Kane

If it seems improbable for hellfire and brimstone to be so utterly chilling, you haven’t met Kane. At 7-feet tall and weighing in at more than 300 pounds, The Devil’s Favorite Demon is a monstrous abomination that seems to have been extracted directly from your childhood nightmares.

The Big Red Monster has tormented WWE since his debut at Badd Blood in October 1997, when he tore off the cage door and unleashed hell during the first-ever Hell in a Cell Match between Shawn Michaels and his half-brother The Undertaker.

Kane is consumed by an infernal desire to set ablaze the lives of his fellow Superstars, leaving a scorched path of destruction behind his fiery footsteps. Some of The Big Red Monster’s more demented acts have included setting a WWE Hall of Famer on fire, hitting a WWE executive with a Tombstone, kidnapping too many Superstars to mention and forcing a WWE Diva to marry him. No one is safe from his twisted desires and demonic impulses. Least of all, it would seem, Kane himself.

For years, the sadistic Superstar wore a ghoulish face mask designed to conceal hideous burns from a fire supposedly started by Undertaker years before. But WWE fans received a shock on one of the most infamous nights of Kane’s career when,­ after losing a Mask vs. Championship Match on Raw, the tortured soul was forced to unmask and reveal his face to the world.

Kane’s career has been marked by some stellar and brutally woeful contests in the ring against some of the biggest names in WWE, including The Undertaker, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, Shawn Michaels, Edge and others. He’s also pioneered some of the most vicious stipulations of all time, including First Blood, Inferno, Stretcher and even Till Death Do Us Part Matches.

Like his sibling, Kane wields a highly decorated mantle of WWE glory, including reigns as WWE Champion, World Heavyweight Champion and ECW Champion. He has shown near-unprecedented versatility in the tag team ranks as well, finding championship success with a litany of partners such as X-Pac, Big Show and even twice with The Deadman. Most notably, the famed Brothers of Destruction simultaneously held the World Tag Team Championships and WCW Tag Team Championships during the Alliance’s Invasion.

Hidden beneath a mask in his earliest WWE haunts, Kane reverted to concealing his face under a scarlet leather shroud in late 2011, and it wasn't long before The Big Red Monster set his demonic sights on Daniel Bryan. Although the submission specialist got the best of his newfound rival at SummerSlam, he may have awakened a more uncontrollable fire in The Devil’s Favorite Demon, provoking him to attack Josh Mathews and Zack Ryder in incidents that inevitably led The Big Red Monster to the last place anybody expected: anger management. 

By order of Raw General Manager AJ Lee, The Devil’s Favorite Demon joined Bryan in anger management classes, and it’s safe to say progress was slow at first. Though Kane opened up about his tormented life during the first session, he still had a long way to go to reach inner peace, as he viciously chokeslammed David Otunga on Raw. Things were looking up for The Big Red Monster after his second week of therapy, when he and Bryan shared a friendly (albeit reluctant) embrace when the WWE Universe voted for them to “hug it out” on Monday Night Raw. A few shoves later, however, and the pair had to be pulled apart by WWE officials before they did any major damage.

In a bold experiment, Kane and Bryan’s counselor, Dr. Shelby, next forced these unhinged Superstars to join forces as a tag team. Oddly enough, this tactic proved effective when the tumultuous team became the WWE Tag Team Champions at Night of Champions 2012. The following night on Raw, Kane & Bryan again overcame their issues — and their opponents — to defend their championship gold for the first time as a tandem that would come to be known as Team Hell No. While a tournament was arranged to determine the No. 1 contenders to their titles, Team Hell No achieved their greatest victory on the Oct. 1 episode of Raw when they defeated WWE Champion CM Punk & Dolph Ziggler. Less than a month later, Cody Rhodes & Damien Sandow, aka Team Rhodes Scholars, became the new No. 1 contenders, punching their ticket to face Team Hell No at Hell in a Cell. Discord cost the champions the match but not the titles, as they fell to Team Rhodes Scholars via disqualification.

The team’s infighting again proved to be its downfall at Survivor Series when an argument between the pair led to Kane’s elimination from the Traditional Survivor Series Elimination Tag Team Match. Kane & Bryan soon found themselves united in the face of a common enemy, however, when Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns (The Shield) invaded WWE and attacked the pair on multiple occasions. Fate later afforded Team Hell No an opportunity to face their tormentors when WWE Champion CM Punk’s knee surgery forced him out of his WWE Title defense at WWE TLC 2012. Unfortunately, fate also led Kane to be planted through a ringside barrier by Roman Reigns as the NXT invaders clinched an unlikely victory at the December pay-per-view.

The year 2013 kicked off on a positive note, however, as Kane and Bryan's newfound cameraderie led them to pass their four-month follow-up with Dr. Shelby on the Jan. 14 Raw. Ironically enough, however, the good doctor himself lost his temper following an insult by Team Rhodes Scholars. The next week, Kane and Bryan officially graduated Shelby's program, initiating a mass hug between the Superstars, Shelby, Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, Dr. Sampson, Justin Roberts and the entire WWE Universe.

Team Hell No followed up the good feelings with a successful title defense over Team Rhodes Scholars at the Royal Rumble, but weren’t on the same page later that night in the Royal Rumble Match. After Bryan eliminated his own partner, the smaller of the champions found himself knocked out of the ring and into Kane’s arms. The Big Red Monster, left with the decision of dropping his pal or placing him back in the bout, decided on the former. The fickle friends butted heads again in February when they fought each other for a spell during an Elimination Chamber Match to determine the No. 1 Contender for the World Heavyweight Championship, though they were both eliminated by Mark Henry and seemingly had mended fences by the March 4 edition of Raw.

Later that week, however, tragedy struck Kane when his father, Paul Bearer, passed away. And when CM Punk disrespected the memory of The Father of Destruction on the March 11 Raw, Kane took it upon himself to honor his father by defeating Punk in a brutal No Disqualification Match with aid from The Undertaker. The victory was ultimately marred when Punk attacked Kane with Bearer's sacred urn and absconded with it as Raw went off the air. Kane's frustration spilled over into the next week, although fate happily presented him an outlet for his anger: A tag title defense against Dolph Ziggler & Big E Langston at WrestleMania 29. 

That outlet turned out to be just what The Big Red Monster needed. Despite the constant meddling of their ex-flame AJ Lee, Kane and Daniel Bryan persevered against The Showoff and his muscle, retaining their titles. The next night, they united with The Undertaker to drive back The Shield from a potential attack on The Phenom, but the "Hounds of Justice" retaliated two weeks later with a victory over Kane, Bryan and The Undertaker in London. Following several more confrontations with The Shield, it was confirmed on the May 13 edition of Raw that Team Hell No would defend their titles against Rollins & Reigns at Extreme Rules 2013. But the black-clad trio ended Team Hell No's eight-month reign in a Tornado Tag Team Match at the May 19 pay-per-view.  

Still very much in tune with his twisted dark side, Kane can still lock the WWE Universe in the grip of his grim black glove and leave the landscape of sports-entertainment in ember-laden ash, and woe be to the Superstar who forgets it.