Original subtitles

- There he is!

The Prince of Darkness!

- That’s gotta be Kane! That’s gotta be Kane!

- What a beautiful family portrait this is!

- The Kane-Undertaker rivalry,

it’s the best story that WWE’s ever told.

The layers of the story

out of the gate, were so, so rich.

- The Undertaker and Kane have just

beat the hell out of each other.

- Look at this!

- Batman, you have the Joker.

With Undertaker, you have Kane.

The characters are inextricably linked.

Without Undertaker, there never would have been a Kane.

- Wanting to see those two go at it.

It’s like wanting to see your favorite horror movie.

[explosion booms]

- They didn’t even have to say anything,

to get you so invested into their characters.

- Look out!

- Oh, The Undertaker chokeslam!

- You don’t get much bigger than Undertaker and Kane,

in WWE history.

[explosion booms]

They have done

incredible things with stories,

with their character, evolving each other.

- Crazy, crazy storytelling, and the matches

kinda went right along with it.

I will walk straight through the fires of hell,

to face you, Kane.

- This rivalry has just escalated into a war.

♪ ♪

- When two legends collide,

their rivalry stays pinned in our minds forever.

♪ ♪

This is where we break down the legendary stories

behind the greatest rivalries of all time.

I’m Freddie Prinze, Jr.

[crowd exclaims]

And this is "WWE Rivals."

Undertaker, Kane.

Two of the very best.

They both terrified me,

and for me, wrestling

has always been

the purest definition of art.

It’s the literal blood, sweat, and tears

of the artist on an actual canvas,

which is the inside of the ring.

And these two may have done it better than anyone.

In some cases, they did more than blood, sweat, and tears.

There was even burning flesh in one of their matches.

When I say these names,

what’s the first thing that pops in your head?

- Taker alone, I mean, I think probably

the most iconic character.

I remember, you know, working with him early in his career.

Every time you knocked him down, he sat right up.

And the first time you worked with him

it was just like being on the top of Everest without oxygen.

[laughter]

- You look at a guy like Kane,

you look at a guy like Taker, and you look at how--

just how many boxes they check off.

And it’s like, "Okay, I can’t be satisfied

with being able just to wear one hat."

I gotta be able to do it all if I wanna get to that level.

♪ ♪

- I was very excited just by the name Undertaker.

I had no clue what it meant, what it was.

It wasn’t until I got up to Stamford and saw

the storyboards of Vince’s vision of this character.

And then I kind of real--

I just fell in love with it.

- From Death Valley, I give you The Undertaker!

[laughs]

♪ ♪

- A man named Kane.

- This is when the story starts,

because they introduced me as Kane the Undertaker.

We ended up dropping the Kane.

Little did we know in 1990, that that was gonna

come back into play.

both: Ooh! - There’s the Tombstone.

[intense music]

♪ ♪

- Those slow, methodical movements.

The way he carried himself.

The composure.

- But let’s just talk about athletic prowess here.

This guy standing, walking on the top rope.

Look at the power!

- The Undertaker, ruling the ring here.

- Everything was by design

and with so much self-restraint.

Truly a work of art, and I can say for sure

there’s nobody that could have pulled off that character

like Mark Calaway, at all.

- What is this? What is this?

What is going on?

No, no! What--what--what--

- The whole mystique, it had began and stopped

with Mark and just the way his personality is

as a man, as a person was totally--

totally perfect for that character.

- The time has come.

- As my Undertaker puts the final touches on your coffin.

- You’ve got a mortician that can manage The Undertaker,

and that character of The Undertaker

was so special you needed a complete package.

You needed someone to speak for him.

You needed someone to present him

and to be with him all the time.

And it was a match made in heaven.

- The Undertaker and Paul Bearer.

- Paul Bearer enhanced Undertaker by being able

to verbalize what the Undertaker would think

and/or say and/or feel.

- Ooh, my!

- People wouldn’t even come up to me.

They would come up to Paul Bearer,

and they would actually say the words,

"Is he really dead?"

♪ ♪

As crazy as that sounds,

I didn’t switch off from Mark Calaway to Undertaker,

even when I was in public.

Although I didn’t wear the full Undertaker garb,

my clothes were all black.

Always had, you know, black hats and black shades.

I lived it.

- Speaking of morbid, look at Paul Bearer.

