05,850
I just never felt that I could sink my
teeth into the character, pun intended.

376
00:26:06,210 --> 00:26:09,490
I never felt like the audience
gravitated like they should have.

377
00:26:09,850 --> 00:26:13,350
I always felt it just came across as
very campy and unrealistic.

378
00:26:13,810 --> 00:26:17,550
I'm going to kick in all of the dirty,
rotten, sinking teeth.

379
00:26:17,890 --> 00:26:19,430
Are you ready, Summer Slam?

380
00:26:19,890 --> 00:26:24,190
I thought it was a really monumental
match for a guy that young in the

381
00:26:24,610 --> 00:26:29,850
I just never felt like I belonged.

382
00:26:30,270 --> 00:26:34,830
I felt that the deck was completely
stacked against me with the Isaac Yankin

383
00:26:34,830 --> 00:26:38,370
character. I remember the SummerSlam
match I laid out for him.

384
00:26:38,670 --> 00:26:44,250
It was one of the most complicated, very
layered matches that I ever put

385
00:26:44,250 --> 00:26:50,110
together. I was trying really hard to
really get him over for the company's

386
00:26:50,110 --> 00:26:51,110
sake.

387
00:26:51,730 --> 00:26:54,990
He did a good job, and I was really
proud of him.

388
00:26:55,410 --> 00:26:58,470
I feel like a teacher, and he was like
one of my students, and he was one of my

389
00:26:58,470 --> 00:26:59,470
best students.

390
00:27:02,739 --> 00:27:06,620
I don't know if Glenn ever reached a
crossroads where he thought, maybe I

391
00:27:06,620 --> 00:27:11,200
do something else. Glenn never said
anything about the fact that maybe this

392
00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:12,280
isn't working out.

393
00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:16,420
I'm sure he felt that way because I've
been in that position too, where you're

394
00:27:16,420 --> 00:27:18,820
somewhere and you're thinking, I don't
know if I'm ever going to get a chance.

395
00:27:19,120 --> 00:27:23,020
I had a hard time believing that there
wasn't some doubt in his mind.

396
00:27:23,960 --> 00:27:28,300
Jacob, you seem to be on the rise in the
World Wrestling Federation.

397
00:27:29,130 --> 00:27:33,690
While I was struggling as the Isaac
Yankum character, I had a TV match with

398
00:27:33,690 --> 00:27:34,690
Undertaker.

399
00:27:35,750 --> 00:27:42,530
It was

400
00:27:42,530 --> 00:27:44,350
terrible. That was all my fault.

401
00:27:45,430 --> 00:27:48,110
My heart wasn't in it, and the match was
terrible.

402
00:27:48,650 --> 00:27:51,870
If you can't have a good match, and
you're just out there going through the

403
00:27:51,870 --> 00:27:55,730
motions, you just don't make your
opponent look good, which is what had

404
00:27:55,730 --> 00:27:56,730
that night.

405
00:28:01,580 --> 00:28:03,260
I felt bad for him.

406
00:28:03,560 --> 00:28:04,560
I really did.

407
00:28:04,640 --> 00:28:11,600
It was really frustrating because I knew
the upside with him. I just knew Isaac

408
00:28:11,600 --> 00:28:15,100
Yankum was not it. It was not going to
last.

409
00:28:16,700 --> 00:28:22,660
When your audience sees something and
they go, oh, gosh, that's awful,

410
00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:24,700
it's hard to get them back.

411
00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:26,960
I mean, there's only so much you can do.

412
00:28:29,439 --> 00:28:33,700
Mark afterwards told me, look, dude, if
you want to stay here, you're going to

413
00:28:33,700 --> 00:28:36,460
have to act like you belong here. You
can't mope around.

414
00:28:37,120 --> 00:28:41,220
And Isaac Yankum gets a boot to the
midsection. He was not a fan of the

415
00:28:41,220 --> 00:28:45,500
Yankum character either, but
nevertheless, I made Undertaker look

416
00:28:45,740 --> 00:28:46,359
Take it out.

417
00:28:46,360 --> 00:28:48,160
Scoops up Yankum. Look at this.

418
00:28:48,480 --> 00:28:52,920
Tell him, like, Glenn, if you're going
to survive here, you've got to develop a

419
00:28:52,920 --> 00:28:55,480
little bit of bull in you.

420
00:28:56,440 --> 00:28:58,380
Not just to be an asshole.

421
00:28:58,940 --> 00:29:05,420
But for the sake of the business, you've
got to stand up for yourself or

422
00:29:05,420 --> 00:29:08,240
you're not going to be here.

423
00:29:12,500 --> 00:29:19,440
When I was in WWE, I was often on the
road 250, 300 days a year. Getting in

424
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:23,420
the ring and performing was really the
fun part.

425
00:29:24,140 --> 00:29:25,940
Learning and traveling and...

426
00:29:26,700 --> 00:29:28,540
Long nights and bumps and bruises.

427
00:29:29,460 --> 00:29:32,240
That's really the beauty of this whole
industry.

428
00:29:32,840 --> 00:29:34,080
That's where the romance is.

429
00:29:37,480 --> 00:29:39,420
They kept me around working.

430
00:29:39,640 --> 00:29:46,280
I was over in South Africa on a show
with WWE, and Jerry Briscoe told me,

431
00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:49,480
when you get back to the States, you
need to call Vince. He has an idea for

432
00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:58,040
We had the Monday Night Wars, and we
lost Diesel and Razor to WCW.

433
00:29:58,340 --> 00:29:59,340
Where is it?

434
00:29:59,700 --> 00:30:00,760
The big surprise.

435
00:30:06,960 --> 00:30:09,200
This is where the big boys play, huh?

436
00:30:10,120 --> 00:30:11,300
I was ecstatic.

437
00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:16,480
More money, guaranteed money, so half
the days and twice as much money.

438
00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:20,360
He said, I've got this new role, and I'm
like, what is it? He's like, I'm going

439
00:30:20,360 --> 00:30:20,909
to be...

440
00:30:20,910 --> 00:30:24,370
Fake Diesel because Diesel and Razor
Ramon had left.

441
00:30:24,630 --> 00:30:31,610
The idea was by introducing the same
character

442
00:30:31,610 --> 00:30:38,550
that had just left, you could have
imposters who were just

443
00:30:38,550 --> 00:30:41,530
as big of stars as the stars were.

444
00:30:42,690 --> 00:30:47,730
And I assumed the role of the new
Diesel. The company was behind it.

445
00:30:47,950 --> 00:30:51,970
We were going to become tag team
champions, and there was going to be a

446
00:30:51,970 --> 00:30:53,790
big push behind the characters.

447
00:30:54,870 --> 00:30:57,890
I'm like, oh, okay, how's that going to
happen? You know, because you've got

448
00:30:57,890 --> 00:31:00,690
white, short, curly hair.

449
00:31:00,910 --> 00:31:02,610
It's like, well, I've got to go get
extensions.

450
00:31:03,550 --> 00:31:06,490
He's all in that leather, and he had the
long black hair.

451
00:31:07,390 --> 00:31:09,310
I was like, I like this character.

452
00:31:09,530 --> 00:31:10,530
You're so hot.

453
00:31:12,150 --> 00:31:13,950
They created this as a parody.

454
00:31:14,330 --> 00:31:17,110
It's just that Glenn Jacobs isn't a
parody of anything.

455
00:31:18,320 --> 00:31:20,600
He comes back as a different human
being.

456
00:31:20,900 --> 00:31:22,260
He looked incredible.

457
00:31:22,540 --> 00:31:24,940
Glenn's success is because of his hard
work.

458
00:31:25,420 --> 00:31:30,320
And he did a great job with it. The fake
razor didn't do a good job with it.

459
00:31:30,420 --> 00:31:31,800
Glenn did a great job with it.

460
00:31:36,300 --> 00:31:42,120
I'm sure it was awkward for Glenn, but
it's a job. Either that or you go home.

461
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:45,460
And I think Glenn was like, he didn't
want to go home.

462
00:31:46,750 --> 00:31:50,330
And I think he understood he was still
in the learning process and still

463
00:31:50,330 --> 00:31:53,870
climbing a ladder that he wasn't sure
where it was going or how long it would

464
00:31:53,870 --> 00:31:57,650
take to get to the top, but he was
still, you know, somewhere on that

465
00:31:58,010 --> 00:31:59,110
He is a monster.

466
00:32:02,830 --> 00:32:06,830
The fake Diesel character gave me a lot
of confidence. I realized that, yes, I

467
00:32:06,830 --> 00:32:07,830
belong to WWE.

468
00:32:08,990 --> 00:32:12,070
That's actually what was missing with
the Isaac Ankin character.

469
00:32:12,290 --> 00:32:13,570
I just never felt like I belonged.

470
00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:22,440
Being a phony dentist, being Isaac
Yankum is one thing, but then being at

471
00:32:22,440 --> 00:32:27,200
a little closer to a real person gives
you some confidence, an air of walking

472
00:32:27,200 --> 00:32:28,980
the ring like Diesel.

473
00:32:30,380 --> 00:32:35,400
That was a big step in taking the next
step to being who he was going to be.

474
00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:50,940
By watching me, I think he learned big
man pacing.

475
00:32:51,160 --> 00:32:56,140
You watch him as Yankum, he works much
faster than when he works as Diesel. I

476
00:32:56,140 --> 00:32:59,340
think he realized, like, no, man, slow.

