I just saw a commercial for a WWE Live Event at MSG and it had Kane in the main event, and I started laughing. This is Kane's 23rd year in the WWF/E, he's sucked for (at least) 21 of them, while imitating more beloved figures for 22 of them. How is this possible?

I think Kane might be the embodiment of a changing "wrestler's wrestler" archetype. That used to be used for types that were "workrate" good, but you supposedly needed an advanced eye to see how good they were while giants or body builders ruled the land. Now with "workrate" guys getting recognized, it seems like the  "wrestler's wrestler" has shifted towards wrestlers that other wrestlers find easy to work with whether that translates to the enjoyment of the audience or not (usually not). Although he's better than Kane, Randy Orton also fits this mold, a wrestler other wrestlers marvel about his technical abilities, like Randy Orton is some second coming of Bret Hart or Daniel Bryan, meanwhile the audience just sees some bland, overpushed bozo. I got a little off topic, although maybe that idea is interesting to somebody.

Anyway, has Kane sucked for 21 of 23 years? Is he overrated in WWE lore? Is he underrated by me? What are his five best singles matches? Does he have five good singles matches?

So basically the deal is that the WWE is high on Braun Strowman vs. Brock Lesnar, but they don't want Strowman doing anymore jobs. So they enlist Kane to be the guy that takes the pinfall so they can have their cake and eat it as well. Like everything that happens around Kane, originally the WWE had these grand designs in place but everything went belly-up. They wanted to build Finn Balor for a match against Brock Lesnar, but Bray Wyatt got sick and put a kabosh to that. They also had plans for a Shield reunion, but Roman came down with something and Dean tore his tricep, effectively killing that. So the WWE got desperate and booked this match which ended up being Kurt Angle, Seth Rollins & Dean Ambrose vs. The Miz, The Bar, Braun Strowman & Kane for the main event of their PPV in one of the most bizarre matches you'll see. This was near Uncensored 1996 levels of bizarre and outside of giving fans a feel-good Kurt Angle moment, they had Kane turn on Braun in the match to set up their program leading to the Rumble.

Kane is just somebody they can throw together in any program, and he'll find a way to get fans interested in it. He can be jerkin the curtain or main event a PPV, he holds his own and fans seem more receptive to him than his contemporaries. I think it's a credit to him that he's been able to stay relatively healthy through out his career and has achieved such longevity.

I thought his best year was actually in 2001 as a performer. Outside of that awful Kronik match, he seemed to relish all the different styles he was involved in. He had one of the all-time great Rumble performances, worked some fun tags with Taker at a time where Taker was phoning it in, had a couple of enjoyable hardcore matches and had one of the better hoss matches with Test at No Mercy that year. He was largely off TV in 2002, but fans were excited for his return and he was involved in a great TLC match which had fans going nuts for Kane. Unfortunately it coincided at a time where Vince wanted all his wrestlers to have backstories, so we had that awful Katie Vick storyline to temper all of it.

Kane's position says a lot about the state of the industry as well. In the 90s, he would have been like Sid Vicious except I could see him working places like WAR and FMW. Nowadays, he's a WWE lifer, so whenever he comes onto TV it's like suddenly going from an episode of High Maintenance to Suddenly Susan. It's a repeat and it's so jarring at this time and place.

As far as his best singles matches go...

Kane vs. Chris Benoit - Bad Blood 2004
Kane vs. Test - No Mercy 2001

and of course...

Kane vs. X-Pac - Armaggeddon 1999

I don't think any of those matches are above *** on my scale, but they're all perfectly watchable and easy to appreciate.

I'm sure Rey got a good match out of him as well during their feud in 2010, because Rey was pulling good matches out of everyone at the time.

Best Kane singles match, or at least favorite Kane singles match is his first match against Undertaker at 'Mania XIV (IMO). He still had the mystique, this invincible aura... It felt like a true collision of monster movie monsters.

Everything after that lost a lot of luster. As a singles entity, Kane was always really just "safe"... which is ironic because you'd think the very last thing you'd want the Big Red Machine/Devil's Favorite Demon coming off as is "safe".

To me, beyond that initial Undertaker feud, Kane's strengths have always been in bit roles or as a supporting player. He makes a great tag team partner; he makes a great straight man for comedians to play off of; he makes a great bad ass hoss who can run in to clear house with some chokeslams, tombstones, and flying clotheslines; considering how intelligent and articulate he is, and his longevity as a "safe" company man, he even makes a lot of sense as a Director of Operations character...