A little depressing around here.

- Ay-yi-yi.

- I felt naked without having anything in my hands,

so I had to have something in my hands.

Now, I thought about it, and thought about it.

Just all of a sudden, an urn popped in my head.

what about an urn?

- He draws power from that urn.

There’s something in there that motivates this man.

- Those little things just made that character so strong.

Throwing lightning bolts...

[thunder booms] - Ahh!

- The fire--all that just added to this guy,

he is the spawn of the devil,

and it’s amazing the input that I would get from people.

And of all people, like, the babyface of all babyfaces,

Ricky Steamboat-- And he goes,

"You know what would be really cool?

"Like, after you beat somebody,

stuff ’em in a body bag and carry ’em out.

And I’m like, "Yeah!"

- On the one hand, it should have been cartoonish,

because you have this idea, like,

he’s a dead man who’s out there wrestling,

but he did it so well, and it was so convincing

that it was like, "Oh, my gosh.

This is cool creepy."

- Get out! - We’ve got a new

World Champion! [bell dings]

Hulkamania is dead!

Long live The Undertaker!

- He is actually my favorite WWE superstar,

before I got into WWE, as a fan.

- I’m in the live "Raw" with The Undertaker.

The lights go down.

The purple haze comes up.

Dong! Dong!

And lighters go everywhere.

And I just remember thinking, "Oh, my God.

This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen."

And I’m sitting there just like a fan, watching it,

and I’m in the ring, waiting on him.

And you know, nobody’s looking at me.

The whole arena’s looking at him.

- The Undertaker, ladies and gentlemen.

- People bought it. - Yeah.

- Everybody loved that guy.

- One of the superstars, right behind Paul Bearer.

The giant Undertaker.

- You have to adapt with the times.

You have to change.

♪ ♪

After five or six years, there was a feeling

that maybe Paul Bearer

was holding Undertaker back a little bit.

- How can The Undertaker possibly...

- Don’t do it. - Understand what

has happened here? - No, Paul, no.

Oh, no!

- And for Taker to take the next step

in the evolution of that character,

we needed to hear from The Undertaker.

We needed to hear from him more,

and if you’re gonna hear from The Undertaker more,

do you really need a manager with him?

- Such treachery between Paul Bearer and The Undertaker.

- We needed an opponent for The Undertaker,

and looking at the roster,

there was nobody that was a threat.

It wasn’t a monster that you could

match up with The Undertaker.

First man to ever commit murder was Cain.

Killed his brother Abel.

Simple story. Everyone knows it.

What if...

The Undertaker had a brother?

No one knew this.

His brother’s name was Kane.

- We’re gonna have to go back a few years.

We’re talking about a little funeral home

sitting up on a hill.

Beautiful oak trees all around

and a wonderful, wonderful family-owned funeral home.

[dramatic music]

- What if there was this horrible fire

that Kane was inside the house?

Maybe Undertaker set the damn thing,

and his baby brother perished in the fire.

So he thought.

And the one person

that knew that his brother was alive

and had been taking care of his brother this entire time

was Paul Bearer.

- So we told this story over a period of six months,

while I kept insisting that Kane was alive.

- Tell ’em the truth!

I’ll kill you right now! You tell ’em the truth!

- I am telling ’em the truth!

Kane is alive, Undertaker!

- Paul tells his side of the story.

"I took care of him.

"He was burned.

"He was maimed.

"He was left for dead,

"but I brought him to life,

"and I showed him the love and the care that you,

as his blood, never did."

And now Paul had, in his mind,

a reason to bring Kane back.

And now, he wants one thing-- revenge.

- He’s coming! He’s coming!

Yes, he is!

- Who else is Undertaker gonna wrestle?

Who else can give him a legitimate fight at this point?

He’s literally fought everyone.

- He’s waited 20 years to face his brother eye-to-eye!

He’s coming, Dead Man!

He’s coming!

Yes, he is!

♪ ♪

- When I found out that I was gonna be

The Undertaker’s brother,

I realized that that was my big break.

- I was extremely excited for Glenn.

I knew this was gonna be the one for him.

The story was just so good.

- I saw a rendering, and initially I was like,

"Man, this is not what I had in mind."

I talked to Mark, and neither of us

thought that this was what Kane would look like

because we thought that Kane would be

kinda like a Jason Voorhees,

or he’s escaped from an institution

and would have that kinda look.

