Okay, let's unpack this because I have been staring
at two photographs on my desk for the last hour.
I have a feeling I know exactly which photos
you were looking at. My brain is just having
a really hard time reconciling that these are
the exact same human being. It is the dichotomy
to end all dichotomy. Right, because on the left
side of my desk, I have a picture of a seven
foot tall behemoth. Naturally. He is wearing
a mask that looks like it is made of... stitched
together human flesh or leather at least he is
covered in red and black spandex and he is probably
doing something completely unhinged he is literally
in the process of setting a cameraman on fire
yeah just a standard tuesday night in the late
90s wrestling scene a literal horror movie monster
come to life and then uh on the right side of
the desk i have a photo of a man in a very sensible
suit and tie a completely different world completely
he is sitting behind a mahogany desk he has reading
glasses on, and he is signing a municipal zoning
ordinance regarding stormwater drainage in Knox
County, Tennessee. And depending on your perspective
on local government, you know, that second photo
might actually be the scarier one. That is a
fair point. But the central fascination here,
the absolute core of our deep dive today, is
how these two worlds collided. It is a wild trajectory.
We are looking at the life and career of Glenn
Jacobs. To the world, he is Kane, the devil's
favorite demon, the big red machine. Or to the
citizens of Knox County, he is Mr. Mayor. So
our mission today, diving into the source material,
primarily the extensive Wikipedia archives covering
his early life, his wrestling career, filmography,
and his political tenure, is to figure out...
Exactly. How does this happen? How does a failed
football prospect who stumbled through some of
the absolute worst character ideas in television
history evolve into one of the longest tenured
superstars in WWE history? And not just survive
it, but build a legacy. Right. And then how does
he take that specific legacy and pivot into a
serious, highly ideological political career?
I think the word we keep coming back to for you
guys listening today is adaptability or honestly
survival. Survival is a great way to put it.
Because when you look at the sources, you see
a man who was handed failure after failure. Just
terrible idea after terrible idea. Truly humiliating
stuff. And he somehow managed to outlast everyone
else by just doing the work. Well, let's jump
straight into the origins. Because when you see
a guy who is 7 feet tall and 320 pounds, you
kind of assume he was building a lab somewhere.
Right. Or born in a funeral home. If you believe
the wrestling storyline. Which we will get to.
But the reality is a bit more international,
isn't it? It is. Glenn Thomas Jacobs was actually
born on April 26, 1967 in Torrejon de Ardoz,
Spain. Spain. I really did not see that coming
when I started researching this. Yeah, he was
a military brat. His father was in the United
States Air Force and was stationed over there
at the time. Got it. So he starts his life bouncing
around a bit, eventually landing in the United
States. Yeah. And he grows up near St. Louis,
Missouri. And from a very young age, the defining
characteristic for him was simply his massive
size. You really cannot teach seven feet. He
went to high school in Bowling Green, Missouri,
and he was just a physical force of nature. Which
naturally pushes you toward athletics. Absolutely.
He excelled in football and basketball. But here
is the first nugget from our sources that usually
stops people in their tracks. Let's hear it.
We tend to stereotype pro wrestlers, especially
the giant monster types, as, well, meatheads.
Grunters, guys who just lift heavy things and
put them down. Exactly. But Jacobs went to Northeast
Missouri State University, which is now Truman
State, and he didn't get a degree in sports medicine
or general studies. What did he study? He earned
a degree in English literature. Get out. So the
guy who became famous for not speaking. for being
a literal mute monster, is sitting in a dorm
room analyzing Shakespeare and Faulkner. It creates
this incredible irony that runs through his entire
life. He is arguably one of the most well -read
guys in any locker room he walks into. But his
job is to look like a caveman. Right. It speaks
to a level of intellectual curiosity that he
had to sort of hide for a very long time. But
at that stage in his life, the literature degree
was essentially the backup plan. Oh, for sure.
The main plan was the NFL. Which makes total
sense. If you are that big and you can move your
feet, the NFL is going to find you. And they
absolutely did. The draft scouting reports viewed
him as this diamond in the rough. He played center
for the basketball team and defensive line and
guard for the football team. No, he was athletic,
not just big. Very raw. But the potential was
undeniable. And after the 1991 draft, he got
the call every single college football player
dreams of. The Chicago Bears. The Chicago Bears
invited him to their rookie camp as an undrafted
free agent. The monsters of the midway. That
is the dream scenario for a defensive lineman.
