WWE legend Glenn Jacobs says the Corporate Kane storyline had strong potential, but ultimately failed because the original concept was never fully realized on television.
Jacobs portrayed several versions of Kane during his decades-long WWE career, but during a recent Going Ringside panel he pointed to the Authority-era “Corporate Kane” character as one version that didn’t work the way it was supposed to.
“It was a really good idea, but the execution wasn’t that great.”
Jacobs explained that the biggest issue was that the original idea behind the character was very different from what fans ended up seeing on WWE programming.
“The idea of Corporate Kane was Corporate Kane as Corporate Kane. I don’t even know why we called it Corporate Kane. I didn’t even like that.”
According to Jacobs, the suit-wearing corporate executive version of Kane was never supposed to wrestle. Instead, he was meant to serve strictly as a spokesperson for The Authority.
“Corporate Kane was never supposed to wrestle. He was just the mouthpiece. And then when the Authority needed an enforcer, that’s when Kane put on the mask.”
Jacobs said the concept was designed to function like two completely separate characters, similar to the dynamic between Keiji Muto and The Great Muta in Japanese wrestling. In the original vision, the corporate version of Kane would never acknowledge the monster version who wore the mask.
“They were never supposed to touch the guy in the suit. That whole thing got completely lost.”
The idea for the storyline actually came from Triple H, whom Jacobs praised for his creative instincts when it comes to character development.
“That was actually Triple H’s idea, who has an unbelievable wrestling mind. It just kind of got lost in the mix unfortunately.”
Instead of the split-personality concept unfolding the way it was planned, Jacobs joked that the character eventually became far simpler.
“And then I just ended up getting beat up by everybody.”
Do you think the Corporate Kane character would have worked better if WWE had followed the original split-personality idea?