And I talked to Vince about it.

He was like, "Okay, Kane takes a lot of pride

"in his appearance because he’s jealous

"of The Undertaker.

"He wants to look like a superhero,

because he wants to be better than The Undertaker."

And I was like, "Man, okay.

You’re really, really smart about this stuff."

WWE had a ring set up in the warehouse,

in Stamford, Connecticut.

So I went up there.

Vince wanted Kane to be the anti-Undertaker,

so it was a lot of his same moves.

I was able to incorporate some of my own, as well.

[laughter]

- Ho! - I even had to practice

doing his sit-ups, I couldn’t do the sit-up

quite like Undertaker.

- Like that. Sure.

Okay. - Smooth.

- You’re coming back from the dead.

You gotta use your middle. - Okay.

- There you go. There we go!

[clapping]

- Welcome, everyone, to "Badd Blood: In Your House."

We are live from St. Louis, Missouri.

And there it is, ladies and gentlemen.

Shawn Michaels.

- "Badd Blood" was gonna be the blowoff match

between Shawn and I.

Two men enter. One man leaves.

- The cell itself just came as an idea

of wanting to have something bigger

than just a regular cage match.

We were just talking about trying to get

some kind of cage that’s different

than the regular ones.

Maybe it has a top, and then what the WWE always does

is they just take something so small

and then make it so much more grandiose.

[Undertaker’s theme playing]

- This is not a good time to be Shawn Michaels.

- No, indeed not, as the official padlocking the chain.

[dramatic music]

- We were in the midst of a great, great match,

kinda finalizing our story.

♪ ♪

- Michaels is getting beaten to a pulp by The Undertaker!

- All eyes shifted to that and forgot about the Kane thing.

- There was just a number of things that fell into place

that when you look back on it,

it made it all perfect for that situation.

- I have never seen anything like this in my life!

- At one point, my thought was, "Man,

I just hope I don’t mess this match up,"

’cause it was so good.

- If you’re not nervous, something’s wrong.

You should be nervous.

You should have that butterfly feeling in your stomach,

and this was Kane’s big chance.

- Just when you think, you know,

we’ve done everything we could,

and I beat the living crap out of Shawn,

and all I gotta do is cover him.

- Oh, my God!

It’s all over!

- Boom.

[Kane’s theme playing]

- The lights went out, and then bam,

and the music hit,

and the crowd had no idea what was going on.

You could have heard a pin drop.

There’s, like, 15,000 people

in the arena there in St. Louis,

and they weren’t making any noise.

They were like, "Was this a mess-up?

Did they lose power? What happened?"

- Oh, my God! Wait a minute!

It’s Paul Bearer! It’s Paul Bearer!

- And there’s this giant roar,

and I’m actually getting goosebumps talking about it.

And the audience realized,

"Oh, that’s the guy

that everybody’s been talking about."

- That’s gotta be-- that’s gotta be Kane!

That’s gotta be Kane!

♪ ♪

- Look at the size of this human being.

Or is that a human being?

♪ ♪

My God! - Oh, my God!

- He just ripped the door off its hinges!

- The Undertaker’s in a cage, and Kane comes out,

and he physically rips the door off of the cage.

And it looked so legit, and they constantly

built these two monsters.

And you can’t say "monsters" that much in WWE,

’cause there’s been so few of them

that have been able to accomplish

what both of these guys accomplished.

- That’s gotta be Kane!

The Undertaker looking at him,

looking into the eyes of that giant

who stands in front of him.

- That’s the thing about them, though, is that

they don’t have to do very much,

and you can do just the little bit

that you do in that ring, and they capture everybody,

just by staring.

- There’s Kane, and he stands there,

and then I think it’s probably one of my best reactions ever,

because you can see in the guy that doesn’t sell anything,

that doesn’t--you know, you could cut his arm off,

and he’s not gonna wince.

But you can see it in my eyes, which you would never see

that kind of a confused,

almost fear-like look in my eyes.

It was, "Holy crap.

This is my brother that I thought was dead,"

and it was just so powerful a moment.

♪ ♪

- It was the first time you ever saw--

and I don’t wanna say fear.

- And for the first time, you see some type of humanity

in The Undertaker, and you’re not sure what it is,

but it’s something you had never seen before.