He was right there. He was right there at Hallis
Hall. But this is where we hit that first major
pivot point in his life. The big almost moment.
What happened? He failed the physical. Oh, man.
That is absolutely valuable. It was a knee injury
from his college days. He'd only played seven
games in his final season because of it. So the
damage is already done. Yeah. The Bears doctors
took one look at the knee and just said, no chance.
And just like that, the NFL door slammed shut.
That has to be devastating. You have the size,
you have the drive, but the physical machinery
just fails you at the finish line. It is the
reality for so many athletes. So you are a seven
-foot English major with a bad knee. In the early
90s. What do you even do? If you are that size,
there is really only one other industry that
pays. You go to the modern carnival. Professional
wrestling. Professional wrestling. It was the
only other place where being a giant was an actual
asset, not a liability. So he started training.
And he debuted in 1992 on the independent circuit.
Now, I really want to spend some time here. Because
when we think of the name Kane today, we think
of a legend. A Hall of Famer. But looking at
this timeline of his early career, it is a gallery
of horrors. And not the cool horror movie kind.
No, the embarrassing kind. Yeah. It is the struggle
phase. And it goes deep. People assume he walked
into an arena and was a star immediately. But
the road to success was paved with some of the
most embarrassing gimmicks in television history.
He started out as Angus King, right? Yeah, Angus
King on the indie circuit in 1992, which is fine.
Generic big man stuff. Nothing offensive about
that. But then he goes to the USWA. The United
States Wrestling Association down in Memphis.
This was Jerry Lawler's territory. Exactly. And
they gave him his first real character. Oh, I
saw this in the source material. I need you to
describe this for the listener because if they
haven't seen the pictures, they are not going
to believe us. The Christmas Creature. The Christmas
Creature. It is exactly what it sounds like and
somehow it is worse than you were imagining.
Paint the picture. Picture a seven foot tall
man. Now, wrap him in a bright green bodysuit.
Put a mask on him that looks like it was made
of cheap felt. Okay. Bad start. Give him sleeves
that are striped like candy canes. It gets worse.
And this is the specific detail that gets me
every single time. Drape him in actual tinsel.
Tinsel. Like you would buy at a pharmacy in December.
Yes. He was billed as an evil Christmas character
from the North Pole. The absurdity of that is
staggering. And here is the absolute kicker from
the archives. The costume was homemade. His mother
actually sewed it for him. No. Imagine having
a degree in English literature, having read The
Great Gatsby, and then standing in your childhood
bedroom while your mom sews tinsel onto your
arm so you can go fight Jerry the King Lawler.
It perfectly highlights the absolute carny absurdity
of the wrestling business. But more importantly,
it highlights Jacobs' incredible work ethic.
How so? Think about it. A lot of guys with his
size, or guys who almost made the NFL, would
have a huge ego. They would have said, I am not
wearing that. I am a serious athlete. But Jacobs
put the tinsel on. He put the tinsel on. He went
out there and he tried his hardest to be the
scariest Christmas tree in Memphis. That willingness
to be humiliated really pays off later. But it
didn't pay off immediately, did it? No, not at
all. Because he eventually gets signed to the
WWF, the big leagues, in 1995. And you would
think, OK, Vince McMahon, the genius marketer,
he will see this giant and make him a gladiator.
You would think that. But Vince McMahon has a
very specific, sometimes bizarre sense of humor.
That is an understatement. He saw this massive,
imposing giant and thought, you know what is
scary? Dentistry. Isaac Yankum? Jerry Lawler's
private dentist. This was Jacobs' big debut on
national television. They brought him in to feud
with Bret Hart, right? Yes, Bret Hart, who was
the top guy in the company at the time. And the
gimmick was simply that he was an evil dentist.
But not just an evil dentist. He was a dentist
with spectacularly bad teeth. That is the crucial
nuance. They emphasized that he had terrible
yellow rotting teeth. The psychology there is
just baffling. It makes no sense. They played
generic drill noises over the arena speakers
when he came out. And practically speaking, for
the performer, it was a disaster. Why? Just because
it was embarrassing? Worse than that. He had
to wear this massive dental appliance in his
mouth to make his teeth look rotten. Oh, wow.
