Sorry for being so tardy, as per usual. I just came off a 13 hour shift and I am absolutely drained. I will do my best though, you deserve it.
DirtyJosé;2570861 said:
1. An unhappy worker can still have an effective gimmick.
Never mind that the Masked Kane gimmick is what made Glenn Jacobs salvageable as a worker. Have you ever seen him wrestle as Issac Yankem? The Christmas Creature? No doubt that Glenn was happy to see the mask go, but what bearing does that have on how effective the gimmick was? The way I see it, Masked Kane was effective because it gave Glenn Jacobs enough recognition as a legitimate star to allow him to break into the realm of the unmasked and remain there.
If the mask was what made Glenn Jacobs a salvageable worker, then why is he still around. God knows the mask is long since gone and yet, here we are. Glenn Jacobs is still the World Heavyweight Champion and he is still one of the most dominating superstars on the WWE books. The fact of the matter is that the only think that is missing from the Kane of now, compared to the Kane of yesteryear, is that he no longer wears a mask.
Hoe happy someone is when they work has a direct correlation to how effective a worker they are. It is no secret that Kane and Vince McMahon were the two pioneers of getting rid of Kane's mask and there must have been something to create this decision. Was Kane happy in the mask? No, he wasn't. Max Messmer once wrote that when you avoid low morale in your workplace and role within a company, you avoid stress and burnout.
Tell me, how effective would Kane's mask have been if he was put on the shelf thanks to being burned out and stressed? The fact of the matter is that the mask may have been what set him apart from the crowd when he debuted, I will give you that., However, Kane was unhappy with it and when the person behind the mask is no longer on board with an idea, how effective can anything be?
Yes. If the Masked Kane gimmick wasn't effective at putting Kane over, he wouldn't remained the WWE staple that he has been for over 10 years. He very easily could have debuted in an angle with Undertaker and been forgotten within a year. He wouldn't have been the first man to have brought in against the Deadman to fade away.
Baring in mind that Kane has now been unasked for longer than he was wearing a mask, I fail to see your point. A gimmick will get you so far and the gimmick of Kane has not really evolved over the last 13 years. In fact, they still call him The Big Red Machine. Nothing has changed about Kane, other than the fact that he has lost the mask.
Now, the only possible way of defining success with the same gimmick, is looking at what he has accomplished. Like it or not, the mask of Kane was not the gimmick, it was an accessory to his character. The gimmick is a screwed up psychopath, who may or may not have been burned as a child. So, now that we have established that the gimmick is the exact same, we have to look at how successful he has been as both personas.
In my opinion, he has been more successful as unmasked Kane. It all comes back to the point about being happy with your work. Being happy leads to more confidence and self-esteem. Would Kane have had the tantalising performances that he pulled off in his recent promos against The Undertaker if he was still wearing a mask? That is debatable. However, what we do know is that he gave some of his best and most note-worthy performances as an unmasked performance in this recent feud.
2. Success does not depend upon being Champion
Saying a gimmick isn't great or effective simply based on title reigns is like saying no NFL Quarterback is worth anything without an impressive amount of Super Bowl victories under their belt. Gimmicks aren't measured by the number and length of title reigns they generate. Effectiveness is measured by how much of an impact that the gimmick made upon the viewer. Effectiveness is measured by how recognizable the gimmick makes the performer to the viewers, and easily they can relate to it.
Just a quick question. Are you implying that success is not based around how successful your gimmick is?
We only need to look at The People's Champion or The Rattlesnake to see that having a great gimmick is one of the keys to getting to the top of the mountain. Without any connection to the fans, no one is ever going to buy you as a credible champion. If unmasked Kane was not the best candidate for the World Heavyweight Championship reign, do you honestly think that he would have been given it anyway?
The fact of the matter is that success can only be measured in Championship success. We have neither the tools or the effort levels needed to ask everyone involved whether they liked the gimmick better with or without the mask. What we do have, however, is a list of accomplishments that Kane has managed and there is no higher accomplishment than being a World Heavyweight Champion. His gimmick has remained the same really, bar a few minor details. The only difference is the mask and he has been more successful without it, in my opinion.
