What’s the story?
The WWE posted a video on its official site looking back at the curious case of Kane and the date ‘May 19th’.
The video looks back at why Kane doesn’t like May 19th, taking us back to the year 2006, where he’s seen giving an explanation to his hatred for the date and his twisted relationship with his doppelganger ‘Impostor Kane’.
In case you didn’t know...
Kane was involved in a storyline that, in fact, began back in the fall of 2005, where the WWE promoted him and the Big Show as a dominant tag-team and the duo destroyed anyone and everyone who stood in their path.
The storyline progressed and eventually, Kane lost his mind and acted more absurd and violent by the day. The feud reached a boiling point when Kane and Big Show were involved in a backstage segment that saw the former have a panic attack.
The Big Show then tended to him and the Big Red Machine would simply utter the phrases “May 19th” and “It’s happening again”.
The heart of the matter
The absurd storyline was, in fact, devised in order to promote Kane’s movie See No Evil - a film produced by WWE Studios and the movie’s release date being May 19th, 2006.
The WWE TV programming had Jerry Lawler and Jim Ross explain Kane’s absurd obsession with May 19th when they revealed that his mother and adopted family were burned down in a fire at his family home years ago on the very date. Of course, it wasn’t true, so to speak, and merely a part of the WWE’s storyline to promote the aforementioned horror movie in which Kane played the role of Jacob Goodnight, where he starred as the lead actor in the said movie.
The movie saw Kane play a religious lunatic with a habit of ripping out his victims’ eyes. He was, indeed, involved in one such segment with Big Show in which he would gouge the latter’s eyes to the point of making them bleed. The movie released and did fairly well, when compared to the standards of your run-of-the-mill movies featuring professional wrestlers.
The storyline, however, would continue as Kane was involved in a feud with Impostor Kane (played by current WWE Superstar Luke Gallows). The feud ended when Kane beat down the poser (Gallows) and threw him out of the building through the exit after removing the latter’s mask.
What’s next?
Kane would later star in a sequel to See No Evil, with part two being released in 2014. As of now the 50-year old is busy with his political obligations and will look to win the elections for the post of Mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee next year.
Author’s take
The Kane/May 19th storyline was one of the more absurd ones in a sport that never ceases to surprise.
Nevertheless, the WWE immediately scrapped the Impostor Kane gimmick following the release of See No Evil back in 2006, and rightfully so. Kane went on to have several memorable feuds in his career after the outlandish May 19th storyline.