Which made it incredibly hard to breathe while
wrestling and virtually impossible to talk clearly.
And he was wrestling Bret Hart, one of the greatest
technical fast -paced wrestlers ever. While the
announcers are just making terrible tooth puns
the entire match. And what was the result? He
lost. A lot. He was what industry calls a jobber
to the stars. Meaning his job was just to make
the main event guys look good. Exactly. He lost
to Bret Hart. He lost to The Undertaker. He lost
to The Ultimate Warrior. The character was a
total bust. A complete failure. By late 1996,
the Isaac Yankum character was effectively retired
from television. So let's look at the scorecard.
Strike one, the NFL says no. Strike two, the
WWF says you are a bad dentist. Most people would
absolutely quit here. But then somehow it gets
even worse. We have to talk about the fake Diesel
saga. This genuinely feels like a fever dream
to look back on. This is arguably the lowest
point of his entire career. Give us the context
for why this even happened. So Kevin Nash, who
wrestled as Diesel, And Scott Hall, who was Razor
Ramon, were huge stars for the WWF. Household
names at that point. Huge names. But they left
the WWF to go to WCW, the rival television company,
for guaranteed money. The start of the Monday
Night Wars. Exactly. And it was a massive blow
to Vince McMahon. Vince was furious. Understandably.
But Vince legally owned the intellectual property
of the Diesel and Razor Ramon characters. He
owned the names and the costumes. That's right.
So he decided to try and prove a point to the
audience and to his rivals. He essentially said,
I made those stars. I own those names. I can
just put the costumes on other people and the
fans won't care. Which is an insane theory. That
is like replacing Harrison Ford in the middle
of an Indiana Jones movie and just pretending
nobody notices. It is exactly like that. So they
took Glenn Jacobs, put him in Kevin Ash's leather
outfit, gave him a fake black wig and sent him
out to the ring as Diesel. And how did the fans
react? They completely revolted. They hated it
with a passion. I remember the chants. The chant
Fake Diesel followed him into every single arena.
And that isn't just regular wrestling heat, is
it? No, it was a, boo, you are the bad guy. It
was, boo, get off my television screen. This
is creatively insulting. It has to be so humiliating
for the performer. Unbelievably humiliating.
You aren't even playing a character. You are
playing a counterfeit version of a guy who is
currently famous on the other channel. It is
usually a career death sentence. Almost always.
When you are the fake version of someone else,
you have zero identity of your own. So let's
pause and look at where we are. We are in 1997.
Glenn Jacobs is 30 years old. He has been a Christmas
tree. A bad dentist and a counterfeit trucker.
He has absolutely zero credibility with the audience.
Why didn't the company just fire him? Or why
didn't he just quit and use his English degree?
This is the absolute key insight from this early
period. This is the big so what of his origins.
Lay it on us. He survived because he was reliable.
Even his fake diesel, while thousands of fans
were jeering him out of the building, he showed
up on time. He didn't complain to management.
He never complained. He worked safe, meaning
he didn't hurt his opponents in the ring, which
is huge for a man his size. Just a consummate
professional. Exactly. In an industry full of
drug issues, massive ego problems, and guys just
not showing up for work, Glenn Jacobs was professional.
He was boring in the best way possible for a
boss. And because he was so incredibly reliable,
the company kept him on the payroll just long
enough for the right idea to finally land. And
when that idea landed... It landed like a meteor.
October 1997. The birth of the monster. The debut
of Kane. This is a masterclass in long -term
narrative storytelling. It really is. For months
on television, Paul Bearer, this creepy, high
-pitched manager who carried a golden urn around,
had been telling The Undertaker that his secret
was out. He was threatening to reveal this dark,
horrible secret from the past. The soap opera
element kicks into high gear right here. The
backstory they created was basically Shakespearean
tragedy. What is the lore? The story was that
the undertaker, as a child, had burned down the
family funeral home, killing their parents. Dark
stuff. Very dark. But Paul Bearer revealed that
the younger brother, Kane, had actually survived
the fire. But he wasn't okay. No, he was physically
scarred, he was mentally broken, and Paul Bearer
had kept him locked away in an asylum all these
years. And now he was finally coming for revenge
against his older brother. It is so much better
than Evil Dentist. It has actual stakes. It has
deep emotional tragedy. It has incredible pathos.
