Few big man wrestlers command as much as love and adoration as Kane, so much so that there’s a fuck load of imitations. You’ve got ‘Gayne’ (Kane, but gay), ‘Candy Kane’ (Kane, but he loves sweets), and ‘Piss Kane’ (not sure what the gimmick is there) to name just three. The 7-foot-tall younger half-brother of The Undertaker hung up the knee pads earlier this year, and is now a Republican mayor in Tennessee. Yet the thematic Kane universe is still expanding.
And that star-system now includes a guy called Co-Kane, who’s gone viral in the past week due to videos of him huffing copious amounts of white powder during a bout in a YouTube-based wrestling promotion called GTS (Grim’s Toy Show), run by a guy named Grim.
At this stage, it’s important for us to clarify something. Somehow, this week saw the viral emergence of not one, but two cocaine-based parody Kanes. The second is named ‘CoKane’ and is in the JCW (Juggalo Championship Wrestling—as in, Insane Clown Posse).
Is this telepathy, coincidence, tribute, or blatant theft? Or did CoKane actually get there first?
I got in touch with Co-Kane and Grim—who acts as Co-Kane’s handler—to see what’s up, and whether there is any bad blood towards CoKane (spoiler alert: there very much is). For reasons I’m still trying to fathom, Co-Kane insisted on speaking in the manner of a Humphrey Bogart-era mobster rum-runner for the entirety of the interview.
All clear on the above? Okay, let’s get into this.
VICE: Gentlemen, tell me about yourselves.
Grim: My name’s Grim, and I run GTS wrestling. I am the owner. I am the promoter. And for ten years, I’ve been building the craziest parody characters in pro wrestling. In 1998, when the real Kane joined the Corporation [a WWF stable during the Attitude era], I said, “Corporate Kane… co-caine.” I said to myself, “Oh, my God, he’s Co-Kane!” This year, we brought him to life. We got him in a cocaine costume and we brought him out to GTS wrestling. Chopped lines and eight balls? That’s got to be Co-Kane!
I see.
Co-Kane has a very interesting voice, by the way. He’s kind of like a 1930s, 1940s American gangster. He’s kind of got that…
Co-Kane: What the fuck, see…
Grim: Oh my God. All right, so Co-Kane, tell this man about where you came from…
Co-Kane: I’m the devil’s favorite dealer from chopped lines unknown, hellfire and blow! The eight-ball machine: Cooo-Kane!
Grim: He’s the original Co-Kane—because unfortunately, right now, we’re getting our swagger jacked. We’re getting ripped off. We’re getting copied.
Co-Kane: What the fuck, see.
That would be the other wrestler going viral, right? CoKane, without the hyphen?
Grim: And the original Co-Kane—who is sitting in front of you right now—is really, really pissed off about it. As a matter of fact, so am I, because I came up with this character ten years ago. We went viral with our character a few weeks ago. It was featured on the biggest wrestling website in the United States, Fightful, and then all of a sudden, another federation [JCW] brings out this guy and does the exact same character, with the exact same joke.
Co-Kane: What the fuck, see.
Grim: It really pissed us off… and also yeah, what the fuck, see.
How are you taking this, Co-Kane?
Grim [cutting in]: So Co-Kane is pretty mad. And you know what happens, you get real aggressive when you’re on cocaine, you get real shitty with people…
I was gonna say…
Co-Kane: I…
Oh, sorry. What were you gonna say?
Co-Kane: You’re interrupting me. What the fuck, see.
Grim: Let the man speak, Co-Kane.
I was gonna say, I saw the beef on X. The other cocaine Kane and the little rat-a-tat you had with him. So you’re saying JCW just copied it in the past few weeks?
They came out this past weekend.
Just so I’ve got this clear, this was after you’d already come out with your thing?
Right. We did it, like, two weeks before Halloween, right? And he’s like, “We’ve been working on this for months.” I said, “Well, I’ve been doing it for ten years.”
I know we don’t like the fact that this guy is out there. But could it be interesting to have a match between yourself and the other cocaine wrestler?
Co-Kane: I’m all for it.
Grim: As a wrestling promoter, as the guy who puts this together, I don’t look at these as opposition, or problems, I look at it as opportunities. Let’s have Co-Kane versus Cokane, or Co-Kane versus… Crack Kane. You know, the guy also made a yellow Kane and called it ‘Piss Kane.’ You could have Co-Kane versus Piss Kane. I’m just saying, let’s make it a feud. Let’s make it a match. Let’s make some money together, rather than argue on Twitter.
So Co-Kane, how serious is the cocaine intake?
Well, Co-Kane, this character, he’s completely out of control. This guy’s doing like, two or three eight balls a day. I’m really worried about his heart.
Co-Kane: What the fuck, see.
Grim: His heart could explode at any time. But what’s worse is he’s getting the rest of the GTS wrestling roster addicted, because every time he goes to shoot the flames, no, Kane doesn’t shoot flames. Kane throws cocaine everywhere. Cocaine is flying all over the place. Everybody’s breathing it in, and people are starting to get addicted.
Most cocaine addictions do start that way. Did you hit the cocaine today?
Grim: Of course he did. This guy chops lines for breakfast.
Co-Kane: I just get my six eight-ball meals per day, see.
And you’re keeping it together? I mean, most people, when they do that, their life spins out of control.
Grim: Yeah, his life’s definitely spinning out of control. So that’s why I was like, ‘We got to get this interview going today.’ This guy’s on the road. He’s driving from New Jersey to Washington, D.C. He’s got a match tonight, tomorrow he’s in Chicago and how does he get there? It’s a cocaine train, man. This guy’s just trucking all over the country—getting people addicted, giving people lines, taking bumps, hitting the coke slam, doing powder bombs, and hitting the coke line. That’s like a clothesline, but it’s a coke line.
Who is Co-Kane’s next opponent?
Grim: We just filmed last night where Co-Kane goes 1-on-1 with a very, very popular independent wrestler in the US named Tarzan Duran, to find out who’s going to be the number one contender, and go to GTS Solid Steel Series and face LJ Wash for the GTS United States Championship.
Sounds fun. Try not to let the gear get on top of you, Co-Kane.
The post An Interview with Co-Kane: A New Cocaine-Loving Wrestler the Internet Is Obsessed With appeared first on VICE.
The post An Interview with Co-Kane: A New Cocaine-Loving Wrestler the Internet Is Obsessed With appeared first on VICE.
