Kane was recently a guest on The Steve Austin Show and he discussed his working relationship with The Deadman.
He explained that when he was in developmental, he felt nervous about the character. His mind was put at ease when he was convinced that The Undertaker would do whatever it took to make the character work.
“Again, going back to what Dutch Mantell told me. At the time I was working for Jerry Lawler in the USWA. I was still under contract with the WWF, but they weren’t doing anything with me so they farmed me out with Jerry Lawler. I am talking with Dutch Mantell and he is telling me that the Kane character is going to be successful because Mark [Undertaker] Calloway is going to make it successful,” Jacobs said. “That is exactly what happened. He was always a huge advocate of mine. In fact, the first match against The Undertaker was actually in Smoky Mountain Wrestling. He and Shawn Michaels came down and did a show I think was called ‘Super Brawl’ with Jim Cornette.”
At the time of Kane’s debut, big men dominated the wrestling industry. Jacobs said The Undertaker knew it would be a great advantage for him to work a program with someone like him. He also said The Undertaker played a huge part in helping him improve his in-ring performance.
“As you say, he is a big guy that I think he felt that he could draw money with me. The thing about being a big guy in our business is again, you don’t have to take as many bumps but anything you do has to look extremely believable because everything is exaggerated when it you are bigger. People expect that. So that is sort of the drawback of it. Yes, you have to know how to be vulnerable and sell the right way and all of those things but I was very fortunate because Mark was behind the whole thing,” Jacobs said. “He was tremendously helpful. In fact, it is one of those things where you would have egos once in a while where someone wouldn’t want to do something where they need to do and basically I would tell them, look, you can either do this or we can talk to Undertaker about it and eventually they did. Mark also understood that success in this business when you are in this business it is like a dance and it takes two people to succeed.”
Jacobs said he is proud of everything he has done with The Undertaker. With the months-long buildup to the debut of his character, there was a lot of pressure to make sure it didn’t flop. Jacobs said it was The Undertaker who was responsible for his success as Kane.
“He was always all about it and as much as anything the table that was set for me I am going to go in there with The Undertaker. Paul Bearer had been talking about Kane months before he came out, all this stuff that was set up where Kane was going to be successful,” he said. “I was fortunate to be the guy that was in that position and to go in there with The Undertaker. The first Hell in a Cell match with The Undertaker and Shawn Michaels, which had never happened before and I was involved with that. It was one of those things where I couldn’t have written anything better than that.”
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