And the actual debut at the pay -per -view of
Bad Blood in your house is legendary. It is one
of the most famous moments in wrestling history.
Set the scene for us. It is the first ever Hell
in a Cell match. The Undertaker versus Shawn
Michaels. They are inside this massive chain
link cage with a roof. The cage is completely
locked from the outside. There's absolutely no
way in. And then the arena lights go red. That
terrifying organ music hits. And Jacobs walks
out. But he looks completely different than anything
he had done before. He is totally transformed.
He is covered head to toe in this thick red and
black bodysuit. To hide the burn scars. Right.
And he is wearing a leather mask that covers
his entire face. Except for his eyes and mouth.
He looked like a comic book supervillain come
to actual life. And he walks right up to the
cage door. He walks up to this massive steel
structure, grabs the door, and literally rips
it off the hinges. Quick note for the listener
here. That door was specially rigged by the prop
department, obviously, but visually. Visually,
it looked incredible. It established him immediately
as a monster who was physically stronger than
the Undertaker. Which nobody was at that time.
Nobody. He walks into the ring, stands face -to
-face with The Undertaker, who is 6 '10", himself,
and Jacobs actually looks down at him. And then
he attacks him. He delivers the Tombstone Piledriver,
The Undertaker's own finishing move, to his own
brother. In five minutes, Isaac Yankum was completely
erased from the public consciousness. Kane was
suddenly the scariest thing on television. And
this kicked off what might be the most complex,
long -running relationship in wrestling history.
The Brothers of Destruction. It went on for literally
decades. The dynamic was so fascinating because
it constantly shifted. One month, Kane is trying
to actively murder the Undertaker. And the next
month, they are hugging and dominating the tag
team division together. The stats back that up
too. They won the WCW and WWF tag team championships
during the massive invasion angle. But when they
were fighting each other, it was brutal. We really
have to talk about the inferno match in 1998.
Yes, I remember watching this as a kid. The ring
was literally surrounded by actual fire. This
was a spectacle tailor -made for Kane's pyromaniac
character backstory. How did it even work? They
rigged the entire ring apron with gas jets. The
flames would shoot up six feet in the air whenever
there was a big impact move in the ring. And
the rules of the match. To win, you had to literally
set a part of your opponent's body on fire. Think
about the actual danger there for the performers.
It was insane. The oxygen was constantly being
sucked out of the ring area by the flames. It
was reportedly about 120 degrees inside the ropes.
And Jacobs is wearing a full, thick bodysuit
and a heavy leather mask. He was practically
boiling alive in there. But he did it. And it
completely solidified the character as this unstoppable
force of nature. And he reached the absolute
mountaintop pretty quickly after that debut,
right? He won the big one. He did. King of the
Ring, 1998. It was a first blood match against
Stone Cold Steve Austin. The rules being the
first man to bleed loses. Right. And the stipulation
was... If Kane loses, he has to set himself on
fire. Incredibly high stakes. Very high stakes.
Yeah. But he actually won. He defeated Stone
Cold, who was arguably the biggest star in the
history of the business at that moment, to become
the WWF champion. Now, granted, the booking was
a little chaotic. He lost the title back to Austin
just 24 hours later on Monday Night Raw. But
that moment cemented him forever. He wasn't just
a sidekick or a monster of the week anymore.
He was a legitimate... Main event player. Okay,
so he is the monster. He is established. But
here are the fundamental problem with wrestling
monsters. They all have a shelf life. They always
do. Once we see the monster bleed, once we see
him lose a big match, he stops being scary. And
usually the character just dies out. And now
he wears out. But Kane lasted for another 20
years. How does that happen? This brings us to
the psychology of reinvention. And this is where
Jacobs' intelligence that... English lit degree,
that deep adaptability really shines through.
He knew he couldn't stay the same. He understood
that the big red machine would get stale. If
he just stayed a silent robotic monster, he would
just become a nostalgia act. He had to evolve
the character. And the first big evolution was
the half mask era in 2002. Right, where he started
talking a little bit and showing more human personality.
