Kane says the creation of his WWE character was due to Vader being detained in Kuwait
While speaking with the Going Ringside podcast at River City Wrestling Con, Kane (Glenn Jacobs) commented on the creation of his WWE character in 1997…
“So, what had happened was, Undertaker was in a rivalry with Big Van Vader, and they were in Kuwait. Some of you guys remember this — the talk show host in Kuwait which is a Middle Eastern country, probably not the most progressive criminal justice system. The talk show host said something to Vader, Leon, like, you know, the old ‘is wrestling fake?’ So Leon kind of roughed him up a little — not terrible — but kind of grabbed him, and he was like, ‘This fake?’ which led to his arrest in Kuwait. A Middle Eastern country is probably not going to have the most progressive criminal justice system, right? So they needed an opponent for Undertaker, and that was where the original idea for Kane came from.
[Did you think that Vader was going to be in jail a long time?] Yeah, we didn’t know what was going to happen to him. He was there for like a week, but again, you know, it’s like, dude, this is a Middle Eastern country and you’re in jail.
Leon’s literally out of the picture, and we don’t know for how long. Like, if they’re going to have to send in airborne troops to get him out or what’s going to happen there. So they come up with this idea of Kane, who was the Undertaker’s long-lost brother, putting me under a mask because obviously I’d had those two characters that we should not talk about. They just needed to put me under a mask so people didn’t realize who I was. And then the backstory was you have, you know, this dude that was the Undertaker’s brother that got burned in the fire and all that stuff.
Vince [McMahon] liked the idea so much. He’s like, ‘Why are we wasting this on one match? This is much more of a storyline than that.’
That’s kind of where the whole thing took — for me especially — a very good turn, and they decided to really invest in the Kane character. You know, in the end it became a standalone character. Even though the Undertaker obviously was a very important part of that, you know, it wasn’t just as an opponent for Undertaker — it became more than that.
But that’s kind of how all that happened.”