477
00:33:00,500 --> 00:33:05,380
You could see the transition that he
felt more comfortable just walking into

478
00:33:05,380 --> 00:33:07,180
ring, strutting stuff.

479
00:33:07,680 --> 00:33:10,340
Maybe it's because his wife was telling
him he was hot. I don't know.

480
00:33:10,720 --> 00:33:14,460
You know, with the sunglasses on and the
goatee and the long hair.

481
00:33:15,100 --> 00:33:16,100
Yeah.

482
00:33:25,320 --> 00:33:30,140
The problem is, if you ever have
something that's a fake of somebody

483
00:33:30,140 --> 00:33:33,480
turn on the TV and see Kevin Nash.

484
00:33:33,740 --> 00:33:38,540
You can never do a parody of something
when the person is somewhere around that

485
00:33:38,540 --> 00:33:40,700
can still go and Kevin Nash can still
go.

486
00:33:44,700 --> 00:33:48,020
They wanted to prove that it wasn't us.

487
00:33:48,660 --> 00:33:50,200
It was their machine.

488
00:33:51,020 --> 00:33:55,060
that if they put their machine behind,
they could recreate the character.

489
00:33:55,600 --> 00:33:58,020
And it was just that wasn't the case.

490
00:33:58,320 --> 00:34:00,300
We're like nobody else on TV.

491
00:34:01,580 --> 00:34:07,700
Because of just the storyline coming to
an organic end, Rick and I were taken

492
00:34:07,700 --> 00:34:08,359
off TV.

493
00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:12,679
We went to Memphis and worked some with
Jerry Lawler there and his promotion

494
00:34:12,679 --> 00:34:13,679
there.

495
00:34:13,780 --> 00:34:19,460
When I was in Memphis, I got a call that
WWE had an idea for me. There had been

496
00:34:19,460 --> 00:34:20,460
an incident.

497
00:34:20,489 --> 00:34:25,070
Where Vader had gotten arrested, he was
on a talk show with Undertaker. They

498
00:34:25,070 --> 00:34:26,510
were in a storyline at the time.

499
00:34:28,650 --> 00:34:33,730
So we're on tour in the Middle East. We
end up in Kuwait. I was world champion

500
00:34:33,730 --> 00:34:37,650
at the time, and I was going to defend
the title that night.

501
00:34:38,350 --> 00:34:44,370
They had us on some morning talk show,
from what I understand was a fairly big

502
00:34:44,370 --> 00:34:45,469
morning talk show.

503
00:34:46,870 --> 00:34:48,570
Undertaker knew that...

504
00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:53,940
This commentator was going to ask, and
the dreaded is wrestling fake question,

505
00:34:54,260 --> 00:34:55,580
which I hate.

506
00:34:55,980 --> 00:35:01,360
They say this wrestling is not for real.
Is it like you act or?

507
00:35:03,200 --> 00:35:08,060
And Undertaker told Vader, just let me
handle it. Let me answer it. What we do,

508
00:35:08,220 --> 00:35:14,360
if it is acting, we take a normal man
and break him in half.

509
00:35:14,920 --> 00:35:18,360
You know, that's such an unoriginal
question for someone to ask.

510
00:35:19,940 --> 00:35:24,660
Vader, as all of us old school guys used
to do, you defend your business, you

511
00:35:24,660 --> 00:35:25,660
defend your territory.

512
00:35:26,080 --> 00:35:30,760
Vader grabs this guy and shakes him up a
little bit. So I find your remark and

513
00:35:30,760 --> 00:35:31,780
your question insulting.

514
00:35:32,300 --> 00:35:34,080
It's not my question, it's somebody's.

515
00:35:35,060 --> 00:35:36,960
Does that feel fake, huh?

516
00:35:37,220 --> 00:35:38,460
Does that feel fake?

517
00:35:38,780 --> 00:35:40,600
And I'm thinking in my head.

518
00:35:41,130 --> 00:35:44,150
Oh, my gosh, Vader, what are you doing?

519
00:35:45,410 --> 00:35:47,210
We lost Leon for a while.

520
00:35:47,690 --> 00:35:51,530
He was detained in Kuwait for probably
about a week or so.

521
00:35:52,030 --> 00:35:58,390
We needed to create an opponent for The
Undertaker because looking at what

522
00:35:58,390 --> 00:36:03,850
was in WWE at the time, it was like,
well, Undertaker's either faked them and

523
00:36:03,850 --> 00:36:06,150
defeated them, and it had all been done.

524
00:36:06,490 --> 00:36:07,590
And we had...

525
00:36:08,170 --> 00:36:11,430
Damn near run out of dominant opponents
for The Undertaker.

526
00:36:12,470 --> 00:36:19,170
But there was a guy that, at the time,
was working in

527
00:36:19,170 --> 00:36:22,450
Ohio Valley Wrestling with Jim Cornette.

528
00:36:22,930 --> 00:36:24,570
His name was Glenn Jacobs.

529
00:36:25,090 --> 00:36:29,770
They tell me, we're going to use Glenn
Jacobs. I'm instantly like, yes.

530
00:36:38,600 --> 00:36:43,200
When I was in Memphis, I got a call that
WWE had an idea for me.

531
00:36:43,480 --> 00:36:49,180
And initially, what they needed to do
was they just needed an opponent for

532
00:36:49,340 --> 00:36:50,340
for The Undertaker.

533
00:36:51,640 --> 00:36:58,580
I just started talking about, what if
when The Undertaker debuted,

534
00:36:58,980 --> 00:37:02,940
the whole time he thought that his
brother was dead, his mom and dad, they

535
00:37:02,940 --> 00:37:06,500
in the horrible fire. His brother died
in the fire, but really?

536
00:37:08,710 --> 00:37:15,470
Paul Bearer, who was mortician in that
funeral parlor, took

537
00:37:15,470 --> 00:37:20,510
Undertaker's baby brother Kane and
raised him as his own.

538
00:37:21,610 --> 00:37:25,130
Burned from head to toe, disfigured
forever.

539
00:37:27,010 --> 00:37:29,930
Vince is like, why are we wasting one
match on this?

540
00:37:30,520 --> 00:37:34,060
This is actually a storyline that we
need to develop.

541
00:37:34,300 --> 00:37:38,300
I realized that this was the opportunity
of a lifetime.

542
00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:06,920
And Paul Bearer had looked after his
baby brother all these years and had fed

543
00:38:06,920 --> 00:38:12,820
all these stories into Cain, telling him
about how his brother, your brother

544
00:38:12,820 --> 00:38:17,460
knows you're alive, but he's never once
come to see you because he's too busy

545
00:38:17,460 --> 00:38:20,620
being the undertaker. He's too busy in
the fame and the fortune.

546
00:38:21,380 --> 00:38:23,420
He doesn't care about you. He never has.

547
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:42,460
The whole time, his brother had been
watching the rise of The Undertaker, and

548
00:38:42,460 --> 00:38:48,900
the rage, the envy, all those emotions
of a sibling rivalry, except now

549
00:38:48,900 --> 00:38:55,500
these larger -than -life characters with
supernatural powers. That was building

550
00:38:55,500 --> 00:38:59,820
up inside this character, who would
eventually be called king.

551
00:39:00,120 --> 00:39:05,040
I mean, there were so many layers to
this thing, but it all made sense.

552
00:39:05,740 --> 00:39:10,360
It was just like a great horror movie
where this guy has been kept being

553
00:39:10,360 --> 00:39:16,160
developed for this one moment in time
where he would extract his revenge on

554
00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:17,160
older brother.

555
00:39:21,740 --> 00:39:24,480
He's still trying to work out the
character.

556
00:39:24,720 --> 00:39:28,080
He would see something that he would
think would be neat, you know, and he'd

557
00:39:28,080 --> 00:39:30,660
tell me about it, and I think I can
incorporate this.

558
00:39:30,960 --> 00:39:34,300
The first renderings of the Kane
character were...

559
00:39:34,760 --> 00:39:39,460
The exact opposite of what I thought the
character should look like in my mind.

560
00:39:40,440 --> 00:39:46,500
I just logically thought that he would
literally be an escapee from some sort

561
00:39:46,500 --> 00:39:47,620
mental asylum or institution.

562
00:39:47,860 --> 00:39:54,560
And he would be a lot like Jason
Voorhees, Michael Myers type that was

563
00:39:54,560 --> 00:40:00,620
and had escaped and his entire mission
in life was just destroying the object

564
00:40:00,620 --> 00:40:01,620
his rage.

565
00:40:05,930 --> 00:40:12,150
Can you do it sideways? You're like, you
know, you're facing that way. Kind of

566
00:40:12,150 --> 00:40:13,150
pick him up, just see.

567
00:40:14,070 --> 00:40:19,950
There's something about two brothers
fighting each other that hits a chord

568
00:40:19,950 --> 00:40:26,190
families and in real life where they go,
it's a nerve south of the border like

569
00:40:26,190 --> 00:40:27,190
nowhere else.

570
00:40:27,370 --> 00:40:33,890
Sometimes in wrestling, the payoff
doesn't necessarily match the buildup.

571
00:40:34,600 --> 00:40:37,320
The Kane situation is the opposite of
that.

572
00:40:38,060 --> 00:40:40,680
The buildup was terrifying.

573
00:40:40,980 --> 00:40:44,200
It was all on an epic scale.