But the real shock to the system was the complete
unmasking in 2003. This was a huge gamble for
the company and for him. Massive. For six straight
years, that mask was his entire identity. The
entire lore of the character was that he was
hideously scarred underneath it. But he lost
a stipulation match to Triple H and Madison Square
Garden. Crowd is totally hushed. He reaches up,
he peels the mask off. And everybody in the arena
is expecting Freddy Krueger. Exactly. But when
he took it off, he just looked like a guy. A
completely normal face. A dirty, smudged guy.
With a really weird patchy haircut, sure. But
physically, there were no burns. There were no
scars at all. Which could have absolutely killed
the character dead. The fans could have revolted
again. They could have easily said, hey, he is
a phony. The lore was a lie. But they spun the
psychology of it brilliantly. They explained
that the scars weren't physical. They were purely
mental. He believed he was hideous. Yes. The
trauma made him believe he was a monster. And
taking the mask off. completely unleashed psychopath
Kane. He stopped being a slow robot and started
being an emotionally unstable, erratic villain.
And this era got really dark really fast. It
did. There are specific incidents from the sources.
He set the lead announcer, Jim Ross, on fire
during an in -ring interview. He attacked the
CEO of the company, Linda McMahon. It was a massive
shift from supernatural horror to very grounded
psychological horror. And we definitely have
to acknowledge the Lita storyline from 2004 here.
We should put a content warning on this part
because it hasn't aged well at all. It really
hasn't. It involved Kane developing a very dark
obsession with the wrestler Lita. There was a
forced marriage storyline. And a very controversial
pregnancy and miscarriage storyline involving
another wrestler, Gene Snitsky. It was very uncomfortable,
soap opera drama. but from a pure performance
standpoint. It showed range. It proved Jacobs
could carry heavy, continuous, dialogue -driven
drama, which nobody thought the Christmas creature
could ever do. And then, just to give the audience
absolute whiplash, a few years later, he pivots
to pure comedy. Team hell no. Team hell no. This
might genuinely be my personal favorite version
of Kane. This is around 2012. He teams up with
Daniel Bryan. They are both playing these highly
angry, volatile characters. So the onscreen authority
figure forces them to attend anger management
classes together. The hug it out era. Yes. You
have this massive seven foot monster sitting
in a tiny folding chair wearing a welder's mask
talking about his deep emotional feelings with
a therapist. named Dr. Shelby. It was genuinely
hilarious television. And it was significant
because it proved that Jacobs could do pure slapstick
comedy without completely losing his physical
intimidation factor when the bell rang. They
become tag team champions and easily one of the
most popular acts in the entire company. And
then we get yet another major reinvention, Corporate
Kane. The authority era around 2013. He officially
trades the red mask for a tailored suit and tie.
He becomes the director of operations. He is
basically playing a middle management. corporate
bureaucrat, but one who also acts as the physical
enforcer for the bosses. It is so funny in hindsight
because it is almost like he was practicing for
his future political career. Truly. He is wearing
a suit. He is dealing with HR issues, which in
WWE usually meant chokeslamming a guy through
a wooden table. It was almost a meta commentary
on his own incredible longevity. he'd become
an absolute institution within the company. So
they just made him a literal corporate institution
on screen. So we have the silent monster, the
unstable psycho, the comedian, and the corporate
executive. And through all of this constant change,
he is quietly racking up records that frankly
seem impossible. The sheer volume of his career
output is really hard to comprehend. What do
the stats say? He officially holds the record
for the most matches in WWE history, especially
when you include the dark matches and the house
shows, the untelevised live events. He was the
ultimate workhorse. And his dominance in the
Royal Rumble match is legendary. That is basically
his signature event. It is. He holds the record
for the most Royal Rumble match appearances of
all time at 20. Think about the physical toll
of that 20 years of showing up for that specific
grueling match. For years, he held the record
for the most cumulative eliminations across all
rumbles with 46. Someone just broke that recently,
right? Yes, but he held it for a very long time.
And in 2001, he eliminated 11 different people
in a single match, a record that stood untouched
for 13 years. He was the guy the company called
when they needed to clean house and look terrifying.
