Kane Explains Why Isaac Yankem Was a Worse Character Than Undertaker

It may seem self-explanatory: of course the Undertaker is a better character than Isaac Yankem, DDS! One is so much cooler, and has stood the test of time. Yet both performers had longevity, and on paper the gimmicks sound no more ridiculous than one another: a wrestling dentist, as opposed to a wrestling mortician. In real life, neither profession is cranking out top athletes.

On Mostly Sports With Mark Titus and Brandon Walker, Glen Jacobs, a.k.a. Kane, was asked why his early Isaac Yankem character was a failure, yet a masked man like Kane took off and gave him career longevity, and a character based on an Undertaker became cool.

“So much of its timing, you know” he said. “And the wrestling dentist thing, Dr. Isaac Yankem, DDS, you know, that was really in an era of WWE where everything was super PG and it was it was really cartoonish, actually. Everybody has an occupation or some kind of something or other. The thing about the Undertaker is it was just super cool from the beginning.”

He also blames himself: “I was joking, I said I couldn’t sink my teeth into it, but I just couldn’t get into that character. Whereas the Undertaker was made for Mark Calaway, you know? I mean, just he did it so well and it was really believable. Like the dentist was never believable, for whatever reason, cuz it was kind of over-the-top silly.”

He acknowledged that in fact, the dentist idea is no sillier than some others, but it’s all about presentation, saying, “You think about it, like, [Undertaker]’s supposed to be a dead dude. It’s ridiculous. I mean, same with Kane. You have this guy that’s sort of supernatural and can summon fire and all this. So much of it is the execution; how it’s presented.”

Dr. Britt Baker, who has since made a wrestling dentist gimmick work, might concur.