I got into professional wrestling during the Attitude Era, that golden stretch from 1997 to 2001 when wrestling was somehow both mainstream entertainment and complete madness. Watching a YouTube video about it recently made me realize just how insane those storylines were.
And I’m not even talking about the stuff that sort of makes sense, like a guy beating up his boss every week (relatable, honestly). I’m talking about Kane: the seven-foot, mask-wearing fire survivor who debuted to avenge an act of childhood arson committed by his brother, The Undertaker. A fire that killed their parents. Naturally, they decided to handle that trauma in the most rational way possible: a wrestling match at WrestleMania.
Kane is basically the Forrest Gump of unhinged WWE plotlines. The man has been through everything. His girlfriend Tori left him for X-Pac. He got recruited as a corporate hitman. He once buried The Undertaker alive and then solemnly declared that his brother was “dead.” Oh, and Triple H once accused him of committing necrophilia. Why? Because apparently that’s how you hype a pay-per-view match. Forget titles. Let’s talk about corpses!
You’d think after all that, the character would have an expiration date. But Kane just kept going. The fact that he remained a relevant character until 2018 is unreal. Impressive, but unreal.
The Core of the Monster
Here’s the thing: beneath the absurdity, Kane’s early character arc actually made sense. When I analyze wrestling characters, I always ask: why does this person wrestle? For Kane, it started as revenge: he wrestled to fight his brother. Once that was over, though, he needed a reason to keep going.
That reason was normalcy. Wrestling gave him a community, a stage, a reason to exist among people who wouldn’t run screaming. It was a way for him to belong, to have friends, to maybe even have a girlfriend — to feel human. So when Kane lost people he cared about or got used by authority figures, those stories hit harder because they were about him losing his shot at a “normal” life.
Even trying to murder his brother made emotional sense: The Undertaker destroyed any chance Kane had at being normal, and Kane’s rage was just that broken humanity coming out. Which brings us to 2004, the year WWE decided to take that tragic complexity and light it on fire.
The Year Kane Became a Walking HR Violation
By 2004, Kane was a full-time villain. After losing to Undertaker (again) at WrestleMania XX, WWE didn’t know what to do with him. So someone pitched, “What if Kane falls in love again?” Sure. Fine. Romantic redemption arc.
Except Kane’s version of “love” started with kidnapping Lita.
Yup — that’s the plot.
From there, things somehow got worse. Kane impregnated Lita against her will. There’s no nice way to phrase that. WWE just kind of hand-waved it because realism, criminality, and moral ethics would collapse their entire universe. But the implication was clear: Lita didn’t consent. This man forced her into pregnancy, and the show treated it like just another Monday.
It’s genuinely horrifying, but it also, bizarrely, fits Kane’s character. His whole arc had been about chasing normalcy: relationships, family, acceptance. So when he couldn’t find it organically, he tried to force it. His version of “starting a family” was violence and delusion wrapped in a love story only Vince McMahon could approve.
Kane, Lita, and a Match Made in Hell
So now we’ve got a soap opera written by Satan. Lita’s pregnant, trying to stay with Matt Hardy, and Kane’s lurking in the background like an uninvited baby daddy. Of course, Kane wants to win her heart, because apparently that’s what you do after threatening someone and assaulting their boyfriend.
And in true WWE fashion, this all leads to a stipulation match.
If Hardy wins, Kane leaves them alone.
If Kane wins, Lita marries him.
WHAT. THE. F*CK.
The wildest part? Lita came up with this stipulation herself. I always assumed Hardy did — because, you know, women don’t have agency in the WWE. But nope, this was her idea. So we get a storyline where a woman literally gambles her freedom in a wrestling match. Spoiler: Matt Hardy loses. Kane wins. They get “married.” Then she miscarries, and by Christmas, Kane’s a good guy. Classic Vince McMahon morality arc.
The Part Where I Accidentally Agree with the YouTube Comment Section
I sat down ready to trash this storyline from top to bottom. But then I made the mistake of scrolling through the YouTube comments under the recap video.
“The rivalry is underrated.”
“Love the throwback, bro.” (This was a secret Vince Russo account)
“WHY CAN’T THEY WRITE LIKE THIS ANYMORE???”
ALL CAPS! At first, I thought these people were insane. But after rereading what I just wrote… they might actually have a point.
Because as screwed up as it was, this storyline worked, at least within WWE logic. It was outrageous, yes, but it was also coherent. Every week the story moved forward. Every beat connected to Kane’s character: his desire for belonging, his warped idea of love, his inability to understand boundaries.
It didn’t need a title belt. It didn’t need five-star matches. It was pure chaos, but it had momentum. It made you tune in just to see how much worse it could possibly get. And that, weirdly enough, is what professional wrestling is all about. Triple H should have AI take notes.
So Bad It’s Legendary
By 2004, SmackDown was the “wrestling” show, and RAW was the soap opera. The Kane–Lita–Hardy feud was peak RAW. It was violent, messy, dramatic, and completely unhinged, but you couldn’t look away.
Two decades later, I still remember it better than most title runs. Not because it was good, but because it was gloriously deranged. Sometimes, wrestling doesn’t need to make sense. It just needs to commit.
And no one, not even Vince McMahon’s bizarre moral compass, has ever committed to nonsense quite like Kane did in 2004.
Meninity 