- And it meant something, ’cause I was about to say that,

’cause you’d never see--he saved it for the perfect foil.

♪ ♪

- It was just magic, and you could feel it

from the very start.

And of course, Undertaker, he would come out

and raise the lights by throwing his hands up,

so, Kane threw his hands down.

♪ ♪

- Oh, my--

- And then we blew all four pyros off of the post,

and then it’s hellfire and brimstone that he’s bringing.

So you have the good, and the evil,

and it was--just all of it just worked so well.

- It was the first time I had that feeling of,

"Man, that was it."

It was almost like, wow,

you just hit a home run in the World Series, right,

and you’re going, so that’s what that feels like.

I’d never felt that way, in my wrestling career,

up until that point.

- The Undertaker driven down to the canvas!

And listen to this response.

♪ ♪

- To pay it off with Kane, and how huge he was,

and how ominous he looked,

it was just magic.

- Shawn Michaels has defeated the Undertaker.

- No, no, no, no.

No, wait a minute.

Kane has defeated The Undertaker.

- The emotions of that night was just--for the first time,

I actually felt like I was a WWE superstar.

[cheers and applause]

- It was just so rich.

There were so many levels to this story.

For I will never fight my own flesh and blood.

I will never fight Kane.

Now, you’ve got somebody that’s eye-to-eye

with The Undertaker,

even bigger than The Undertaker,

and everything initially just was perfect.

- We are gonna take each wrestler, one by one,

and destroy them, until we reach you!

- When you go out there, and you’re destroying everybody

in the roster, you know,

and you’re gonna have Undertaker there

at the end of the journey,

you realize it’s gonna be a big deal.

- One more chance to be a man,

for all your leeches of the night!

You must face your brother!

- Ooh! - Oh, man!

- How much more of this will The Undertaker take?

[cheering]

Maybe not much more!

- Kane was almost,

to a T, just like him,

and he wore a mask, so it’s even more mysterious.

And he’s, like, a super jacked human being.

Like, it’s scary, but to see those two face off,

just looking at each other, same height,

same everything.

It was a match that I couldn’t wait to see.

- You have these two just supernatural-type characters.

Kane and Undertaker.

And I think it felt so real

because they were brothers.

- The two brothers looking eye-to-eye.

What must The Undertaker be thinking right now?

- Sibling rivalries.

I mean, my daughters have it,

and so does Undertaker and Kane.

- It was real life being displayed

in an exaggerated way.

It all started, from day one, and just the levels

of story that we put on it.

- The Undertaker’s walking away

and the thought that he will never,

ever fight his brother Kane.

♪ ♪

- Before Kane, of course, there’s other big guys

that Undertaker faced, but he pretty much demolished

all of his opponents.

Now here you have his brother, Kane,

who not only is a monster himself,

but it’s his brother.

He knows The Undertaker.

He knows what he’s thinking.

He thinks a lot alike, like The Undertaker does.

You just didn’t know which way it was gonna go.

- There’s an element of, like,

"Okay, I understand this," you know.

So as silly as, like, the storyline might be,

that happens on, like, a lower level, like, on a daily basis.

At the crux of this storyline

is the brother who did something terrible

and blamed his little brother for it,

so there’s... - Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

- An element of, like, relatability here, right?

Like, who can’t relate to that, right? Like--

- Who can’t relate to... - It happens all the time.

- Blaming your brother for a murder?

- Well, I don’t mean-- I guess murder might be a--

that’s where the entertainment factor comes in.

♪ ♪

- You can’t relate to the fact that The Undertaker’s

a dead man, and he’s out there,

he’s physically dominant.

You can’t relate to the fact that Kane is basically insane

from years of being locked away,

and somehow controls fire.

But what you can relate to is they’re brothers

that have a sibling rivalry that’s gone on

and has festered, for many, many years.

That’s just the stuff of great stories,

and I think it helped people relate to these characters

that otherwise would have been unbelievable,

and just completely over-the-top,

and out of the realm of any sort

of human possibility.

♪ ♪

Shawn Michaels and Undertaker.

Casket Match at the "Royal Rumble."

- The Undertaker steps over the top rope, and a...

- Ahh! - Tombstone!

My God! Can you believe it?

- What is this? - Wait a minute.

- Six men are pounding The Undertaker into oblivion.