574
00:40:44,420 --> 00:40:50,180
And then when you first see Kane for the
first time, it's the bad blood pay -per

575
00:40:50,180 --> 00:40:54,080
-view. Shawn Michaels versus The
Undertaker, the first ever Hell in a

576
00:40:54,080 --> 00:40:55,080
match.

577
00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:58,820
He was my guy and the guy that I wanted.

578
00:40:59,160 --> 00:41:02,620
I'm instantly like, yes, this is
perfect.

579
00:41:03,240 --> 00:41:05,760
We were similar size. We look similar.

580
00:41:06,460 --> 00:41:10,500
It's going to be easy to sell the fact
that we're brothers.

581
00:41:11,360 --> 00:41:16,280
And it was a break that I thought that
he really deserved.

582
00:41:16,700 --> 00:41:23,480
It's probably one of the most important
debuts in WWE

583
00:41:23,480 --> 00:41:29,100
history. When Kane came out, absolutely
jacked, bigger than Taker. That was

584
00:41:29,100 --> 00:41:31,600
incredible. My age was highly 12 at the
time.

585
00:41:32,110 --> 00:41:34,510
I remember jumping in bed. It was so
freaking cool.

586
00:41:34,790 --> 00:41:36,690
It was jaw -dropping, I would say.

587
00:41:36,950 --> 00:41:39,850
It made you immediately go, oh, this is
no joke.

588
00:41:40,190 --> 00:41:45,010
Very hard to make Undertaker feel like
he's in an underdog situation because of

589
00:41:45,010 --> 00:41:49,450
his character. But, man, the fans really
were, like, concerned about Taker.

590
00:41:50,430 --> 00:41:56,550
I remember watching the lights go off,
and then they came back up.

591
00:41:59,270 --> 00:42:02,250
Oh, my God. Wait a minute. It's Paul
Bearer.

592
00:42:03,470 --> 00:42:05,030
It's Paul Bearer.

593
00:42:05,410 --> 00:42:09,930
And that's got to be, that's got to be
canned.

594
00:42:10,330 --> 00:42:11,830
That's got to be canned.

595
00:42:13,250 --> 00:42:17,230
It was just amazing. For a moment,
there's just this complete silence and

596
00:42:17,230 --> 00:42:18,230
knows what's going on.

597
00:42:19,510 --> 00:42:23,970
And then the music starts playing and
then the spotlights hit. And for just a

598
00:42:23,970 --> 00:42:26,350
heartbeat, no one made a noise.

599
00:42:27,310 --> 00:42:31,290
When he walks through the curtain with
the outfit, with the mask and the size

600
00:42:31,290 --> 00:42:34,830
and the physique, that's Frankenstein's
monster. Who doesn't get that?

601
00:42:35,310 --> 00:42:42,210
He was a living, breathing monster that
people were

602
00:42:42,210 --> 00:42:48,570
genuinely a little afraid of. You didn't
know what was behind that mask and what

603
00:42:48,570 --> 00:42:51,830
he's capable of. And they believed the
story.

604
00:42:52,170 --> 00:42:54,690
The look on The Undertaker's face.

605
00:42:55,480 --> 00:42:57,380
Just said, oh, my God.

606
00:42:57,740 --> 00:43:02,320
What sold that moment was Undertaker's
eyes saying, I know you, you're my

607
00:43:02,320 --> 00:43:06,040
brother, you're Kane, without ever
saying a word. And everything together

608
00:43:06,040 --> 00:43:08,080
that possibly the best debut of all
time.

609
00:43:09,540 --> 00:43:10,540
Watch this!

610
00:43:13,600 --> 00:43:18,440
That was like one of the first times
ever I showed any kind of look or

611
00:43:18,440 --> 00:43:20,260
that didn't say kill.

612
00:43:20,960 --> 00:43:24,660
Right? There's this look of bewilderment
in my eyes.

613
00:43:25,120 --> 00:43:28,960
that people pick up on right away that's
like whoa look at undertaker he just

614
00:43:28,960 --> 00:43:33,520
always had that stern i'm gonna kill you
look the

615
00:43:33,520 --> 00:43:40,400
stare down if

616
00:43:40,400 --> 00:43:46,460
you saw the stare down between these two
long lost brothers who one didn't know

617
00:43:46,460 --> 00:43:50,380
the other one was still alive and now
he's coming back was incredible

618
00:44:09,459 --> 00:44:16,440
It was the

619
00:44:16,440 --> 00:44:17,900
first time I felt like a WWE superstar.

620
00:44:19,100 --> 00:44:21,220
I mean, I realized this is what it's all
about.

621
00:44:23,779 --> 00:44:28,660
When I was younger, I went to a show.
Hulk Hogan had come out. We talked about

622
00:44:28,660 --> 00:44:31,920
blowing the roof off the place. We blew
the roof off the place. I'd never heard

623
00:44:31,920 --> 00:44:36,620
people get that excited about anything
in my life. That was the first time that

624
00:44:36,620 --> 00:44:37,620
I felt like that.

625
00:44:38,320 --> 00:44:40,420
The entire world is watching me.

626
00:44:40,680 --> 00:44:45,420
This is what it's all about. This is
what I've worked for all those years is

627
00:44:45,420 --> 00:44:46,420
this moment.

628
00:44:48,980 --> 00:44:51,060
Glenn is a very smart guy.

629
00:44:52,670 --> 00:44:55,070
Because of that, he's able to get into
the characters.

630
00:44:55,330 --> 00:44:59,010
I mean, what he did with Kane, I don't
think any other human being on the

631
00:44:59,010 --> 00:45:00,010
could have done.

632
00:45:00,410 --> 00:45:05,690
It's remarkable what he did with Kane.
To be Undertaker's brother and have to

633
00:45:05,690 --> 00:45:07,310
come in with Undertaker on top.

634
00:45:07,610 --> 00:45:09,710
It's like being Michael Jordan's
brother.

635
00:45:10,750 --> 00:45:14,230
We are going to walk through the World
Wrestling Federation.

636
00:45:15,990 --> 00:45:21,710
Take each wrestler one by one and
destroy them.

637
00:45:22,110 --> 00:45:29,010
Until we reach you, Undertaker, that is
why Kane is here.

638
00:45:29,290 --> 00:45:33,450
I will never fight my own flesh and
blood.

639
00:45:35,210 --> 00:45:41,830
For months after my debut, I just ran
through everybody in

640
00:45:41,830 --> 00:45:48,770
WWE, destroyed everyone on the way to
showdown with The

641
00:45:48,770 --> 00:45:49,770
Undertaker.

642
00:46:03,430 --> 00:46:06,830
Undertaker, welcome to your worst
nightmare.

643
00:46:07,290 --> 00:46:08,370
That was a huge build.

644
00:46:08,770 --> 00:46:13,030
He pushed me to the limits where I had
to say, okay, little brother.

645
00:46:13,270 --> 00:46:16,010
How much more of this will The
Undertaker take?

646
00:46:16,350 --> 00:46:18,550
You've messed with Big Brother one time
too many.

647
00:46:19,110 --> 00:46:20,690
Now I'm going to have to thump you.

648
00:46:35,960 --> 00:46:41,640
And the demon who will lead you

649
00:46:41,640 --> 00:46:45,580
into eternal damnation.

650
00:46:59,020 --> 00:47:02,080
WrestleMania 14 arrives in Boston.

651
00:47:05,620 --> 00:47:12,160
People were anticipating and excited

652
00:47:12,160 --> 00:47:17,620
to actually see someone that could
actually bring it to The Undertaker.

653
00:47:21,880 --> 00:47:26,800
Go out to the ring, and I'm with Paul.

654
00:47:27,500 --> 00:47:34,300
And get introduced, he puts his hand on
my chest, and my heart is thumping so

655
00:47:34,300 --> 00:47:37,300
hard that he can feel it. He's like,
man, what's wrong with you? Are you

656
00:47:37,540 --> 00:47:41,220
And I'm like, man, this is the biggest
moment of my life as far as my

657
00:47:41,220 --> 00:47:42,220
professional life.

658
00:47:42,780 --> 00:47:47,840
When the lights go out, the light will
only shine brighter.

659
00:47:49,880 --> 00:47:54,740
I'll never forget watching The
Undertaker come out and looking down the

660
00:48:02,030 --> 00:48:06,910
He's walking under the torches, and
they've formed a canopy of flame over

661
00:48:06,910 --> 00:48:12,090
top of him. And I thought to myself for
a second, I was like, oh my God, that's

662
00:48:12,090 --> 00:48:13,090
The Undertaker.

663
00:48:13,250 --> 00:48:16,250
I was awestricken.

664
00:48:16,930 --> 00:48:19,630
And then I realized, he's going to have
to beat up me. Now wait a second.

665
00:48:20,450 --> 00:48:23,830
That's when I truly knew that I had
arrived in WWE.

666
00:48:24,790 --> 00:48:27,270
What the hell is this matchup this is
going to be?

667
00:48:27,570 --> 00:48:31,940
No matter what happened after that, No
one could ever take away the fact that I

668
00:48:31,940 --> 00:48:34,200
had wrestled Undertaker at WrestleMania.

669
00:48:35,080 --> 00:48:41,060
It's going to be a first time ever, two
super heavyweights, two super dominant

670
00:48:41,060 --> 00:48:44,540
characters, supernatural. You got all
these different elements.

671
00:48:44,920 --> 00:48:49,080
They're about to lock it up. And I think
we achieved that. I wanted the first

672
00:48:49,080 --> 00:48:51,160
time that we went at it to be at
WrestleMania.

