Glenn Jacobs (Kane) Recalls Vince McMahon Pitching Him The Isaac Yankem Character

Glenn Jacobs (Kane) didn’t think there was any way he’d ever be a wrestling dentist.

Appearing on the latest edition of Stories with Brisco and Bradshaw, Jacobs recalls meeting with Vince McMahon and him pitching the Isaac Yankem character. After having a tryout, Jacobs says he was called a week later. The following is what happened next:

“WWE called, ‘hey, we’d like to offer you a developmental contract and you need to come up at some point here in the next couple months to meet with Vince and all that stuff.’ So, I flew up from Knoxville to LaGuardia, get picked up in a limousine. Man, I’ve never been a limousine in my life, right, I’m like ‘this is awesome. I’m a WWE superstar, life doesn’t get any better than this. Get taken over to, at the time it was Titan Towers. Go up, sitting in, at the time it was JJ Dillon who was head of talent relations. I’m sitting with JJ and you know we’re just kind of talking and Vince walks in and, you know, he’s an intimidating dude, especially when you’re trying to get a job with the company.

So we have a little small talk and then, you know, you hear all this stuff like ‘Vince is a master of mind games and manipulation and all this stuff.’ So Vince asked me, he was like, ‘Glenn, have you ever been afraid to go to the dentist?’ I’m thinking to myself, like where is this going? I pause for a second and then, ‘no sir, doesn’t bother me.’ Then he says, ‘I’ve always had this great idea for a character, and I later found out, I think it was Bobby Heenan who had this idea, but Vince said it was his idea. But, Vince is like, ‘a wrestling dentist. Isaac Yankem. Get it? I yank ’em [laughs].’ Does the Vince laugh, and of course I’m sitting there stone-faced because I’m like, ‘wait a second, you flew me all the way from Knoxville to tell me I’m gonna be a wrestling dentist?’ Then it’s like the Ron Simmons story with Faarooq, I’m sitting there stone-faced being like, ‘I think it’s great [laughs].’ So yeah, he was the person that broke the news to me.

For a while afterwards, I’m like ‘ah, there’s no way. There’s no way I’m gonna be a wrestling dentist.’ Then Cornette pulls me aside at a Smoky Mountain show and of course, Jim was doing some creative stuff with WWE, he’s like, ‘so I’m gonna you’re gonna start with at SummerSlam, with Bret Hart, and it’s the dentist.’ I was like, okay, the part about Bret Hart was really really cool. The SummerSlam part [too]. The dentist, not so much.”

Jacobs would debut on Raw as Isaac Yankem on June 26, 1995. The character would make his last televised appearance in April 1996. After another unsuccessful repackaging, Jacobs would debut as Kane in 1997. He would go on to have a Hall of Fame career, being inducted as part of the class of 2021.

Now, Jacobs serves as the mayor of Knox County, Tennessee.

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