Kane Was 'Pumped' About Removing His Mask In WWE, Says The Character Was Stale

For the first few years in WWE under the named Kane, the "Devil's Favorite Demon" wrestled underneath a mask and a full, or nearly full, body suit. However, the mask was bound to be removed eventually. It happened after losing a match to Triple H on a March 2003 episode of "WWE Raw," which meant Kane was forced to take his mask off on live TV. The removal of the mask has become an iconic moment from the early Ruthless Aggression days, with Kane looking back on it in an interview with PWMania.

"I was pumped about it," Kane said. "Kane had gotten rather stale. The mask while it was a great asset because it provided a mystique and mystery that nobody else had, and also because we use our face a lot to show people emotion which is what WWE is all about and getting the audience to feel what you feel, I couldn't do that they way I wanted to because of the mask and felt I was pretty limited ... Now you have a big, huge guy who is all messed up on the inside although he looked normal on the outside. The scars were on the inside and his psyche."

Kane found himself wrestling for the next few years without a masking, winning the Money in the Bank and the World Heavyweight Championship in 2010 while unmasked. While Kane had previously held the WWE Championship in his fully body suit and mask, he only held the title for a day, whereas this 2010 reign lasted over 150 days. In the 2010s, Kane would often go back and forth between wearing the mask and ditching it, most recently wrestling in the 2021 Men's Royal Rumble with it on.