673
00:48:51,580 --> 00:48:56,200
So it was fresh. That emotion would be
raw and that energy real.

674
00:48:58,060 --> 00:49:01,620
As a kid growing up, I was always a fan
of monster movies.

675
00:49:02,320 --> 00:49:06,080
Not the kind that they had today. I
mean, like King Kong and Godzilla.

676
00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:12,240
To me, sitting there commentating and
watching these two giants go against

677
00:49:12,240 --> 00:49:18,480
other, in my mind, it was like, I'm
witnessing, I'm watching this in real

678
00:49:18,680 --> 00:49:23,820
This is King Kong versus Godzilla. These
are two giant monsters trying to tear

679
00:49:23,820 --> 00:49:24,820
each other apart.

680
00:49:29,580 --> 00:49:33,560
I personally loved it, and obviously all
the fans loved it. It was great.

681
00:49:33,840 --> 00:49:36,860
I've never seen anybody manhandled the
Undertaker like that, JR.

682
00:49:37,920 --> 00:49:40,020
I've never seen anybody like Kane, man.

683
00:49:41,920 --> 00:49:45,680
This body's got to be rabid from those
high -impact blows from Kane.

684
00:50:08,650 --> 00:50:11,410
We took three tombstones. Never, ever
happened before.

685
00:50:11,630 --> 00:50:15,090
So it made me an even bigger character
than I had before I lost the match.

686
00:50:16,850 --> 00:50:17,330
So

687
00:50:17,330 --> 00:50:33,890
even

688
00:50:33,890 --> 00:50:38,090
though I lost, it still was a
springboard for...

689
00:50:38,430 --> 00:50:39,890
propelling the character higher.

690
00:50:43,710 --> 00:50:50,390
The art of professional wrestling is
transmitting your emotion to the

691
00:50:50,390 --> 00:50:52,810
and evoking emotions from them.

692
00:50:53,630 --> 00:50:58,010
Usually we do that, we show people our
emotions with our face.

693
00:50:58,470 --> 00:51:02,370
Obviously, because Kane was wearing a
mask, you couldn't see his face. Early

694
00:51:02,390 --> 00:51:07,310
I struggled with that because Kane is
supposed to be very dark, very brooding.

695
00:51:07,770 --> 00:51:11,130
But he's also not emotionless. And how
could I portray that emotion to the

696
00:51:11,130 --> 00:51:17,110
audience? One day, I was playing with my
dog. She was a St. Bernard named Annie.

697
00:51:17,370 --> 00:51:21,510
And I noticed that no matter what I did,
Annie would tilt her head. Now, it

698
00:51:21,510 --> 00:51:24,570
would be different degrees depending on
whether it's curiosity, depending on

699
00:51:24,570 --> 00:51:28,330
whether I had a treat, depending on
whether I whistled. But I thought that

700
00:51:28,330 --> 00:51:31,630
really cool. I wonder if Kane would do
the same thing.

701
00:51:33,420 --> 00:51:35,660
I'd watch him in the mirror, you know,
practicing.

702
00:51:35,880 --> 00:51:37,900
Oh, my good God, what if I'm married,
you know?

703
00:51:38,500 --> 00:51:41,340
The truth! I'll tell the people the
truth tonight!

704
00:51:41,560 --> 00:51:42,660
Yeah, I will.

705
00:51:43,460 --> 00:51:44,460
Yeah!

706
00:51:55,380 --> 00:51:56,880
Glenn's always felt pressure.

707
00:51:58,140 --> 00:52:01,180
He is a perfectionist, and he does want
to give.

708
00:52:01,880 --> 00:52:04,900
So much of himself, whatever it is that
he's undertaking.

709
00:52:06,000 --> 00:52:11,480
And that was something we learned early
on as a family, that the WWE

710
00:52:11,480 --> 00:52:18,240
would always be, I don't want to say
first, but

711
00:52:18,240 --> 00:52:21,780
right up there, equal to us.

712
00:52:23,300 --> 00:52:25,920
And that doesn't seem fair at times.

713
00:52:28,220 --> 00:52:34,630
Wanting... To be successful in whatever
he's doing and giving everything that

714
00:52:34,630 --> 00:52:35,529
he's got.

715
00:52:35,530 --> 00:52:39,950
I used to tell him, I said, you know,
there can only be one number one. And

716
00:52:39,950 --> 00:52:45,610
have to learn that you've got to be okay
if you're number two or number three or

717
00:52:45,610 --> 00:52:49,550
number four or five. Because in the
world, there's only one number one.

718
00:52:50,150 --> 00:52:54,010
Did that ever stop him from trying to be
number one? Oh, absolutely not.

719
00:52:55,850 --> 00:52:58,290
I don't think he always liked my logic
either.

720
00:53:00,800 --> 00:53:03,440
So, did you like working with Taker?

721
00:53:04,720 --> 00:53:08,580
Undertaker is my favorite wrestler
before I got into WWE.

722
00:53:09,160 --> 00:53:14,460
Talk about honor and privilege and all
that. It really was to work with him.

723
00:53:14,460 --> 00:53:18,660
first time I ever met Mark was 1991 or
so.

724
00:53:20,040 --> 00:53:21,040
Were you scared?

725
00:53:21,420 --> 00:53:26,160
Well, I'm backstage. The WWE show is
like, gosh, I stepped into a set of a

726
00:53:26,160 --> 00:53:28,880
horror movie with this guy walking down
the hall. Yeah, he's intimidating.

727
00:53:29,300 --> 00:53:33,620
Yeah, so are you. Well, you don't ever
think of yourself as being intimidating

728
00:53:33,620 --> 00:53:36,860
because you can't see yourself. You can
only see the other person.

729
00:53:37,220 --> 00:53:40,860
This is good because we never talked
about your business when you were

730
00:53:40,860 --> 00:53:41,860
doing your business.

731
00:53:43,520 --> 00:53:45,920
It's a good thing that I'm hearing these
stories now.

732
00:53:50,480 --> 00:53:52,860
Fire was the theme of the Kane
character.

733
00:53:53,160 --> 00:53:58,160
It made perfect sense because the whole
storyline was everyone getting burned up

734
00:53:58,160 --> 00:53:59,280
in the funeral home fire.

735
00:54:02,240 --> 00:54:02,840
Our

736
00:54:02,840 --> 00:54:09,880
story

737
00:54:09,880 --> 00:54:13,900
is probably the greatest story ever told
in WWE.

738
00:54:14,140 --> 00:54:15,380
It never stopped evolving.

739
00:54:25,800 --> 00:54:28,020
Which led to the Inferno match.

740
00:54:28,580 --> 00:54:30,720
I had a dream!

741
00:54:30,980 --> 00:54:36,020
I saw the world surrounded by fire!

742
00:54:38,420 --> 00:54:43,920
After WrestleMania 14 in Boston, the
next match between Undertaker and Kane

743
00:54:43,920 --> 00:54:45,200
the Inferno match.

744
00:54:45,520 --> 00:54:48,780
The loser must catch fire!

745
00:54:51,340 --> 00:54:55,420
The Inferno match is something birthed
in hell. It has never been witnessed and

746
00:54:55,420 --> 00:54:57,200
is difficult and frightening to
envision.

747
00:54:57,420 --> 00:55:04,100
The beginning of your eternal damnation.

748
00:55:06,500 --> 00:55:08,920
It's actually one of my favorite matches
of all time.

749
00:55:22,760 --> 00:55:26,760
I think the performance that we put on
that night was done really well.

750
00:55:29,040 --> 00:55:35,940
You had to be ready for anything.

751
00:55:36,680 --> 00:55:42,200
Working with fire, real fire, I think is
a hazard for anybody.

752
00:55:42,860 --> 00:55:48,460
But again, having the attitude that
you're going to make it work, no matter

753
00:55:48,460 --> 00:55:51,680
it takes, whatever it takes, you're
going to make it work.

754
00:55:52,490 --> 00:55:53,970
You worry about the audience?

755
00:55:54,270 --> 00:55:57,370
Is it going to get too hot or could
someone potentially get burned?

756
00:55:58,330 --> 00:56:01,690
There were a lot of unknowns more than
anything with the Inferno match.

757
00:56:01,950 --> 00:56:05,010
We're going to have some serious
combustion, so let's get ready for it.

758
00:56:06,170 --> 00:56:11,210
The first thing I can think of when JR
and I are sitting in the back going over

759
00:56:11,210 --> 00:56:16,070
with the format of the show, I said, JR,
what is this Inferno match going to be

760
00:56:16,070 --> 00:56:18,810
like? And he said, well, I'll just tell
you this.

761
00:56:19,470 --> 00:56:24,290
I was out by the ring when they were
testing the pyro, and he said, it's

762
00:56:24,290 --> 00:56:25,189
to be hot.

763
00:56:25,190 --> 00:56:29,870
I said, what do you mean going to be
hot? He said, it may singe your

764
00:56:29,870 --> 00:56:30,870
said, no way.

765
00:56:31,990 --> 00:56:36,950
It's hard to be a first in anything in
this industry.

766
00:56:37,310 --> 00:56:40,370
You tend to worry about something really
catastrophic happening.

767
00:56:40,750 --> 00:56:41,750
Look at this!

768
00:56:45,840 --> 00:56:52,540
One thing that I did not equate for was
the amount of oxygen that the fire

769
00:56:52,540 --> 00:56:53,560
was going to consume.