Really, let's take a look at Unmasked Kane's success: His current World Title reign has arrived 7 years after losing the mask, which tells me that the gimmick can't be that effective if that's how long it took build up momentum for the gimmick. His previous title reign was an ECW Title reign that lasted a matter of months. It's not as if his title history post-mask is impressive enough to declare an undisputed success; I simply don't see any reason to consider Unmasked Kane a more effective gimmick by these standards.
3. His ultimate success speaks volumes of how critical his masked gimmick was.
So, what you are saying is that the Championship reign he is currently enjoying, as one of the most dominating and thought-provoking superstars, should be written off because it has taken 7 years for it to take off?
That is a crock of shit, to be honest.
I could say that his initial masked gimmick was terrible because he had no notable success at all. He won the WWF Championship, sure. However, he only held it for less than a day and it was rather underwhelming. His masked gimmick lasted 6 years and all he had to show for it was a one-day Championship reign and an unhappy persona beneath the mask.
His first title reign was indeed a blip, hence why I didn't attempt to use it as the measure of the gimmick's effective.
No, what you have done is quietly brush that under the carpet but I feel it is very pertinent to this debate. Success in Championship reigns is the only concrete pice of evidence we have to look at when we are comparing these two personas of Kane. Yet, you realise that his unmasked career has been far superior to his masked persona in terms of Championship success and you try and steer the debate away from that subject.
I will point out that it came during a time when quick title changes occurred on television regularly. I do feel that you are confusing "gimmick effectiveness" with the politic game. World titles aren't given to he who has the most effective gimmick; world titles (in the WWE) are more often than not given to guys who McMahon feels best represents his company. Masked Kane gets a footnote of a championship reign; is that the gimmick's fault, or a sign of McMahon's hesitance to get behind an at-the-time still unproven performer?
Well, that is completely untrue.
Let us look at some of the people who have been a Champion in recent times in the WWE.
Sheamus,
John Cena,
Randy Orton,
Jack Swagger,
CM Punk,
Kane.
These are the guys who best represent the company as a whole, are they? Randy Orton, who once kicked an old man in the head and put him in a coma? Or is Kane who put his brother in a vegetative state who is the face of the company? Or perhaps it is CM Punk who is the best representative of the company and what is trying to do, with his holier than thou attitude and his slurs on the people who flock to see the WWE product.
To say that Vince puts Championships on those who represent the company best, is ludicrous. The mainstream media would tell you that John Cena is probably the best role-model for everyone and he is not the WWE Champion? Why is that?
If it was McMahon's hesitance to get behind an unproven performer, than why give him the title in the first place? Look at what happened to Jack Swagger, Sheamus and CM Punk for instance. When they won their first Championship, they were all very much an unknown quantity. Yet, they all achieved that success. Vince has no problem getting behind unknown quantities. He has done it in the past and he will do it again in the future. The problem with masked Kane taking the belt was that no one bought into it and given that he could barely talk at this point, the gimmick was lost on many.
Except for the 7 years of mid-carding (where as Masked Kane was almost always a "tier 2" world title contender). Except that even though he uses words now, the only personality I've seen out of this gimmick was the beginning of his current push. Even his push now can be viewed as not so much faith in his gimmick at this point but as merely part of the build up to The Undertaker's retirement. Finally, I don't see how Kane becoming "more human" would have been of any interest if it wasn't for the effective build of Kane as a monster.
Oh! I must have forgot that most all of Kane's career as a masked superstar was in the main event of every Raw, Smackdown and PPV.
Let's face it, Kane has been as up and down in the ladder as the best of them. He has been in the main event and he has had his fair share of shitty feuds. The fact of the matter is that Kane's career as a masked superstar peaked when he won the Championship from Austin and lost it 24 hours later.
However, as a masked superstar, Kane is going on to write a whole new chapter in his career. He has become a very dominant superstar on Smackdown and is the current World Heavyweight Champion. There is more room for improvement in his current persona and that is the most telling feature of all. Kane's masked period is over and, save for a couple of moments, was completely underwhelming. His recent push and his unmasked career is still going strong. He continues to be the most dominant superstar on Smackdown and that legacy is still growing now.
