100 Worst WWE Matches Ever - 66 - Kane vs. Imposter Kane
Vengeance 2006
Luke Gallows has low-key had one of the more fascinating wrestling careers in recent history. One look at his wikipedia page says it all.
Long before he became the legendary bag grabber he is today; before Sex Ferguson; before being one of the most forgettable wrestlers in Aces and Eights; before the Bullet Club; before Festus (objectively the greatest version of Luke Gallows). Before all that, the majority of wrestling fans were first exposed to Luke Gallows as this.
“IT’S THE HUMIDITY!”
Now in fairness to WWE, they dramatically improved the imposter Kane’s look after that initial debut. But the damage was already done, and Imposter Kane was not long for this world.
After Wrestlemania 22, Kane went a bit crazy. WWE writers probably had a tough time thinking of a way to make this character crazier than usual, given this is a man who electrocuted Shane McMahon’s testicles, set JR on fire, and tombstoned Linda McMahon - and that’s just within about a month of each other. The result was Kane turning on his tag team partner, the Big Show, as Kane began to hear voices saying “May 19th”. Voices that were played over the loudspeaker in every arena in the country so we all knew he was crazy, apparently. The source of this madness was none other than the infamous May 19th storyline. Any time any wrestler mentioned that dreaded date, he would go into a bizarre rampage. This was not only the day that Kane’s family was lost in a fire but, more importantly, was the day that Kane’s new horror movie See No Evil was set to hit the cinema. The May 19th storyline culminated - not on May 19th as you may expect - that was reserved for Kane beating the shit out of Rey Mysterio, as everyone did in May 2006. Rather it culminated the night after this match, which should give an indication for how well this is going to go.
I will give WWE and Gallows for improving Imposter Kane from the frankly embarrassing debut. Outside of the big red sleeve, the costume at Vengeance is pretty much spot on for early-Kane. Even the big red sleeve was worn by Kane on occasion, most notably when he won the WWE Championship in 1998. While Gallows improved the mannerisms a lot, but it still was not close to a perfect mirror of Kane. Part of the charm(?) of Kane’s mannerisms was he knew when to do the head tilt, or the glove adjustment. He knew when to sit up, rather than after every move. Gallows seems to have gotten a list of his mannerisms and decided to chuck them into his performance even when it didn’t fit.
The reaction from the crowd is less than positive to say the least. The match is short, but dull and heatless. A serenade of boring chants, unsurprising for one of wrestling's great mediocre talents, and someone trying to impersonate him during a stupid storyline that nobody took seriously. It’s funny that someone who is trying to impersonate Kane messes up the most basic of Kane's spots - the corner clothesline into a sidewalk slam, where Kane had to wait for an uncomfortable amount of time for his opponent to get into position.
I do love the jarring plugs of See No Evil by JR on commentary. Here you have one of the main wrestlers on your roster going through a metaphorical (literal?) existential crisis, but JR needs to squeeze in every plug possible for the movie. That’s capitalism for you.
Speculation at the time was that this storyline was designed as a way to get Kane to “put the mask back on”. For anyone who didn’t frequent the internet wrestling community during this time, this was an often unironically suggested way of saving the wrestling business for years so much so that it got meme’d into oblivion. To the point that when Kane did eventually put the mask back on in 2012, nobody actually cared anymore. Throughout the match, Kane is trying to take the Imposter’s mask. Speculation ran rampant after the following night on Raw when Kane stole the mask from Imposter Kane and kicked him out the door, never to be seen again. Imagine the disappointment when Kane turned up to Raw the next week still unmasked, and back to being the same boring character he had been for years before.
In a storyline full of absolute nonsense, perhaps the most bizarre aspect of this is the result of the match. Imposter Kane won, and won very cleanly and decisively. Somehow between this show airing and the following night, WWE decided to go from “let’s have Imposter Kane defeat one of our big stars cleanly” to “this guy needs to be written off TV immediately”. Bearing in mind, this is the same company that at this time thought so little of the Great Khali that he wasn’t allowed to wrestle on live TV - but they still stubbornly stuck with his push.
For Imposter Kane, as we know he bounced back from his unceremonious dismissal from the main roster. He would return as Festus - one of my favourite lower-card gimmicks for this time period - and even have a match with the Undertaker that is a bit of a cult classic.
Up Next - Quiz time - one prominent former WCW wrestler had just one televised match in WWE. That match makes this list.
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