770
00:56:53,860 --> 00:56:58,220
I get there early, and I talk with the
stunt people who he'd brought into

771
00:56:58,220 --> 00:57:02,640
Hollywood about how we're going to do
this. Their first reaction is, wait,

772
00:57:02,720 --> 00:57:03,780
you're going to do this live?

773
00:57:04,540 --> 00:57:08,420
Back then, we didn't rehearse things
like we do today.

774
00:57:08,960 --> 00:57:12,960
We were just kind of more fly by the
seat of our pants.

775
00:57:13,540 --> 00:57:17,240
And they're like, okay, we need to set
you on fire so you're used to this.

776
00:57:18,420 --> 00:57:22,560
Never words I thought I would hear, you
need to set you on fire. So they put

777
00:57:22,560 --> 00:57:28,100
some stuff on my arm and have me in long
sleeve, go to light my arm on fire.

778
00:57:28,360 --> 00:57:31,860
When my arm gets on fire, I go to move.
No, no, no, don't move that way.

779
00:57:32,080 --> 00:57:34,820
Because if you do that, you're going to
inhale the flames. You need to keep your

780
00:57:34,820 --> 00:57:37,420
arm behind you and just keep it moving
like this the whole time.

781
00:57:37,880 --> 00:57:38,960
So I'm like, okay.

782
00:57:39,380 --> 00:57:41,600
The ring is surrounded by fire.

783
00:57:42,440 --> 00:57:43,440
Here we go.

784
00:57:43,920 --> 00:57:45,560
Trying to gain the early advantage.

785
00:57:45,820 --> 00:57:46,820
You feel that, JR?

786
00:57:47,280 --> 00:57:52,180
When the fire went off around the ring,
we were as close as anybody.

787
00:57:52,580 --> 00:57:56,920
All of a sudden, this fire came blowing
up. I could smell, you know, there's a

788
00:57:56,920 --> 00:57:59,460
distinct smell when something airs
getting sensed.

789
00:58:01,780 --> 00:58:06,860
Usually when we were doing stuff like
that, I would tell Crystal, I have to do

790
00:58:06,860 --> 00:58:07,819
something tonight.

791
00:58:07,820 --> 00:58:08,840
It's going to be okay.

792
00:58:09,450 --> 00:58:13,710
Don't worry about it. And I'd be like,
just wait. Maybe don't watch it until I

793
00:58:13,710 --> 00:58:15,470
call you and tell you that everything's
okay.

794
00:58:16,410 --> 00:58:20,610
You can't tell your wife not to watch
something where you're going to be

795
00:58:20,610 --> 00:58:26,170
on fire and be a freaking human inferno
walking around, flame shooting off of

796
00:58:26,170 --> 00:58:27,170
you.

797
00:58:27,410 --> 00:58:31,090
And you'd be praying, oh, dear God,
please, please, please, please, please,

798
00:58:31,090 --> 00:58:35,690
know, don't let him catch on fire. Let
him be okay. Let him win this one. Let

799
00:58:35,690 --> 00:58:36,870
Mark catch on fire.

800
00:58:38,640 --> 00:58:42,540
You're nervous, but we're young and
you're doing something that no one else

801
00:58:42,540 --> 00:58:45,780
ever done. You put that stuff out of
your mind and you figure out how to make

802
00:58:45,780 --> 00:58:47,380
work the best of your ability.

803
00:59:08,720 --> 00:59:12,560
I had this surreal moment where I'm
looking at myself and I'm on fire in

804
00:59:12,560 --> 00:59:16,100
of about 20 ,000 people and, of course,
millions of people watching at home.

805
00:59:16,540 --> 00:59:19,260
Throughout the match, I'm trying to keep
everything straight. I have to have

806
00:59:19,260 --> 00:59:23,440
this match. I have to do this. I have to
do that. Then this happens. Then I get

807
00:59:23,440 --> 00:59:26,380
knocked out of the ring. Oh, don't fall
into the flames when you get knocked out

808
00:59:26,380 --> 00:59:28,800
of the ring because you'll probably go
to the hospital with very bad burns.

809
00:59:28,940 --> 00:59:30,340
Well, now my arm's on fire.

810
01:00:02,379 --> 01:00:09,220
Kane, if you would speak publicly for
the

811
01:00:09,220 --> 01:00:10,220
first time.

812
01:00:24,270 --> 01:00:27,350
Set myself on fire.

813
01:00:28,290 --> 01:00:29,290
What?

814
01:00:35,310 --> 01:00:41,950
Coming down the aisle, accompanied by
Paul Bearer, is the challenger,

815
01:00:42,270 --> 01:00:48,530
King! The first blood match with Stone
Cold Steve Austin at the King of the

816
01:00:48,530 --> 01:00:51,310
in Pittsburgh in 1998.

817
01:00:52,160 --> 01:00:58,440
The stipulation was that if Kane won and
became world champion, drew first blood

818
01:00:58,440 --> 01:01:01,860
on Stone Cold Steve Austin, he'd become
world champion. Of course, if he lost,

819
01:01:01,920 --> 01:01:04,060
he would set himself on fire.

820
01:01:04,820 --> 01:01:10,340
That was also the Hell in a Cell match
between Undertaker and Mick Foley.

821
01:01:11,240 --> 01:01:15,080
Wait a minute. You think he's daring The
Undertaker to start this match up

822
01:01:15,080 --> 01:01:16,080
there?

823
01:01:28,990 --> 01:01:34,590
Vince McMahon looks me squarely in the
eye and says, if Mick can't come out,

824
01:01:34,750 --> 01:01:36,730
you're going to have to figure out what
to do.

825
01:01:38,950 --> 01:01:41,290
I ain't setting myself on fire, okay?

826
01:01:41,730 --> 01:01:43,590
Let's take that off the table
immediately.

827
01:01:45,470 --> 01:01:49,410
There was some trepidation in my mind
about whether we were going to be able

828
01:01:49,410 --> 01:01:52,630
pull this match off because of Mick's
physical condition.

829
01:01:54,450 --> 01:01:55,950
Mankind is supposed to come out.

830
01:01:56,470 --> 01:01:57,730
Undertaker is supposed to come out.

831
01:01:58,860 --> 01:02:03,280
Undertaker takes a swing, hits Austin,
Austin gets cut, first blood, Kane's

832
01:02:03,280 --> 01:02:06,900
champion. Does not have to set himself
on fire, which was top of mind for me.

833
01:02:07,600 --> 01:02:14,340
The winner of this bout and new World
Wrestling

834
01:02:14,340 --> 01:02:17,760
Federation champion, Kane!

835
01:02:19,020 --> 01:02:25,340
To become world champion was just
amazing.

836
01:02:26,380 --> 01:02:31,400
That first one, man, that was just so
special because I joined a very select

837
01:02:31,400 --> 01:02:33,120
group of individuals.

838
01:02:33,340 --> 01:02:40,120
Not only is it an honor for the entire
world to see, but also it's the fact

839
01:02:40,120 --> 01:02:41,300
the company believes it.

840
01:02:41,940 --> 01:02:46,640
WWE was taking off and going anyway, but
I think that was really a booster that

841
01:02:46,640 --> 01:02:48,020
shot us up to the next level.

842
01:02:48,980 --> 01:02:54,260
Kane was just going to the moon. I never
thought, I never believed it was

843
01:02:54,260 --> 01:02:55,260
possible.

844
01:03:17,410 --> 01:03:22,890
I was a celebrity who has risen to such
fame as Cain.

845
01:03:23,930 --> 01:03:30,230
I realized that this was the opportunity
of a lifetime.

846
01:03:30,790 --> 01:03:33,430
Cain was just going to the moon.

847
01:03:35,090 --> 01:03:38,870
It simply did not get any bigger than
that.

848
01:03:39,310 --> 01:03:42,090
The overall experience of this
commercial was amazing.

849
01:03:42,370 --> 01:03:46,950
Fans get to see me gardening,
crocheting, and maybe even see my pet

850
01:03:46,950 --> 01:03:51,250
collection. I never thought this would
have been possible for someone like me.

851
01:03:51,250 --> 01:03:56,130
mean, I dreamed about it, but I never
thought, I never believed that it was

852
01:03:56,130 --> 01:04:00,390
possible. I'm here today at the NBC
studios in Burbank to film an episode of

853
01:04:00,390 --> 01:04:01,229
Weakest Link.

854
01:04:01,230 --> 01:04:03,090
Kane, you good at wrestling?

855
01:04:03,370 --> 01:04:05,430
Yes. You good at anything else?

856
01:04:05,630 --> 01:04:06,630
No.

857
01:04:08,140 --> 01:04:09,720
Can you try and speak more clearly?

858
01:04:10,060 --> 01:04:11,680
Can you try to speak more clearly, too?

859
01:04:12,820 --> 01:04:17,500
I think we could bring her and make her
a disciplinarian or authoritative

860
01:04:17,500 --> 01:04:21,360
figure, the demented schoolmarm, if you
will, and she'd do great.

861
01:04:21,860 --> 01:04:23,820
She might scare everybody backstage,
though.

862
01:04:24,320 --> 01:04:27,900
Kane, in psychology, who introduced the
theory of the Oedipus complex?

863
01:04:29,040 --> 01:04:29,939
Sigmund Freud.

864
01:04:29,940 --> 01:04:33,380
What French national heroine was burned
at the stake in 1431?

