WWE’s “Big Red Machine” has announced he will run for mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee.
Glen Jacobs, better known to WWE fans as Kane, will be taking on his biggest challenge to date — the City of Knoxville. Specifically, he has announced he will be running for mayor of the Tennessee city.
It’s been rumored for a couple of years that he might run for office at some point, but he made the announcement official via Facebook Live.
In the announcement, he noted that WWE had taken him around the world and it allowed his family to live anywhere he wanted. He wanted to live in Knox County, here he has resided for over 20 years.
He follows a short list of past WWE competitors that have run for office. Jesse Ventura served as governor of Minnesota, Jerry “The King” Lawler had previously run for mayor of Memphis, and Booker T recently announced he’s running for mayor of Houston. On Tuesday afternoon, he spoke about his intentions.
"As Knox County mayor I promise to keep taxes low and make Knox County a place everyone can be proud of. I see my role as that of a facilitator among the different communities in our area. And also I think that Mayor Burchett has done a very good job with transparency in government and I would continue along those lines."
Jacobs has been part of WWE since the mid-90s, and has ben through a revolving door of character reboots. After short stints as Jerry Lawler’s personal dentist, Isaac Yankem DDS and as the fake Diesel, he finally found success as Kane in 1997. The Kane character was initially designed to be the brother of The Undertaker, but would break out as his own superstar. He went on to have big matches against the likes of “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, Triple H, The Rock, and others during the height of the Attitude Era.
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He will be running as a Republican, in the 2018 elections. He filed the official paperwork for his campaign last month in Knoxville