It’s not easy being a Kane fan. When we’re not having to put up with Kane floating around in mid-card limbo with no storyline or purpose beyond putting over the latest up-and-comer, we’re having to put up with him involved in storylines that quickly degenerate into an utter mess. In the case of the latter, we’re initially intrigued with the tantalising prospect of an interesting feud and character development only to be crushed with disappointment upon the realisation that the interesting feud involves jobbing time and again to a whiny, masked midget and that the character development involves necrophilia. So you can probably imagine my apprehensiveness when the ‘Undertaker in a vegetative state’ angle began a few months ago.
Where any Kane storyline can go at any given moment
This story began a few months ago and so far we haven’t quite had that ‘Triple H humping a mannequin’ moment that signifies a sharp turning down Wrestlecrap Road, but we’ve not exactly had the kind of intrigue and tension you’d expect from a high-profile ‘whodunnit’ angle. The problem is that the whole thing began with Kane vowing to find out who put his brother in a vegetative state and to punish them. Two months or so later and we’re essentially still at this stage. We’ve watched with our palms firmly on our face as Kane has conducted his rigorous detective inquiry into the identity of the perpetrator with all the subtleness of a kick to the testicles. The height of his sleuthing skills is to square up to people and ask ‘Did you attack the Undertaker?’, having already firmly established his intention of disembowelling the culprit. So unsurprisingly Kane’s two month long investigation has proven utterly pointless. We’ve had false accusations galore and so far all Kane has managed to accomplish is tombstoning an old man and exposing CM Punk as the enormous cock block he is.
At this point in a night out you may as well just give up
The main problem with this storyline is that there is about as much question as to ‘whodunnit’ as there is to Tom Cruise’s sexuality: we know it’s going to be Kane. It will probably turn out Kane is schizophrenic (strictly in the pop culture rather than medical sense) and alternates between loving and hating his brother. Or maybe he just snapped because, you know, Kane’s mental and all. Either way, the Smackdown editing team had better be on top form when it comes to making the audience look and sound like they had no idea this was coming. The lack of suspense is pretty unfortunate since it’s precisely the one thing essential to such a story arc. This is probably the least dramatic mystery reveal since it turned out Chris Jericho was the one behind the code that must have baffled just about no one for a similarly tortuous length of time. Jericho’s WWE return was a dud for exactly the same reason as this storyline feels like a dud – they’re taking way too much time to say everything everybody already knows. Rikishi being the one who ran down Stone Cold was at least an unexpected and interesting twist. Kane attacking the Undertaker isn’t. This must be at least the fourth or fifth time they’ve feuded (maybe more) and while admittedly it has been about six years since the last feud, is another one really necessary or desirable? Now I’m a big Kane and Undertaker fan but these two aren’t exactly guys you just throw into a rivalry together on the flimsiest of pretexts (which they’ve done before and by God they’ll do again!) on the knowledge that when they’re together great things just happen.
Unlike this destructive tag team
But who knows? Maybe it will turn out to be Mysterio or someone else entirely who attacked Undertaker and I’ll be exposed as an utter cynic. And even if it was Kane who attacked Undertaker, maybe the explanation will make total sense, the feud will be gripping and they’ll put on fantastic matches together. And at the same time maybe M. Night Shyamalan will stop resting on his laurels; the Detroit Lions will win the superbowl and TNA will put on a blockbuster PPV.