865
01:04:33,760 --> 01:04:34,760
Joan of Arc.

866
01:04:36,040 --> 01:04:37,580
I am the strongest link.

867
01:04:38,090 --> 01:04:43,030
Goodbye. I think the key to longevity in
WWE is the ability to reinvent

868
01:04:43,030 --> 01:04:48,050
yourself. Through the years, it changed
a lot from where I was a silent brooding

869
01:04:48,050 --> 01:04:52,230
character to more of like an actual
superhero.

870
01:04:53,770 --> 01:05:00,710
Don't you realize when you jumped on
Kane, you jumped on me. As easy as

871
01:05:00,710 --> 01:05:06,750
it is to relate to two brothers
fighting, it's also very relatable to

872
01:05:06,750 --> 01:05:07,609
make up.

873
01:05:07,610 --> 01:05:12,210
When they realized that we're family and
that we're blood and that we're

874
01:05:12,210 --> 01:05:14,730
stronger together than a phone.

875
01:05:19,150 --> 01:05:25,710
And when we finally brought the two
brothers together as a tag team and

876
01:05:25,710 --> 01:05:29,090
of destruction were born, now the
audience was happy.

877
01:05:29,450 --> 01:05:34,390
Undertaker and Kane combined make the
most destructive force in history.

878
01:05:34,790 --> 01:05:35,930
Why is it?

879
01:05:36,330 --> 01:05:39,650
Everyone feels it necessary to anger
Kane and I.

880
01:05:40,590 --> 01:05:44,950
Brothers in Destruction was another
dream come true. It was awesome to be

881
01:05:44,950 --> 01:05:48,470
Undertaker's opponent. It was even
better to be his teammate.

882
01:05:53,390 --> 01:05:53,930
There

883
01:05:53,930 --> 01:06:00,970
was

884
01:06:00,970 --> 01:06:04,030
nobody, nobody that matched up with us,
right?

885
01:06:04,680 --> 01:06:08,180
So we just basically killed just about
everybody that we got in the ring with.

886
01:06:08,240 --> 01:06:09,240
We just murdered them.

887
01:06:13,980 --> 01:06:14,400
The

888
01:06:14,400 --> 01:06:21,860
audience

889
01:06:21,860 --> 01:06:25,680
just bought it hook, line, and sinker
-flankly. They thought, oh, this is

890
01:06:25,680 --> 01:06:27,220
awesome. Undertaker and Kane are
together.

891
01:06:29,700 --> 01:06:33,060
Within the period of its run, I think it
was...

892
01:06:33,660 --> 01:06:34,780
Pretty damn good.

893
01:06:38,220 --> 01:06:45,220
At least once a

894
01:06:45,220 --> 01:06:49,040
week I get that question. Are you and
Kane really brothers?

895
01:06:49,720 --> 01:06:51,460
Oh, we're half brothers, yeah.

896
01:06:53,400 --> 01:06:54,480
Brothers in spirit.

897
01:06:54,860 --> 01:06:57,000
And sometimes I'll say, yeah, we're
brothers.

898
01:06:58,480 --> 01:07:01,000
I look at him as a brother, so I might
as well.

899
01:07:02,190 --> 01:07:05,450
Mark Calloway is one of my idols. He is
a mentor to me.

900
01:07:05,910 --> 01:07:10,410
There wouldn't be a Kane if there hadn't
been an Undertaker in the end. If it

901
01:07:10,410 --> 01:07:14,790
hadn't been for him, my life would not
be where it is today.

902
01:07:16,090 --> 01:07:20,390
So I owe him a lot, both professionally
and personally.

903
01:07:21,970 --> 01:07:27,290
The natural evolution at that time for
sports entertainment and professional

904
01:07:27,290 --> 01:07:28,630
wrestling meshing.

905
01:07:29,840 --> 01:07:36,500
You had this guy where, yes, you can
still tell that mythological story about

906
01:07:36,500 --> 01:07:38,840
Kane and Taker, but you had to evolve.

907
01:07:39,300 --> 01:07:41,720
I think that's the natural progression
of anything.

908
01:07:43,140 --> 01:07:49,800
As an artist in WWE, part of what keeps
you going is that creativity.

909
01:07:51,160 --> 01:07:53,980
You're creating your character, evolving
it.

910
01:07:54,680 --> 01:07:58,900
And I also took it as a personal
challenge because I wanted to prove to

911
01:07:58,900 --> 01:08:03,050
that Kane is not just the guy, Glenn
Jacobs is not just the guy whose

912
01:08:03,050 --> 01:08:05,410
has to stand there and not say anything
all the time.

913
01:08:05,630 --> 01:08:07,170
He can do a lot more than that.

914
01:08:07,550 --> 01:08:13,750
You know the stipulations. Take that
mask off. What is this going to be like?

915
01:08:13,810 --> 01:08:16,210
What is it going to look like? Oh, my
God.

916
01:08:17,189 --> 01:08:19,590
You know,

917
01:08:21,609 --> 01:08:23,050
Kane, you're hiding something.

918
01:08:24,590 --> 01:08:27,229
It's a lot more than that face behind
the mask, too.

919
01:08:28,450 --> 01:08:29,450
Triple H.

920
01:08:35,080 --> 01:08:37,979
or he must unmask and reveal his
identity.

921
01:08:41,960 --> 01:08:44,040
Here it comes.

922
01:08:44,560 --> 01:08:46,000
The top layup.

923
01:08:46,220 --> 01:08:48,420
And Randy Orton take a cane.

924
01:08:48,660 --> 01:08:49,859
Face first down.

925
01:08:50,180 --> 01:08:52,020
A referee didn't see Orton's
interference.

926
01:08:52,560 --> 01:08:53,560
Kick out.

927
01:08:54,500 --> 01:09:00,060
Oh, my God. The game wins it. You know
the stipulations. Now take.

928
01:09:03,720 --> 01:09:08,000
We had a big change in 2003 when we took
the mask off. A lot of folks thought

929
01:09:08,000 --> 01:09:09,000
that that was a huge mistake.

930
01:09:10,380 --> 01:09:11,899
He should have stayed under the mask.

931
01:09:12,500 --> 01:09:17,260
I thought when you do that unmasking
thing, I get there has to be an

932
01:09:17,260 --> 01:09:21,880
to the character, but for me personally,
I was a little disappointed with it. I

933
01:09:21,880 --> 01:09:23,060
just didn't see the need.

934
01:09:23,279 --> 01:09:27,180
I prefer the Michael Myers type
character. I don't know if it needed

935
01:09:27,180 --> 01:09:29,859
evolution. I would have been happy with
just that monster for 20 years.

936
01:09:31,490 --> 01:09:37,790
Unmasking Kane was probably one of the
top debates over the years that we've

937
01:09:37,790 --> 01:09:43,529
had, is do you take this character and
take away the mystique by unmasking him,

938
01:09:43,609 --> 01:09:49,950
or do you take the next step with him,
unmasking him and allowing him to be

939
01:09:49,950 --> 01:09:54,570
human? It's something that you have to
do at some point.

940
01:09:55,010 --> 01:09:58,030
They wanted him to be able to express
himself.

941
01:09:58,830 --> 01:10:02,350
With a mask on, it's really hard to
express yourself. It's hard to get

942
01:10:02,550 --> 01:10:06,950
It's hard to get people to feel like
someone's in peril without that facial

943
01:10:06,950 --> 01:10:10,630
expression. The only people that were
really for it were Vince McMahon and me,

944
01:10:10,750 --> 01:10:13,990
but those were the only two people that
needed me for it because it was the most

945
01:10:13,990 --> 01:10:14,990
important people.

946
01:10:15,430 --> 01:10:16,510
What's King going to do?

947
01:10:16,850 --> 01:10:21,110
As they were shaving my head, Bruce
Prichard walks in, and my head's about

948
01:10:21,110 --> 01:10:23,170
halfway shaved, and Bruce said, hey,
stop right there.

949
01:10:23,550 --> 01:10:26,170
Let me get Vince. Vince came in. He's
like, oh, you're exactly right. I think

950
01:10:26,170 --> 01:10:27,170
it's great.

951
01:10:37,800 --> 01:10:41,380
I remember him being terrifying.

952
01:10:41,740 --> 01:10:45,900
He looked horrified. When you think
about other movie monsters with masks,

953
01:10:46,060 --> 01:10:50,240
that's kind of what you're thinking when
you see them take their mask off.

954
01:10:50,480 --> 01:10:51,580
What the hell is that?

955
01:10:52,280 --> 01:10:53,740
Get a shot of that face!

956
01:10:54,200 --> 01:10:57,020
My daughter and I, the youngest, were
sitting on the bed.

957
01:10:57,640 --> 01:11:00,280
We were watching the match, and she
said, that's not bad.

958
01:11:01,780 --> 01:11:03,800
I said, oh, hell yeah, it is.

959
01:11:05,280 --> 01:11:06,280
That's him.

960
01:11:08,060 --> 01:11:13,640
She was not happy with my judgment on
that decision because she really liked

961
01:11:13,640 --> 01:11:14,599
hair.

962
01:11:14,600 --> 01:11:19,500
At the time, I had long, flowing hair,
very thick that went halfway down my

963
01:11:19,500 --> 01:11:20,500
back.

964
01:11:23,740 --> 01:11:26,440
It was awful. It was friggin' awful.

