Kane Believes 2001 WWE Royal Rumble Peformance Made People See He Was More Than A Novelty

Kane reflects on his performance in the 2001 WWE Royal Rumble. 

Kane was so dominant in the 2001 Royal Rumble that, following his performance, he held the record for the most eliminations in the match for thirteen years. He was also the runner-up in that year’s Royal Rumble and Steve Austin needed a steel chair in order to take him out and win the match. 

Speaking on a Patreon exclusive Q&A video for The Undertaker’s Six Feet Under podcast, Glenn “Kane” Jacobs spoke about what he believes that performance did for his career. He also answered whether or not he looked forward to the Royal Rumble every year as a showcase for his character. 

“That one was a big deal. Because I also won, too. I got eliminated by Austin with the chair. I think what that did was, it helped take me from, like, being a novelty to, ‘Oh, wow, this guy’s actually a pretty good wrestler, too,’ you know? I had the opportunity to prove that that night. It would just vary. I mean, the Rumble was such a complex match, because there’s so many moving parts and so many people involved and all that sort of stuff. It would, it would just vary. 

“I don’t like Battle Royals myself because, too often, they just turned into jumbled messes. Obviously, the Rumble is different, but it wasn’t like, I actually didn’t like, ‘Oh gosh, I’m going to the Rumble. What’s the cool stuff that’s going to happen this year?’ I was never really like that, per se; that one was, I guess, a bit of an anomaly. Also, what was cool, though, is normally, you would think of guys like Flair, Shawn Michaels, Daniel Bryan, that would stay in there forever, but they were smaller, better technical wrestlers to have a bigger guy staying there that long, I think really was different and hadn’t been done.” 

Kane’s last appearance occurred in the 2021 Royal Rumble, twenty years after his historic performance. 

Undertaker has recently stated that if he were to start a promotion today, Kane would be one of the first people he hired. Read his comments here. 

If you use any of the above quotes, please credit Undertaker’s Six Feet Under Patreon and be sure to link back to this article, giving Fightful credit for the transcription.