20 Must See Moments From The 100 New RAW Episodes Added To WWE Network

3. The Unmasking Of The Big Red Monster - 23/06/03

kane debut
WWE.com

This image has stayed with me to this very day.

By the summer of 2003, Kane had been treading water for a while. He'd spent a large portion of the couple of years stuck in completely random tag teams, winning gold with The Hurricane and Rob Van Dam. He'd feuded with Triple H over the World Heavyweight Championship, but this story is remembered mostly for Katie Vick than it is Kane's attempts at capturing gold. 

2003 would see Kane experience a career resurrection, as he transformed once more from something approaching a joke to the monster he once was. The catalyst for this change came on June 23rd, as he went up against Triple H in a Luchas de Apuestas with his mask on the line. He came up short thanks to interference from Evolution, and was thus forced to unmask.

Seeing Kane without a mask may be old hat now, but back in 2003 it was a truly shocking moment. Not only that but Kane himself looked completely disfigured underneath, justifying the mask he had worn up to this point. He turned on tag partner RVD after unmasking, and soon embarked on his reign of unhinged terror.

Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.