Shane McMahon vs. Kane (Unforgiven, 2003), Last Man Standing
Continuing my desire to watch some of Shane's best matches after the Netflix documentary. I have no idea what the stakes were or what the storyline was going into this one but I've heard some good things about it.
It starts fast and violent, with Shane attacking the Big Red Machine from behind with a chair while Kane is still walking to the ring. Once the momentum shifts to Kane it slows down, though, and if I'm being honest I don't love it. Maybe controversially I've never been much of a Kane fan. I like fast, aggressive wrestling generally, and that's not often what you get with the monsters.
That said there are some fun spots here. The sequence with the steps in the ring, starting with Kane taunting Shane and trying to hit the time stone piledriver onto them and ending with the coast to coast is very fun, made even better by the lack of a ref to enforce the 10 count once both guys are down. You're left thinking "damn, Shane could actually have won if the ref was here".
This was a smart booking really. Letting Shane have weapons makes it so that it's not completely ridiculous that he could step into the ring with Kane and hold his own, and it also allows him to do what he does best - which is to take silly bumps and come up with fun, creative spots. Did anybody expect to see Kane getting laid out by a camera on a boom arm? Because I didn't. The shots through the cracked lens afterwards really help to sell it.
I imagine that the highlight here for most people is Shane's massive drop off the top of the jumbotron, going through the entrance stage and landing in a crumpled heap that sees him counted out to lose the match. I've never seen that spot before but holy shit. How is this man still alive?
Not a great match really, but Shane puts everything into it.