[explosions boom]

- There he is! There he is!

That’s Kane!

He’s coming to help his brother.

All hell is gonna break loose!

Kane manhandling anything that’s moving.

- He is clearing the ring!

- The entire world thought that Kane

was in Undertaker’s corner,

and then it just completely

pulled the rug out from under ’em.

- The Undertaker in the casket!

Michaels shuts the lid.

- I thought that The Undertaker and Kane

had reconciled their differences.

- And my God!

The casket’s on fire! The casket’s on fire!

- Well, this is hideous.

- I already knew that we were gonna go to WrestleMania,

but for the most part, the storyline had been

that Undertaker was avoiding Kane,

because he didn’t wanna hurt him.

He was his little brother, right,

and Kane had finally provoked him to the point

The Undertaker’s hot.

- WrestleMania XIV,

I will strike down upon thee

with anger and furious vengeance!

[cheers and applause]

- Ahh!

- To me, he’s one of the greatest characters,

if not the greatest character the WWE has ever invented.

And now, Kane has to come out and match that,

and be equal to Undertaker.

There’s no one that could have done that

except Glenn Jacobs.

- From Boston, it’s WrestleMania XIV!

- I went with a bunch of my high school buddies,

and you know, we were huge fans then,

and we didn’t have good seats, at all.

We were--our backs were literally up against the wall,

like, way, way in the back.

I remember, like, Kane would come out and the fire.

You could feel the heat all the way up, in the back.

You know, you literally felt the heat.

Almost like you were gonna get burned.

It was so incredibly hot.

You know, watching the culmination of that feud,

them finally getting to touch.

[explosion booms] - Oh, good Lord.

[Kane’s theme playing]

Hellfire and brimstone personified.

♪ ♪

[explosions boom]

[thunder cracks]

There he is!

[Undertaker’s theme playing]

The Prince of Darkness.

[cheers and applause]

- WrestleMania is where Undertaker is gonna set

his little brother straight.

It’s about time, ’cause Kane

had put it to me pretty good.

- Two seven foot monsters.

What a hellacious matchup this is going to be.

♪ ♪

- This is the first time that Undertaker

and Kane had really fought.

I mean there had been some skirmishes, along the way,

but for the most part, this is not

written in stone The Undertaker’s

going into this match and win.

- The Undertaker is being destroyed by his own brother!

- Kane added so much to Undertaker’s career,

and understand, also, these are the two

most-liked guys in the history of the business.

You know, we’re sitting back there, at WrestleMania XIV.

I tagged with Glen Jacobs in Europe,

before we both made the WWE.

I’m sitting there just wanting him to do well.

You know, everybody is.

We’re rooting for these guys.

You know, they knock it out of the park.

We’re ecstatic about it.

We’ve got something that’s gonna draw for a long time.

- His brother has waited a lifetime for revenge.

- Look at this. The Undertaker fighting back.

- There I am at WrestleMania, and it was the climax

of the original storyline between Undertaker and Kane,

and I had never been in that situation before.

- He’s hitting his brother with everything he’s got.

♪ ♪

- My Tombstone, no one had ever kicked out of.

♪ ♪

- The Undertaker with a Tombstone!

Planted him!

- What? - Nobody’s ever done that!

- Not only did he kick out of it once...

[cheering]

- Hell, this has gotta be it.

Ah--Kane kicked out!

- Undertaker’s trying to kill his own brother!

- He kicked out of it twice.

People were astonished.

♪ ♪

- This will be the third Tombstone.

And will this be enough?

My God, what will it take if it’s not?

Yes! [cheers and applause]

The Undertaker has won this match.

- Mark Calaway’s one of those people that understands,

in the wrestling business, in WWE,

the importance of your opponent.

And if you go out there, and you have a match with someone

that doesn’t look like they should be

in the ring with you, you haven’t beaten anyone.

And I was impressed, because he treated me like an equal.

- The heated rivalry between two brothers

with a fiery past.

- Well, I’ve seen The Undertaker

versus his most capable rival.

I’ve seen the Dead Man against his own brother.

Don’t we need to ramp it up?

I mean, isn’t the sequel to every movie,

"This time it’s personal"?

What’s more personal than trying to set

your own brother on fire?

And isn’t that what the story was about?

Let’s do an inferno match.