But as a standalone singles entity? Too mediocre for too long to truly feel great in the same way that legit greats do.

Feb 16, 2018 2:05:27 GMT Kilgore said:

Anyway, has Kane sucked for 21 of 23 years? Is he overrated in WWE lore? Is he underrated by me? What are his five best singles matches? Does he have five good singles matches?

"Kane has sucked for 21 of 23 years."- Yep.

"Is he overrated in WWE lore?"- I'm gonna say no. Kane may have sucked for 21 of 23 years but just being around for 23 years is an accomplishment. He's wrestled everybody, had some memorable moments, and was usually over. Definitely WWE HoF worthy by metrics far beyond "Well, Koko B. Ware is in." 

"Is he underrated by me?" I don't think so. Suck is suck.

"Does he have five good singles matches?" Maybe. It's a close call.

"Does he have five very good/great singles matches?" Not a chance. Don't even think he has one.

"What are his five best singles matches?" I'll give this a go....

Five(ish) Memorable Kane Singles Matches
*I went with "Memorable" rather than "Good" since I'm not even most of these matches are good outside of one or two memorable spots. But at least they had a memorable spot or two! That makes them cream of the crop by Kane standards.

vs. Undertaker- Wrestlemania 14- Clash of the Titans. Lots of Tombstones!
vs. Austin- KOTR 98- Fun sports entertainmenty Attitude Era brawl, though the First Blood stipulation kind of gave away the result since practically Kane's entire body was covered in red clothing.
vs. Bradshaw- Raw or Heat 1999- Tombstone on the stairs!
vs. Albert- Raw 2001- Kane does a Frankensteiner! Albert press slams a giant!
vs. Test- 2001-2002- Some show(s)- Double big boots!
vs. Benoit- 2004- Multiple- The great Chris Benoit was able to carry Kane to some decent stuff. 
vs. Big Show- Raw Early 2006- Two giants. Mat wrestling. One of the more surreal matches in WWE history.
vs. MVP- Smackdown Late 2006- Multiple- They had a weirdly good series of matches. General consensus at the time was this is where MVP "got it." And, yes, even at the time we realized how weird it was that somebody would "get it" opposite "The Big Red Machine."

*Kane's best matches were tags and multi-man's. Yet even that is faint praise. Because unlike Big Show (who Kane is most often compared to), who legit ruled in multi-man matches, often making them better, and not uncommonly being the best part of those matches, Kane was more of a generic giant warm body who was carried along for the ride by everybody else. Let's look at a few of those....

w/ X Pac vs. Henry & D'Lo- Some PPV 1999- Henry press slams a giant! Kane breaks out the cool and woefully underused "reverse suplex!"
w/ X Pac vs. Acolytes- Multiple 1999- Hot crowds. Acolytes kicking ass. XPac taking glorious beatings. Kane being adequate on hot tags.
Royal Rumble 2001- Kane gets the Diesel push. Many consider this his greatest moment, or at least greatest post-Wrestlemania 14 moment.
vs. Raven vs. Big Show- Wrestlemania 17- Vaguely remember this being a fun hardcore contest. Still only like the 5th or 6th best match on the show though.
TLC- Raw 2002- A fondly remembered match. This and Royal Rumble 2001 are probably his two best post-1998 "monster" performances.
Money In The Bank 2005- Kane was in it.

Other Not Terrible Kane Moments

Kane had a legit good/great (non match) brawl with Angle during the build to Wrestlemania 18.
His "Kanenites" promo with Rock & Hogan was hilarious.
He ruled during his wedding with Lita.
Lots of people like his team/segments with Daniel Bryan. This includes Daniel Bryan himself.

Early Kane was a great character. It's a cliche used by overly wordy people like myself to refer to big men as "lumbering." Usually it's kind of meaningless. But it definitely applied to Kane. He lumbered. It's the perfect description. He was a Lurch. His movements were awkward. This guy is clearly not much of an athlete. Yet those lumbering, sort of jerky movements, were perfect for his early Kane character. They really helped sell the monster vibe. Too bad that's literally just how he moves. Isaac Yankem and post-monster movie Kane were also "lumbering." Only it didn't work out nearly as well in those cases.

Baker, PI and Big Pete laid it out well. Liked the Sid comparison from Big Pete and I agree that his best work was in tag matches. Kane was definitely neutered after the unmasking. For some reason that Kaneanites promo w/ Rock and Hogan popped into my mind recently. Hilarious no doubt.