He was also a Grand Slam champion. Meaning he
won everything. The first wrestler to win the
WWE Championship. the ECW Championship, and the
World Heavyweight title. But beyond the championship
belts and the rumble stats, what really strikes
me in the source material is the peer reviews.
The quotes from his colleagues are incredibly
telling. It quotes some absolute heavy hitters
in the industry. It does. The Undertaker himself,
Mark Calloway, went on record stating that if
he were to ever start his own wrestling company,
Glenn Jacobs is the very first person he would
hire. Wow. First pick overall. Not The Rock.
Not Steve Austin. No, Kane. Because Calloway
says he is the total package. In what sense?
He is selfless. He is completely willing to put
other people over and makes them look good. And
he is safe. He is incredibly safe. He doesn't
injure the people he works with. And he is dependable.
In a world of absolute chaos, Glenn Jacobs was
the rock. Ric Flair called him the best in the
world. Big Show called him the best big man ever.
And he was rightfully inducted into the Hall
of Fame in 2021. That idea of him being safe
is really interesting to analyze because his
entire on -screen character is entirely about
unhinged violence. But the actual job of a pro
wrestler is protecting your partner. That is
the grand paradox of professional wrestling.
To look like a vicious killer to the audience,
you have to be an absolute savior to your opponent.
You are trusting a 300 -pound man to drop you
on your head and neck without actually breaking
your spine. Jacobs did that for 25 years and
rarely ever had an accident. That requires immense
physical control and deep spatial intelligence.
Which brings us right back to that core idea
of reliability. He survived the terrible early
dimmicks because he showed up and did the work
safely. And that specific work ethic apparently
translated perfectly to his second life. Because
while he was chokeslamming people on television
every Monday, he was apparently sitting on the
tour bus reading Murray Rothbard. And this brings
us to the massive political turn. Which wasn't
as sudden as it seemed to the general public,
was it? Not at all. Jacobs had been a serious
student of libertarianism for a very long time.
Yeah, he wasn't just a celebrity dabbler who
decided to run for office on a whim. He was writing,
actively writing. He was. He wrote essays for
LewRockwell .com. He maintained his own political
blog called The Adventures of Citizen X. He knew
his stuff. He cites heavy academic economists
like Ludwig von Mises and Harry Brown as his
major influences. He even identifies theoretically
as a Rothbardian. Yes. We should probably define
this for the listener so they understand exactly
where his ideology sits. Please do. What is the
Austrian school of economics? Is it just the
standard conservative taxes are bad platform?
It is much deeper and more philosophical than
that. It is a school of economic thought that
heavily emphasizes the spontaneous organizing
power of the price mechanism. And it is deeply,
fundamentally skeptical of any government intervention,
central banks like the Federal Reserve and fiat
currency. It advocates for radical individualism,
radical individualism and completely free markets.
Murray Rothbard specifically was an anarcho capitalist,
believing that the state itself was essentially
unnecessary and coercive. So he is not just a
generic middle of the road Republican. He is
a hardcore libertarian ideologue. Theoretically,
yes. He has spoken at think tanks like the Ludwig
von Mises Institute and the Free State Project.
But he operates in reality. Right. He acknowledges
that he has to work within the existing political
system. He is pragmatic about governance, but
his core philosophy is very much centered on
individual liberty. I just try to imagine him
sitting in the locker room, taping up his wrists
for a cage match and calmly explaining to John
Cena why the Federal Reserve causes systemic
inflation. By all accounts, he did exactly that.
He was very well known for discussing complex
politics backstage with anyone who would listen.
So fast forward to 2018. The Big Red Machine
officially decides to run for mayor of Knox County,
Tennessee. The transition begins. And I imagine
a lot of people probably thought, oh, it's a
famous wrestler. It'll be a fun novelty campaign.
He will win in a landslide based on name recognition.
That was the assumption. This wasn't a landslide
at all, was it? The general election was comfortable,
but the primary. That primary was an absolute
nail biter. Break down the numbers for us. He
ran as a Republican. And in a place like Notch
County, winning the Republican primary is essentially
the real battle for the seat. And how close was
it? He won the primary by exactly 23 votes. 23
votes. Out of tens of thousands cast. That is
basically a rounding error. That is literally
a large extended family deciding to stay home
for dinner instead of going to the polls. If
12 people switch sides, Kaine loses the election
and the political career ends before it starts.