[Kane’s theme playing]

♪ ♪

- The first person to set his opponent on fire...

- Wow. - Will win this match.

- You take these two guys that are 6’10" and 300 pounds,

and they’ve got these great characters.

They’re larger than life.

And you add fire?

It doesn’t get any better than that.

- Look at this. Look at this!

Oh, my gosh.

- This is amazing.

- You know, initially you’re like,

"Okay. Somebody’s lost their freakin’ mind."

- This is hell on Earth.

♪ ♪

- For the first time ever, you had someone who was equal

to Undertaker, as far as physical abilities,

and also added that kinda supernatural element

that Undertaker brings.

- Undertaker has never been challenged,

as he is with his brother Kane, and yes,

Kane just leveled his brother.

- It was pretty hairy in there, man.

What most people wouldn’t realize

is that all those flames going up

is just sucking all the oxygen out of the ring.

- Why do we play with fire?

And we all eventually get burned.

♪ ♪

- Kane’s on fire!

The Undertaker has done it!

[cheers and applause]

- The Attitude Era,

I think it was not only the most unique time in WWE,

but really in entertainment.

I mean, we were not only top of the wrestling world,

I mean, we were on top of the entertainment world.

When you look at characters and individuals

who have very successful, long careers in WWE

they’ve been able to reinvent themselves.

Undertaker’s a great example of that.

- As great as the Undertaker character is,

there were a lot of parameters.

A lot of things that I couldn’t do,

because of the character.

I think the character would have survived,

but I don’t think it would have continued to grow,

if I hadn’t have moved away from

the traditional Undertaker.

♪ ♪

[motorcycle engine rumbling]

- My God, it’s The Undertaker!

- What?

- The Undertaker is whoopin’ ass!

- The American badass kind of--it freed me up.

I was able to keep a few of the nuances of the old character,

but I was able to move it into the mainstream.

- Here comes a real American badass!

The Undertaker!

- It was good for me because it allowed

me to work differently for a while,

to think creatively in a different sense.

- The Undertaker and Kane.

They are together, on the same page.

- Instead of remaining enemies, we get the most powerful

tag team that’s ever existed.

I mean their name is literally the Brothers of Destruction.

♪ ♪

- When they decided to start tag-teaming together

as the Brothers of Destruction,

when you see two guys that cool

coming down to the ring,

and nobody can really affect ’em,

as the Brothers of Destruction, yeah,

you fear the hell out of ’em, but it’s so cool

you respect the hell out of ’em.

[cheering]

- The Brothers of Destruction was really

the logical conclusion

or logical destination of the journey that we’d been on.

- The brothers, side by side.

- Oh, my gosh!

Boom, boom. - Double choke slam.

- Undertaker and Kane!

The Brothers of Destruction.

- The WWE audience had always wanted us to get together,

and you could tell it.

They were dominant individual characters,

so they’d be even more dominant as a tag team.

- These brothers united, and by God, when they’re together

hell hath no fury like these two.

- Oh, my gosh.

When the Brothers of Destruction came about,

it was like, who’s gonna beat these guys?

Nobody.

- Picking--up they go! - Double choke slam

by the Brothers of Destruction.

- No one can touch Kane and Undertaker.

Are you kidding me?

What, are you gonna send out the Hardy Boyz,

or Edge and Christian, or Dudleys?

No.

The Brothers of Destruction--

they’re gonna take out every single tag team

there is to take out, and they did.

- Is there anyone that can stand up

to the Brothers of Destruction?

- Not in this galaxy.

- You’re in the locker room, and enjoying the camaraderie

of other people that do what you do,

we’re a very unique group.

I don’t know if I necessarily ever had time

to stop and think,

Wow, you know, this is really special.

I wish I could have.

I wish I would have had time to savor it more,

but that’s just the nature of the beast.

- I mean, it was so cool, because I know that I got

to really help Glenn come along into his own

and help make him what he would turn into, which is on him,

’cause he worked his tail off.

♪ ♪

- It was fun to add evolution to Kane,

’cause you realize, at some point,

that the silent guy in the mask can only go so far.

♪ ♪

While the mask, of course, is an amazing tool,

in that it provides this mystique

and makes the character very unique,

there’s also some shortcomings.

People can’t see your face, so they don’t know

quite what the emotions are,

and there’s only so much you can do

before it gets old.

