Kane's Most Memorable Matches, Moments in WrestleMania History

For a Superstar who has never been the top guy, Kane has been one of WWE's most valuable performers for more than 20 years.

Since making one of the most memorable debuts in WWE history, attacking The Undertaker during the first Hell in a Cell match with Shawn Michaels in October 1997, Kane has held the WWE Championship, World Heavyweight Championship, Intercontinental Championship and Tag Team Championships.

Earlier this year, Kane was part of the Triple Threat match for the WWE Universal Championship against Brock Lesnar and Braun Strowman at the Royal Rumble.

Even though Kane's role in WWE has declined in recent years—especially recently as he pursues a new role as mayor of Knox County, Tennessee—he's still valuable and versatile enough to show up to play whatever role is needed.

Given his storied career in the ring, here are Kane's most memorable WrestleMania matches and moments.

Kane Attacks Pete Rose, Part I

Speaking frankly, Kane's history of WrestleMania matches isn't exciting.

He was a solid in-ring performer at his peak and often worked with some of WWE's best workers, such as Triple H and Kurt Angle, but there was rarely anything special about his matches on the biggest stage in professional wrestling.

The best thing Kane did at WrestleMania happened in his first two appearances at the show, and neither involved a match.

Prior to Kane's WrestleMania XIV showdown against The Undertaker, the culmination of near-yearlong storyline about The Big Red Monster's emergence in WWE to get revenge on his brother, Pete Rose was brought out as the guest ring announcer.

Since this WrestleMania was taking place at TD Garden, Rose was running down the Boston Red Sox to draw the crowd's ire. Kane came out and silenced Major League Baseball's all-time hit king by giving him a Tombstone.

The booking was illogical. Kane was the No. 2 heel in WWE, so having him attack a celebrity who was cutting a heel promo on the local sports team didn't make sense, but it didn't matter in the grand scheme because it got over.

Kane Attacks Pete Rose, Parts II and III

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After their first confrontation turned out to be a hit with audiences, WWE turned Kane and Rose into a running gag at WrestleMania in each of the next two years.

At WrestleMania XV, Kane was attacked by a man in a San Diego Chicken costume prior to his match with Triple H. Kane finally regained his composure to get a hold of the mascot, whom he unmasked to reveal as Rose before hitting him with a Tombstone.

Their final WrestleMania confrontation took place in 2000. After Kane and Rikishi defeated the D-Generation X team of Road Dogg and X-Pac, Rikishi and Too Cool began dancing around the ring. They were joined by the San Diego Chicken. Kane attacked the mascot again because he remembered what happened the previous year.

This time, though, Rose wasn't under the mask and tried sneaking into the ring with a baseball bat. Kane caught him, hitting him with a Chokeslam before Rikishi delivered a Stinkface to the 17-time MLB All-Star.

Money in the Bank

WrestleMania 21 helped shape the WWE product because it was the first event to feature the Money in the Bank ladder match.

The match grew to be so popular that WWE spun it off into its own pay-per-view in 2010, but the first version established the template for every subsequent match.

Kane played a minor role in the first Money in the Bank match. He was one of six participants, along with Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, Shelton Benjamin, Edge and Christian. Edge won and became one of the biggest stars of the past decade in the process.

Even though Kane came up short, he did have two noteworthy moments. He pushed a ladder over to send Christian flying into Tyson Tomko on the outside of the ring and jumped off the top rope to the outside, knocking everyone down.

Kane Defeats Randy Orton

Kane doesn't have a lot of big wins at WrestleMania, though his 18 career matches at the event mean he only trails The Undertaker (25) and Triple H (21) for most in WWE history.

At WrestleMania XV, Kane got a DQ win over Triple H after Chyna hit him with a chair to rejoin D-Generation X. But beyond that fluke win, Kane's only other victory over a major star came at WrestleMania XXVIII against Randy Orton. The match was OK considering it was the second contest, following Sheamus' memorable 18-second win over Daniel Bryan, but nothing that is worth discussing in detail.

The most shocking part of this whole thing is that Kane, who was 44 at the time, was given a clean pin over Orton at a point when the latter was the No. 2 star in the company behind John Cena.

Kane Wins ECW Title in Record Time

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It will take longer to read this than it took Kane to defeat Chavo Guerrero for the ECW Championship at WrestleMania XXIV. 

After winning the pre-show Battle Royal to become the No. 1 contender for the ECW title, Kane came out from under the ring as his music was playing to attack Guerrero as soon as the match started. He hit Guerrero with a Chokeslam for the clean pin in 11 seconds. 

Kane's triumph was the fastest win in WrestleMania history until The Rock pinned Erick Rowan in six seconds eight years later.