It perfectly shows that every single vote actually
counts. But in the general election, he won very
decisively. He pulled in over 66 % of the vote
against his Democratic opponent, Linda Haney.
So the wrestler officially becomes Mayor Jacobs.
He takes office. And for a while, it is pretty
standard local government stuff. He is cutting
ribbons. He is talking about keeping taxes low,
focusing on infrastructure. Standard mayoral
duties. But then 2020 hits. The COVID -19 pandemic.
The absolute crucible for local leaders. And
suddenly... having a mayor with a very specific
hardline libertarian philosophy actually matters
in a very tangible way. Most mayors across the
country just followed the CDC guidelines and
state mandates without much question. But Jacobs
had spent 20 years reading about government overreach.
Exactly. So when the pandemic hit and the Knox
County Board of Health started issuing strict
mask mandates and forcing the closure of businesses,
Jacobs pushed back. No, and we want to be completely
impartial in reporting this based on the sources.
What was his actual argument? Was it scientific
denialism? No, his argument wasn't that he didn't
believe the virus existed or wasn't dangerous.
His argument was entirely about authority and
jurisdiction. The Libertarian Corps. Right. He
argued that unelected bureaucrats sitting on
the Board of Health should not possess the unilateral
power to shut down private businesses or legally
mandate what citizens wear. He viewed it as a
fundamental violation of property rights and
personal liberty. He was the only dissenting
vote on the board regarding this. The only member
to vote against the mask mandate. Yes. And he
didn't just cast a protest vote. He went on the
political offensive. What did he do? He narrated
a public video directly attacking the board members
as unelected bureaucrats. Which caused a lot
of friction. A ton of conflict. But he successfully
pressured the county commission to actually intervene.
They changed the rules. They stripped the Board
of Health of its policy -making powers entirely
and demoted them to just an advisory body. That
is a very specific, real -world application of
his economic philosophy. He systematically dismantled
the administrative state at a localized level.
Exactly. And whether you as a listener agree
with his stance on public health protocols or
not, you have to look at the objective record
and admit. He governed exactly the way he said
he would. He wasn't a hypocrite. He prioritized
liberty and business operation over collective
safety mandates, which is the absolute core of
the Austrian ideology he studied. And how did
the voters react to this highly controversial
move? Did they punish him at the polls? Not at
all. He was comfortably reelected in 2022. He
won a second term. He won with over 55 percent
of the vote. It was a slightly smaller margin
than his first general election, but still a
very decisive victory. The people of Knox County
seemingly really liked the big red mayor. They
approved of his governance. Now, looking to the
future, there are a lot of rumors swirling that
he might parlay this into a run for governor
of Tennessee. The big red governor. It has a
ring to it. Those rumors were very heavy for
a while. But as of August 2025, he officially
squashed them. He confirmed he is not running.
He confirmed he is not running for governor and
is instead supporting Marsha Blackburn. And he
can't stay mayor forever. Right. Because of local
term limits, he cannot run for a third consecutive
term as mayor in 2026. So his immediate political
future is a bit of a question mark right now.
It is. But he has remained very active in the
broader national political conversation. He has
a history of major endorsements. He officially
endorsed Ron Paul for president way back in 2008,
which tracks perfectly with his libertarian views.
And more recently. In 2024, he endorsed Donald
Trump. There was actually a TikTok video that
went incredibly viral featuring Jacobs, The Undertaker
and Donald Trump all appearing together. That
is just a wild hallucination come to life. The
Undertaker, Kane and a former president on TikTok.
It perfectly captures the very strange cultural
timeline we are currently living in. The traditional
lines between sports entertainment and serious
national politics haven't just blurred. They
have been completely erased. It is a surreal
visual. Now, before we wrap up, we should definitely
mention his personal life outside the ring in
the office. Because, again, it provides such
a stark contrast. It is remarkably normal for
a guy who spent his career magically appearing
out of flaming coffins. It really is. He has
been married to his wife, Crystal, since 1995.
At his 30 straight years. years, which in professional
wrestling years is basically three lifetimes.
