In the mid-1990s, the WWF was dressing up 7-foot tall, 300+ pound monster Glen Jacobs as an evil dentist and giving him the rather unfortunate name of Isaac yankem, DDS. Once the wrestling dentist gimmick bombed, the company dressed him up as Diesel (AKA Kevin Nash), who had recently departed for rival promotion WCW. Finally, Jacobs the jobber/cheap imitation was re-branded as the monstrous Kane. The trick? He was given a mask... Pushed to the moon by the WWFs writers, Kane was supposedly The Undertakers psychotic, pyromaniac brother. Fans were told that a fire had horribly scarred his face and that the character never removed his Hannibal Lector-esque mask as a result. Whether it was morbid curiosity, the fact that Jacobs played the part to perfection or simply that Kanes pyrotechnic-laced entrance was one of the most exciting ever seen in wrestling, is immaterial; Jacobs became a huge star. The storyline proved to be a massive success and Kane is still main eventing WWE shows to this day, working the gimmick he should have had all along, that of an enormous, unstoppable monster.
I am a professional author and lifelong comic books/pro wrestling fan. I also work as a journalist as well as writing comic books (I also draw), screenplays, stage plays, songs and prose fiction.
I don't generally read or reply to comments here on What Culture (too many trolls!), but if you follow my Twitter (@heyquicksilver), I'll talk to you all day long!
If you are interested in reading more of my stuff, you can find it on http://quicksilverstories.weebly.com/ (my personal site, which has other wrestling/comics/pop culture stuff on it).
I also write for FLiCK http://www.flickonline.co.uk/flicktion, which is the best place to read my fiction work.
Oh yeah - I'm about to become a Dad for the first time, so if my stuff seems more sentimental than usual - blame it on that!
Finally, I sincerely appreciate every single read I get. So if you're reading this, thank you, you've made me feel like Shakespeare for a day! (see what I mean?)
Latcho Drom,
- CQ