965
01:11:28,200 --> 01:11:29,480
And so he calls.

966
01:11:30,380 --> 01:11:31,380
What do you think?

967
01:11:31,420 --> 01:11:32,480
It's great, isn't it?

968
01:11:33,200 --> 01:11:36,980
And I'm like, where in the hell is your
hair?

969
01:11:37,340 --> 01:11:38,420
He said, it's in a bag.

970
01:11:38,820 --> 01:11:41,840
And that's exactly what he told me, it's
in a bag. And I'm like,

971
01:11:43,380 --> 01:11:44,380
well, get it back.

972
01:11:44,880 --> 01:11:47,480
He thought, I can't. And I'm like,

973
01:11:48,300 --> 01:11:51,740
uh -huh, we're going to talk about this
when you get home or something like

974
01:11:51,740 --> 01:11:54,480
that. I mean, I wasn't impressed at all,
but he thought it was great.

975
01:11:54,960 --> 01:11:56,080
Ah! Oh.

976
01:11:57,040 --> 01:12:01,300
I imagine it was probably scary for him
being under that mask as a comfort zone

977
01:12:01,300 --> 01:12:04,280
for you for a long time, and now you're
doing something completely different.

978
01:12:04,420 --> 01:12:08,060
Oh, my God, there he is. He knew this
was just another dimension for this

979
01:12:08,060 --> 01:12:09,240
character to go.

980
01:12:10,240 --> 01:12:16,680
I'm thinking this is the person that's
going to be home with me and going to

981
01:12:16,680 --> 01:12:20,120
events with the kids with this.

982
01:12:21,180 --> 01:12:24,640
Shaved head. And it just got worse from
there because it went from half shaved

983
01:12:24,640 --> 01:12:26,820
head to full shaved head to no eyebrows.

984
01:12:27,260 --> 01:12:31,960
Yeah. That really not only breathed new
life into Kane, it almost gave me a

985
01:12:31,960 --> 01:12:32,960
second career.

986
01:12:34,520 --> 01:12:40,520
His character had so many levels and his
range was just amazing.

987
01:12:42,060 --> 01:12:48,540
He ends up cutting all these incredible.

988
01:12:49,309 --> 01:12:53,450
You want to know why I became a monster?

989
01:12:55,510 --> 01:12:58,790
Why don't you come down here and find
out?

990
01:12:59,090 --> 01:13:05,430
I think you need to feel my pain.

991
01:13:05,950 --> 01:13:12,830
Where they needed him to go, he was able
to

992
01:13:12,830 --> 01:13:15,810
go and make it work exceptionally well.

993
01:13:25,969 --> 01:13:32,870
On paper, that Kane character seemed
exciting, but with a limited

994
01:13:32,870 --> 01:13:33,870
shelf life.

995
01:13:34,770 --> 01:13:41,190
Because he was covered from head to toe.
You saw nothing except his eyes.

996
01:13:47,690 --> 01:13:50,270
You ain't down with the big red machine.

997
01:13:50,690 --> 01:13:57,630
And yet we're talking about him 25

998
01:13:57,630 --> 01:14:03,430
years after he made his debut because he
was able to inject humanity

999
01:14:03,430 --> 01:14:06,010
into an inhumane character.

1000
01:14:06,270 --> 01:14:09,810
He made you care about him with just the
slightest tilt of his head.

1001
01:14:20,590 --> 01:14:26,310
One of the things I gleaned from Glenn
very early on was his adaptability.

1002
01:14:26,870 --> 01:14:30,410
That's what you really want out of a
good character. You want a character

1003
01:14:30,410 --> 01:14:32,050
can do comedy.

1004
01:14:32,370 --> 01:14:37,310
The question is, brothers, whatcha gonna
do?

1005
01:14:37,930 --> 01:14:44,790
Whatcha gonna do when Hulk Hogan and The
Rock and the Big Red Machine run wild

1006
01:14:44,790 --> 01:14:45,790
for you?

1007
01:14:46,800 --> 01:14:53,800
It can do wild storylines. It's also a
badass or a movie monster that has some

1008
01:14:53,800 --> 01:14:54,800
emotional range.

1009
01:14:55,020 --> 01:14:56,840
Who's speaking to you right now?

1010
01:14:57,060 --> 01:15:02,760
Some demon from the depths of hell. Or a
man in a suit.

1011
01:15:03,040 --> 01:15:04,540
Your friend, Tank.

1012
01:15:04,880 --> 01:15:08,720
The fact that he's been able to do that
over the course of his career speaks

1013
01:15:08,720 --> 01:15:10,420
volumes to him as a performer.

1014
01:15:11,280 --> 01:15:14,460
If you needed something, you could go to
Kane. Like, you needed a monster. You

1015
01:15:14,460 --> 01:15:17,740
needed a great match. You needed
somebody agile. You needed somebody to

1016
01:15:17,740 --> 01:15:19,120
something entertaining and funny.

1017
01:15:19,580 --> 01:15:22,060
Okay, Kane, thank you for coming.

1018
01:15:22,480 --> 01:15:24,000
Remember, sharing is caring.

1019
01:15:24,380 --> 01:15:27,040
I buried my brother alive, twice.

1020
01:15:27,600 --> 01:15:32,640
I set a couple of people on fire and
abducted various co -workers.

1021
01:15:32,940 --> 01:15:36,040
And I once electrocuted a man's
testicles.

1022
01:15:36,400 --> 01:15:39,600
Years ago, I had a girlfriend named
Katie, but, uh...

1023
01:15:39,960 --> 01:15:43,760
Let's just say that that didn't turn out
so well. And for reasons never quite

1024
01:15:43,760 --> 01:15:49,540
explained, I have an unhealthy obsession
with torturing Pete Rose.

1025
01:15:53,060 --> 01:15:59,540
Okay. The monster and the beauty, I
think people also can relate to because

1026
01:15:59,540 --> 01:16:01,300
everybody needs love.

1027
01:16:01,520 --> 01:16:06,220
And for the monster to fall in love and
for the monster to actually show

1028
01:16:06,220 --> 01:16:07,220
emotion.

1029
01:16:07,370 --> 01:16:11,090
And to show emotion through a mask is
very difficult to do.

1030
01:16:12,570 --> 01:16:13,570
Hello?

1031
01:16:14,750 --> 01:16:16,210
Is this Halle Berry?

1032
01:16:17,530 --> 01:16:19,230
Uh, yes.

1033
01:16:19,570 --> 01:16:23,710
Why don't you ever return my fan mail? I
feel like we've made a connection.

1034
01:16:23,990 --> 01:16:28,130
I mean, I even included a picture. You
wrote that your home address is the

1035
01:16:28,130 --> 01:16:29,430
depths of hell.

1036
01:16:29,970 --> 01:16:31,690
What do you expect me to do with that?

1037
01:16:31,930 --> 01:16:33,650
Does this mean we're not going on that
picnic?

1038
01:16:37,320 --> 01:16:41,340
I've been very fortunate to have worked
with all the people I've worked with,

1039
01:16:41,440 --> 01:16:44,540
everybody from Undertaker to Daniel
Bryan.

1040
01:16:44,780 --> 01:16:50,560
And they've been instrumental in
allowing me to do that, that process of

1041
01:16:50,560 --> 01:16:52,580
continually reinventing yourself.

1042
01:16:52,860 --> 01:16:56,000
Because frankly, our audience is just
like any other audience.

1043
01:16:56,460 --> 01:17:00,580
It's really cool when you're there for a
while, you get stale and they want to

1044
01:17:00,580 --> 01:17:01,559
see something new.

1045
01:17:01,560 --> 01:17:02,560
What can I say?

1046
01:17:04,260 --> 01:17:06,240
Chicks, dig the mask.

1047
01:17:07,790 --> 01:17:13,130
I've been blessed to have a fantastic
WWE career.

1048
01:17:13,450 --> 01:17:17,650
But the greatest blessing I've had is my
family.

1049
01:17:18,710 --> 01:17:22,770
Without them, I never would have been
able to do what I did in WWE.

1050
01:17:27,970 --> 01:17:34,950
Crystal's plan for our life was that
when I retired from WWE, we

1051
01:17:34,950 --> 01:17:38,840
would, I guess, just... kind of enjoy
each other and live life.

1052
01:17:40,000 --> 01:17:41,580
Then I get this wild idea.

1053
01:17:42,460 --> 01:17:46,140
I want to get into politics, which was
not something that she had ever planned

1054
01:17:46,140 --> 01:17:47,140
on.

1055
01:17:48,820 --> 01:17:54,820
I'm in a unique situation because of who
I am and because of the wrestling thing

1056
01:17:54,820 --> 01:17:56,560
and now because I'm mayor.

1057
01:17:57,450 --> 01:18:01,690
trying to show the rest of the world and
even people here within our community

1058
01:18:01,690 --> 01:18:04,970
what a great place this is, the assets
that we have, the things that there are

1059
01:18:04,970 --> 01:18:07,410
to see, and things that we need to work
on.

1060
01:18:21,350 --> 01:18:25,450
We're at Schultz Brown, Knox County, and
we're kicking off Oktoberfest. I just

1061
01:18:25,450 --> 01:18:26,550
got to tap the kegs.

1062
01:18:27,050 --> 01:18:30,950
at the same time that the mayor of
Munich, Germany, kicks off October 5th

1063
01:18:34,930 --> 01:18:38,750
This is the leader hose in the
traditional Bavarian outfit.