We have a family together. Two daughters and
now two grandchildren. And this is honestly my
favorite detail from the entire deep dive. He
works as an insurer. An insurer. He and his wife
actually own an all -state insurance agency in
Knoxville. It is just so perfect. The Big Red
Machine will help you bundle your home and auto
policies. It is intensely practical, but it also
fits his economic worldview perfectly, if you
think about it. How so? Insurance is all about
private risk management, protecting your own
personal assets, planning for the future without
relying on a state bailout. It is very mathematically
logical. Very Glenn Jacobs. He's also dabbled
a bit in Hollywood acting outside of his wrestling
promos. Oh, right. The W .W. Studios movies.
He starred as the villain Jacob Goodnight in
the horror film See No Evil back in 2006. And
they made a sequel to that, too. It was a pretty
standard slasher film totally playing to his
established type. A massive, silent, terrifying
killer. The marketing for that movie was deeply
intertwined with the wrestling product. It was.
The promotion tied directly into his weekly storylines
on Monday Night Raw. They used the specific date,
May 19th, which was the actual theatrical release
date of the movie, as a psychological trigger
phrase for Kane on TV. Right. If anyone in the
arena or the locker room even casually said the
words May 19th, he would absolutely lose his
mind and destroy them. It was a very clever...
if incredibly repetitive, way to market a film
to a captive audience. He did some television
too, didn't he? He made a guest appearance on
the Superman prequel show, Smallville, and he
popped up in the comedy film, MacGruber. So when
we step back and look at this entire sprawling
picture... It is a lot to take in. We have a
Spanish -born military brat, English literature
major, failed NFL prospect, failed evil dentist,
legendary demon wrestler, insurance salesman,
libertarian philosopher, and two -term municipal
mayor. It is a resume that completely defies
any standard categorization. So what is the big
takeaway here for you listening at home? What
does the strange dual life of Kane and Mayor
Glenn Jacobs actually teach us? I really think
it teaches us that the concept of authenticity
is highly complicated. Expand on that. We constantly
tell people that the key to success is just being
yourself. Right. But... Jacobs achieved massive
success by being whatever the specific situation
required him to be and doing it with 100 % absolute
commitment. That is a great point. When the boss
told him to be the Christmas creature, he put
on the tinsel. When the story required him to
be the monster, he didn't speak a word. And when
he became the mayor, he sat down and read the
municipal budget. It is about supreme professionalism.
Precisely. Yeah. It is the rare ability to completely
separate the performer from the motion and the
job. from the ego he didn't let the isaac yankum
failure define his self -worth he didn't let
the fake diesel embarrassment stop him from pursuing
the career he just kept pivoting and adapting
until he finally found the thing that worked
And then he rode that specific wave for two full
decades. And even when he transitioned to politics,
he definitely leveraged that wrestling fame to
get his foot in the door. But he backed it up
with actual academic study and rigid ideology.
He wasn't just Kane running a novelty campaign
for mayor. No, he was Glenn Jacobs, a man who
just happened to have played Kane on TV. And
that is a crucial distinction. He garnered legitimate
respect in two completely different fields because
he took the requirements of both fields seriously.
It really is an incredible American story. From
ripping the door off the hell in a cell to securing
votes at the ballot box. And considering The
Undertaker specifically called him the total
package and the ideal employee, it raises a really
provocative question to leave the listeners with
today. What is that? We so often attribute. massive
legendary success to raw natural talent or that
elusive undefinable it factor the superstar aura
right but in glenn jacob's case how much of his
legendary status was actually just compliance
that is fascinating was his true superpower simply
the willingness to say yes to difficult, humiliating
things that would have completely broken someone
with a bigger ego? Whether that meant jumping
out of a giant cake on live television, safely
dropping a guy on his head, or grinding through
a zoning board budget proposal. Exactly. Maybe
the ultimate superpower isn't superhuman strength
or incredible charisma. Maybe it is just the
willingness to do the unglamorous work, no matter
how weird or difficult the work gets. That is
a phenomenal thought to end on. From the Inferno
match to the insurance agency, Glenn Jacobs has
truly done it all. Thank you for joining us on
this deep dive into the life and legacy of the
Big Red Mayor. It is always a pleasure to unpack
these stories with you. We will catch you all
in the next one.