Kane Ruined WWE Night of Champions Ending, and Everyone's Pissed

Kane returned from two months away from WWE to interfere in what would have been Sheamus’s Money in the Bank cash-in. If you haven’t watched WWE in awhile, there’s now a ladder match for a suitcase which gives you the right to claim a title shot at any time, and the opportunistic Sheamus sought to take advantage after champion Seth Rollins had already fought grueling matches with John Cena and Sting.

At first, Kane piledrove Rollins — Rollins and Kane had been feuding before Kane got “injured” by Brock Lesnar — and then also beat up Sheamus, who didn’t wind in cashing in his prop. The issue here isn’t that someone interfered, as there were any number of ways this could’ve been satisfying. First, it would’ve been better if the shenanigans happened after the cash-in, and Rollins and Sheamus had to recover from the destruction before fighting for the belt. Second, Kane’s been boring for a long time, which is bad enough when he’s in the general vicinity of the main event storyline, but even more annoying that he’s a focal point in it.

In the weird nexus of how today’s WWE gets booked, it’s a good thing that everybody is dissatisfied with the product today. The line has blurred between face and heel. When the crowd is fatigued with a wrestler, they boo, as we’ve seen with John Cena for years. There’s a surreality that Kane will be nominally booked as the good guy in the story with Seth Rollins, who’s bad, but that the audience won’t be 100% on one side or the other.

WWE’s business model essentially consists of royally pissing off its fans a few times a year. Happiness has a more profound meaning if one’s aware of the possibility of despair. The Seth Rollins-Kane angle will be a slog at least from now until Hell in a Cell on October 25th, and nearly whatever feud Rollins is embroiled in next will feel more satisfying because of that.