Metal Face

Last week, I used a pic featuring both Kane and Lita for one of my posts. Coincidentally, both Kane and Lita ended up returning on this week's Raw. How about that? What would have happened if I used a shot of Kane with Chris Benoit? The world may never know...

Kane returned. Not only that, he came back with a new look and the mask. He even wore this metal mask over his head. That was a nice way to tease whether the regular mask was underneath or not. And it was. He came out during Mark Henry's match with Cena. Once again, good way to handle it. Some people might have thought he would go after Mark Henry, the man who took him out months ago, but he instead takes out the face, John Cena. Does this mean Kane is a heel? Why bother even trying to figure it out? Kane is a tweener for life. The WWE will just have this guy destroy anyone at times. He could go from heel to face, back again, something completely beyond that, and whatever else there may be in just a month. That is one of the great things about Kane, when the WWE uses him like this.

As excellent as his return was, Raw once again had sad ratings. I talked last week about whether they should have those vignettes to hype Kane's return. You hype it to get people interested. Problem is, they never actually said when Kane would return. His return on Raw was still a surprise return. The only thing which was not a complete surprise, as I said last week, was the mask. That is what they were teasing about Kane's return. Will Kane now draw? Remember what pushing Mark Henry like they did on Smackdown did for the ratings there? Nice little boost. Having Kane do the same thing on Raw is a smart idea. It will get people interested. In theory, based on how things worked for Smackdown, there should be some kind of boost for Raw too. Just like the WWE did not push Orton as too much stronger than Mark Henry a few months ago, the WWE cannot have John Cena ruin Kane too soon. Will they allow Cena to lose clean to Kane? Kane did go over Undertaker last year. Kane can easily be sold as a monster. Having John Cena lose clean to a guy like this will not ruin him, but it will tremendously put over Kane's current push. If they only build Kane up, feed him to Cena, then get him lost in Royal Rumble matters, they would have really screwed up the opportunity they have.

Kane's return is great overall, but I want to mention one negative thing. The Rock helped ratings this year. Mark Henry helped Smackdown ratings through the push the WWE gave him. The WWE is relying on Kane to boost ratings now. All of these guys have been a part of the WWE since the late 1990s. The WWE has to rely on hyping old performers to try to get ratings? How many stars have they really made from guys who debuted after The Rock and Austin's era really ended? You can talk about Cena and Orton, and both guys have their merits, but these are the centerpieces during the current era of poor ratings. You can praise CM Punk and his inability to go 5 minutes without talking about ice cream, but his epic pipe bomb did not draw too well. It pandered directly to the regular wrestling fans on the Internet, but did not boost ratings. He delivered on merchandise sales, I'll give him that. How many of the new stars can actually draw for the WWE? Another way of looking at it, how can the WWE push these guys to make them interesting draws? The WWE can definitely create interesting pushes for guy's like Mark Henry and Kane, but they are dropping the ball with younger talent. What should happen if Kane's current push fails, whether because the WWE messes it up or fans are just not interested enough to tune in? You can't push Mark Henry and Kane forever. The WWE has to keep the ball rolling.