WWE Monday Night RAW 25th anniversary: Ranking the 25 biggest stars

18. Kane

I actually almost have a problem putting Kane this low on the list given his longevity. However, with the remaining superstars on this list, I have no choice but to put him in at number 18.

While Kane didn’t officially appear in WWE until 1997, Glenn Jacobs actually made his Monday Night RAW debut in 1995 as Isaac Yankem, an evil dentist. Oh, the mid-1990s were a great time, weren’t they? That gimmick made it a little over a year, at which point Jacobs was then repackaged as the new Diesel when Vince McMahon seriously thought it was a good idea to try and replace Scott Hall and Kevin Nash, both of whom had left for WCW. This one didn’t even make it a year, and Jacobs was once again off of television for months.

However, he finally struck gold in the form of Kane, the long-lost brother of The Undertaker. He debuted at In Your House: Badd Blood during the first-ever Hell in a Cell Match featuring ‘Taker and Shawn Michaels, going on to become a staple of Monday Night RAW during the Attitude Era. He feuded with his “brother” for nearly a year, including picking up a win on Monday Night RAW to become the number one contender for the WWE Championship, which he actually held for a day after beating Stone Cold Steve Austin at King of the Ring before losing it the following Monday night.

After winning the tag titles twice with Mankind, he joined up with The Undertaker in a fun program with Austin, which resulted in a vacant WWE Championship that The Rock would later win at Survivor Series. From there, he got into an entertaining storyline with X-Pac, which resulted in him getting a girlfriend and speaking his first words (“Suck it”) as this character. He was on-again and off-again with The Undertaker for years and was always near the top of the card, even if he wasn’t often the main event. He won multiple tag titles with a few different partners and was always entertaining. Much like The Big Show, he had crazy athleticism for someone his size.

One of the best moments in Kane’s RAW career came in late 2002 as he single-handedly defended the World Tag Team Championships that he and The Hurricane held in a four-team TLC match. Unfortunately, the momentum wouldn’t last, as the infamous feud with Triple H involving Katie Vick soon followed. That was a really low point and one of the most distasteful angles in WWE history.

He crossed paths with Triple H the following year, and perhaps the biggest moment in Kane’s history on RAW came on June 23, 2003, a match that had the stipulation that if Kane lost, he would have to remove his mask. He did lose the match and it led to him snapping, which included another big Monday night moment as he gave the Tombstone to none other than Linda McMahon.

Following the unmasking, Kane got into other entertaining storylines with Lita, which made for interesting TV. He teamed with Big Show for a while before moving to SmackDown and the new ECW brand for a while but would still find later success on Monday Night RAW as part of Team Hell No with Daniel Bryan, which made for some of the funniest bits of this decade. He also spent time as the Director of Operations for The Authority, obviously a big change in character for Jacobs. However, that only goes to show his versatility.

Face or heel, funny or not, Kane has always been a great character and has done everything that’s been asked of him. It’s not known how much longer he’ll be around, but it’s nice that he’s getting one more shot at a big-time match as the latest program with Brock Lesnar and Braun Strowman has been a nice surprise. Had Kane moved the needle just even a little bit more, he might have been in the top 15 and maybe even the top 10.