So I thought the character had gotten stale.

♪ ♪

- He’s gonna do it, J.R. He’s gonna do it!

What is it gonna look like?

- I remember him taking off his mask for the first time.

It was like, "Oh, my gosh."

Like, everyone wanted to see that.

I don’t care if you were a wrestling fan or not.

You knew who Kane was,

and you wanted to be watching "Monday Night Raw,"

because you wanted to see what was going to happen.

- We’ve always speculated.

- Here it comes!

- King, I don’t know if we wanna see this.

- Yeah. Yeah! I do wanna see it.

- Oh, my God.

- What the hell is that?

- Is that a human?

♪ ♪

- We’ve always speculated. - Here it comes!

- King, I don’t know if we wanna see this.

- Yeah. Yeah! I do wanna see it.

- Oh, my God.

- What the hell is that?

- Is that a human?

- This Kane was actually the scariest of them all,

because he is a psychological monster.

You know, you find out that the scars

that he’s covering up,

they’re actually on the inside.

They’re not on the outside.

That made the character much more alluring to me

because as much as the original Kane

was about psychology, this one even more so.

Tonight, I will once again

feast on fear and suffering.

- Kane is no doubt a living, breathing monster.

[explosion booms]

- Sadistic and twisted, and mean.

I’m not gonna do what they want.

From now on, I do what I want!

- Kane. Kane-- - [screaming]

- There is nothing that can stop me!

- He was smart enough to reinvent his character

when he needed to,

and it didn’t matter in which direction I went,

which direction Kane went.

We could not touch each other for a year, and still, boom.

Just like that, you put those two back together,

and people were just like, "Oh, yeah!"

- Oh, yeah! [cheers and applause]

- Ah! [Undertaker’s theme playing]

- Now I’m going back to the more traditional,

but now, I’m bringing a lot of the American badass

wrestling style with it and trying to make it

all work within the capsule of the traditional Undertaker.

- Undertaker-- - Oh, my gosh!

♪ ♪

- It was what’s old is now new again,

but there’s more substance now

to what you get in the ring.

- That just breathed new life in, for both of us,

because even though they had the same history,

the characters were different than the first time they met,

and that made it really alluring and different.

It wasn’t just a rehash.

It was literally something brand new.

- Oh!

- It was exciting.

Lord knows Kane deserved what he got at WrestleMania XX.

all: One! Two! Three!

- He kind of went too far, and big brother

had to put little brother back in his place. [laughs]

[Undertaker’s theme playing]

- It’s the story that’s important.

You know, we’re sitting here talking about

the rivalry of Taker and Kane

and how they were able to do that for so long.

We don’t talk about the win/loss percentage.

Taker won, I think, 75% of the matches.

Kane won 25.

Like, by the numbers, you would think

that you would lose interest.

But you were still interested, and you wanted to see it

every single time because of their ability

to be able to tell that story.

♪ ♪

- With Undertaker and Kane, it hit close to home

with a lot of fans because brothers aren’t always

gonna get along, and they’re gonna

have fights and quarrels.

And they’re gonna have mountains and valleys,

and I think people relate to that.

♪ ♪

- When you’re with anybody, you know,

300-plus days a year, you become family,

whether you like it or not.

And they legitimately are like brothers.

You know, they’re that close.

And it’s actually funny, so many people

in our extended family thought they were brothers.

Like, at our wedding they were like,

"You know, your other four brothers are here,

but where’s Kane?"

We’re like, "Um, he’s not really, you know,

a real brother," but they’re super close.

They’re great friends.

- Glenn is such a good person,

intelligent person.

well-studied, you know, you don’t get all that.

All you get is Kane off of TV, right,

but you have no idea.

You have to be able to trust the character

of the human being.

And when you do, that frees you up to

do business in a grand way.

- He’s always been there for me,

and he’s always wanted Kane to be

the equal of The Undertaker.

- Kane has defeated his brother!

- Here were two guys where they have a legendary feud.

You don’t know how in God’s name

we can possibly up the ante, and it’s like, I know.

Buried Alive.

♪ ♪

- Ladies and gentlemen,

the following contest is the Buried Alive match.

Now the only way to win this match

is to put your opponent inside the grave,

covering his body completely with dirt,

burying him alive.

♪ ♪

- He’s an undertaker. He buries the opposition.