1064
01:18:38,990 --> 01:18:42,530
These are extremely uncomfortable,
actually. It's all leather, so you can't

1065
01:18:42,530 --> 01:18:43,610
really move that well in them.

1066
01:18:44,550 --> 01:18:46,330
It's awesome that you come and do this.

1067
01:18:46,550 --> 01:18:47,550
It's fun, man.

1068
01:18:50,710 --> 01:18:52,130
There's a big learning curve.

1069
01:18:52,390 --> 01:18:55,750
It was almost like being back in my
first match in professional wrestling.

1070
01:18:56,220 --> 01:18:57,220
Oh, my gosh.

1071
01:18:57,720 --> 01:18:58,720
Here I am.

1072
01:18:59,260 --> 01:19:00,280
What am I going to do?

1073
01:19:01,620 --> 01:19:03,800
Hey, Jet. What's going on, buddy?

1074
01:19:04,140 --> 01:19:05,840
It's a good shirt, dude. I like that.

1075
01:19:06,140 --> 01:19:08,860
Because now it wasn't just about me and
WWE.

1076
01:19:09,080 --> 01:19:12,940
It was also now about 500 ,000 people in
Knox County.

1077
01:19:13,220 --> 01:19:14,920
Jet is his biggest fan.

1078
01:19:15,300 --> 01:19:17,460
Hey, good morning. Now I'm not
president.

1079
01:19:17,840 --> 01:19:20,200
Mayor Jacobs, can you give him a big one
-up?

1080
01:19:24,780 --> 01:19:28,940
This is something people look forward to
every year. Dogwood Arts Festival and

1081
01:19:28,940 --> 01:19:31,480
the official opening of the Dogwood
Trails.

1082
01:19:31,820 --> 01:19:36,540
I don't think any of us thought, there's
the future mayor of Knox County with a

1083
01:19:36,540 --> 01:19:37,540
Hall of Fame career.

1084
01:19:38,600 --> 01:19:39,760
Thank you very much.

1085
01:19:41,140 --> 01:19:47,320
One day I woke up and had this idea. The
current county mayor wouldn't be

1086
01:19:47,320 --> 01:19:48,320
running again.

1087
01:19:48,480 --> 01:19:53,120
Good to see you, bud. Nice to see you.
Open seats don't come up that often.

1088
01:19:53,640 --> 01:19:58,560
And I thought to myself, huh, that might
be something that I would be good at,

1089
01:19:58,660 --> 01:19:59,660
would like to do.

1090
01:19:59,840 --> 01:20:03,460
Maybe I'll do that and bounce the idea
off a couple of friends.

1091
01:20:04,480 --> 01:20:05,800
Are you bleeping crazy?

1092
01:20:07,000 --> 01:20:10,460
I think probably was my first things out
of my mouth.

1093
01:20:11,120 --> 01:20:16,620
And then really, that's pretty damn
cool, man.

1094
01:20:17,230 --> 01:20:21,290
No, we really didn't know that he was
going to do that. And I thought, oh, my

1095
01:20:21,290 --> 01:20:26,330
goodness. And then he told us what he
had in mind to do, which was to

1096
01:20:26,330 --> 01:20:32,730
young people to go to school, get an
education, be ready to go to work. And I

1097
01:20:32,730 --> 01:20:34,170
say, this is wonderful.

1098
01:20:34,630 --> 01:20:35,469
How are you, sir?

1099
01:20:35,470 --> 01:20:38,790
You guys getting some hot chicken? One
of the first things I did after I made

1100
01:20:38,790 --> 01:20:43,710
the decision to run for mayor was fly
off to Stanford and talk to Vince.

1101
01:20:45,800 --> 01:20:49,280
As soon as I said this is what I want to
do, he got a big old grin and told me

1102
01:20:49,280 --> 01:20:50,259
that's what I should do.

1103
01:20:50,260 --> 01:20:56,120
And that meant a lot to me, having his
support, because, you know, he could

1104
01:20:56,120 --> 01:20:58,300
said, well, that's stupid. Why would I
do that?

1105
01:20:58,780 --> 01:21:03,040
And that would have pretty much shot
down any ambition that I had. So the

1106
01:21:03,040 --> 01:21:05,540
that he was supportive of it really
meant a lot to me.

1107
01:21:05,920 --> 01:21:11,940
Just a big win for a big man. You
probably know Glenn Jacobs is 6 '8",

1108
01:21:12,000 --> 01:21:14,580
he's certainly feeling like he's
towering tonight.

1109
01:21:15,040 --> 01:21:19,100
Glenn's a very smart guy, and Glenn is a
guy that has no detractors.

1110
01:21:20,500 --> 01:21:22,580
There are people that may disagree with
his politics.

1111
01:21:23,140 --> 01:21:27,380
Nobody disagrees with Glenn Jacobs as a
man because they love him.

1112
01:21:29,120 --> 01:21:33,940
I think that my career in WWE made it a
lot easier for me to transition into

1113
01:21:33,940 --> 01:21:39,980
politics because I'm already used to
being in the public eye, and I developed

1114
01:21:39,980 --> 01:21:40,980
thick skin.

1115
01:21:45,070 --> 01:21:51,370
In my case here, I just try to do the
best that I can, and I try to do what I

1116
01:21:51,370 --> 01:21:52,670
think is right, no matter what.

1117
01:21:55,010 --> 01:21:59,150
When I first got into professional
wrestling, I had no idea where it was

1118
01:21:59,150 --> 01:22:00,150
to end up.

1119
01:22:00,610 --> 01:22:04,370
I didn't have any other plans for my
life. I thought wherever it would take

1120
01:22:04,370 --> 01:22:06,110
was wherever it would take me.

1121
01:22:14,960 --> 01:22:20,600
There were a lot of moments where I
didn't necessarily know if it was worth

1122
01:22:20,740 --> 01:22:25,360
I didn't know where I was going to end
up. I didn't know what was going to

1123
01:22:25,360 --> 01:22:28,440
happen. But that was not enough to ever
make me quit.

1124
01:22:28,800 --> 01:22:33,400
I never had the moment where I just
threw my hands up and said it wasn't

1125
01:22:33,400 --> 01:22:34,400
it.

1126
01:22:36,720 --> 01:22:42,560
I'll go out on a limb and say that the
Kane -Undertaker story is probably the

1127
01:22:42,560 --> 01:22:43,660
greatest story.

1128
01:22:44,870 --> 01:22:45,870
WWE's ever told.

1129
01:22:47,910 --> 01:22:50,930
It spanned 25 years.

1130
01:22:51,810 --> 01:22:57,810
There's so many different layers to it,
levels to it. That was your week.

1131
01:22:59,910 --> 01:23:06,270
I can't emphasize enough. Glenn making
this work was impossible.

1132
01:23:06,970 --> 01:23:11,150
Yes, it was funny. There's no wrestler
alive that could have done this except

1133
01:23:11,150 --> 01:23:12,049
for Glenn Jacobs.

1134
01:23:12,050 --> 01:23:13,050
He's that good.

1135
01:23:16,390 --> 01:23:17,530
I'm the tag team champion.

1136
01:23:17,790 --> 01:23:20,730
I'm the tag team champion. I'm the tag
team champion. He could work with

1137
01:23:20,730 --> 01:23:23,370
anybody. He was really gifted on the
mic.

1138
01:23:23,590 --> 01:23:30,110
He's a freak, just like me. He is a bona
fide top 20 guy in all of wrestling.

1139
01:23:30,590 --> 01:23:32,890
Hey, I'm starving.

1140
01:23:33,350 --> 01:23:37,810
No, animals are our friends. He was a
guy that was loved and appreciated by

1141
01:23:37,810 --> 01:23:38,749
his peers.

1142
01:23:38,750 --> 01:23:44,230
They say good things happen to people
that deserve it. You don't find guys

1143
01:23:44,230 --> 01:23:45,230
him every day.

1144
01:23:51,760 --> 01:23:54,740
Pro wrestling can be anything you want
it to be.

1145
01:23:55,080 --> 01:23:57,520
Taking people on a white knuckle ride.

1146
01:24:00,500 --> 01:24:07,420
And then you can make them laugh the

1147
01:24:07,420 --> 01:24:08,420
next week.

1148
01:24:10,620 --> 01:24:12,600
So it's a balancing act.

1149
01:24:13,140 --> 01:24:15,880
And Kane did it as well as anybody.

1150
01:24:25,740 --> 01:24:32,640
He paid heavy dues and he persevered and
he rolled with the punches

1151
01:24:32,640 --> 01:24:39,200
and got himself into a position where he
could be one of the biggest stars in

1152
01:24:39,200 --> 01:24:40,280
WWE history.

1153
01:24:40,540 --> 01:24:46,500
This says a lot about him. Thank you for
making Kane one of the most memorable

1154
01:24:46,500 --> 01:24:51,740
characters ever. And Kane would like to
leave you with this.

1155
01:24:52,840 --> 01:24:59,800
The story has lasted all these years.
The man behind that character has so

1156
01:24:59,800 --> 01:25:05,000
character that he's been able to endure.
He's been able to adapt for the

1157
01:25:05,000 --> 01:25:11,440
audience to be on this journey with Kane
through all of these different

1158
01:25:11,440 --> 01:25:16,880
identities helps the lasting impression
that Kane will have on everyone that's

1159
01:25:16,880 --> 01:25:18,780
ever invested in that character.