Pro Wrestler Kane Is Actually Running For Mayor

In WWE storyline, Kane is the half-brother of the Undertaker. For the past 20 years, he has both feuded with Undertaker and won the tag team championships with him as a partner three times. He once defeated Stone Cold Steve Austin for the then-WWF championship. He holds the record for Royal Rumble eliminations, ended the career of kayfabe illegitimate father Paul Bearer in storyline (by locking him in a freezer) and has attacked Pete Rose on multiple occasions.

In real life, Kane is 49-year-old Glenn Jacobs. He’s a libertarian. He endorsed Ron Paul for president and has said his primary political hero is Murray Rothbard, the Austrian economist who inspired the stateless anarcho-capitalist movement. He last appeared on WWE programing in November. Since then, Jacobs has been preparing at a run for another job: Mayor of Knox County, Tennessee.

This week, Jacobs released his first campaign video. It’s a boilerplate political introduction. He says Knox County is the best place in the world to live—it does have the recently-renovated  Sunsphere in Knoxville!—and says he’ll work to create new jobs, keep taxes low and make the government “open and transparent.” Since he’s running as a Republican, he also quotes Ronald Reagan.

Jacobs is running to replace current Knox County mayor Tim Burchett, a Republican, who is term-limited. He actually says the world of professional wrestling has prepared him for a job in politics.

“I learned that great leaders don’t stand behind and crack a whip and drive people on,” Jacobs told reporters. “They get out in front, they have a vision, and the show people how it benefits them and pull them along.”

Jacobs’s likely opponents in the May Republican primary will be Bob Thomas, a current county commissioner, and Jimmy “J.J.” Jones, the current county sheriff. The county is overly Republican, and whoever wins the primary will likely be the next mayor.

By far the best part of Jacob’s campaign is his logo, which features a flame and the tagline “Lighting the way for our future.” Wrestling fans know that Kane has long used fire as a weapon in the world of pro wrestling. He controls fire from the ring posts with his arms (this looks cooler than it sounds). In storyline, he originally wore a mask because of the burns he suffered when the Undertaker burnt down their house when they were kids (though this was later dropped and the burns became “emotional”).

He’s literally using his wrestling gimmick as his logo and slogan. Just think what his logo would be like if he’d kept his old WWE gimmick, Dr. Isaac Yankem D.D.S.