It’s not just a period at the end of the sentence.

It’s an exclamation point.

- And for Kane, an opportunity to bury

the years of frustration

of living in his brother’s shadow.

And Undertaker, wasting little time starting this matchup.

♪ ♪

- And just sense that these two literally

want to destroy each other.

- I think both Undertaker and Kane

knew they had the opportunity to do something special.

- That is vintage Undertaker! - Wow!

- Kane going for a choke slam. - Oh, no!

- Here to The Undertaker. - He got him!

- And he delivers! - There’s Kane

almost carrying The Undertaker with ease.

♪ ♪

- Kane has completely dominated his brother,

The Undertaker. [explosion booms]

- He had never really beaten me

in any big pay-per-view.

If he was gonna be a legitimate champion,

he had to beat his brother.

- The saga is over.

My brother is never coming back.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

- Mark and I did often talk in our later years

about retirement,

and it is difficult because

you’re used to a certain lifestyle

where you’re in the spotlight all the time.

- You’re amazing, man. Oh, man.

I’m such a big fan. Have been since I was young.

- Congratulations. - Thank you, man.

I appreciate that. - People, after a while

are like, "Man, I want the old Undertaker back.

I want the old Kane back,"

and so that nostalgia kicked in.

- Through the course of 20 years,

it’s just like you go right back to it.

♪ ♪

And that’s special, because there’s so much content,

and there are so many different characters,

and there are so many different people

that come and they go.

But those were two constants,

and that story of those two guys together,

I would say that that, as far as storytelling and--

I don’t think it’ll ever be matched.

- You know, when you look at rivalries,

like the earliest in my childhood was the Ali/Frazier.

And you know, like, nobody ever saw Ali get beat.

And you watch that, and you know,

you almost take it the same way as

you always knew on any given night,

it could be Kane’s night.

- They say no one’s bigger than the business,

but every once in a while,

there’s someone that’s so special.

A Tiger Woods was bigger than golf.

There have been football players bigger than the game.

There have been boxers-- Muhammad Ali.

Bigger than boxing.

And then there’s Undertaker and Kane.

[cheers and applause]

- Being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame

is the greatest honor of my career.

[cheers and applause]

Of course, I would be remiss if, on behalf of Kane,

I didn’t thank his WWE family--

Kane’s daddy, Paul Bearer,

and his brother, The Undertaker.

[cheers and applause]

Mark Calaway was always a huge advocate of mine.

♪ ♪

He saw value in me as a performer.

He was the person that really motivated me

to believe in myself and get myself where I need to be.

And that’s really just a testament to him,

in that your real legacy maybe, in some cases,

is the opponents that you help create.

- Hey, Glenn.

- Is that the one? - That’s the one

right there, man. [laughs]

[indistinct chatter]

You think about it.

Where would Batman be without Joker?

But where would Joker be without Batman, too?

- Thank goodness it worked at Mania, but man.

That was a hell of a match I had.

I think I wore it when we wrestled in Boston.

- First time. - Yep.

- Which one? - The one on the left.

The far left.

- Man, some things just never change.

- Never. - [laughs]

- Never ever. - Those opposites

actually come together and make the whole.

Thank you. Thank you, buddy.

- Love you, man. - Thanks.

[crowd chanting] Thank you, Taker!

Thank you, Taker! Thank you, Taker!

- All those years ago, when I decided that wrestling

was what I wanted to do, did I ever imagine

that there would be a Hall of Fame

and that I would be inducted into it.

I wouldn’t be where I am today without all the people

not only that helped me in the ring,

but outside of it.

♪ ♪

Big Kane.

Our story stretches over two decades,

as the Brothers of Destruction.

[cheers and applause]

The greatest wrestling story ever told.

- It’s so much more than just two guys in a wrestling ring.

It was these themes that all of us could relate to.

I think it’s one of those things

like, every once in a while, a high school

drama teacher, 50 years from now,

is gonna show their kids a compilation

of Kane versus The Undertaker,

and they’re gonna talk about the elements that made

that storyline so successful.

♪ ♪

- I think those stories will be passed down

to where kids 20 years from now

will say, "My dad used to tell me

"about, you know, Kane and The Undertaker

and what they used to do."

And to be so enthralled and so interested

in that rivalry, that’ll be truly an honor.

♪ ♪

[cheers and applause]