Pro wrestling and politics seem to be strange bedfellows to some, but both professions are actually very similar. Pro wrestlers, as well as politicians, must connect to the people and garner their support in order to be successful. Oftentimes that involves bending the truth and working the crowd.
One of those pro wrestlers is now on the verge of becoming a full-time politician. Pro Wrestling Sheet is reporting that Kane, real name Glenn Jacobs, is the favorite to win the Knox County Mayoral race.
Jacobs entered the mayoral race in March of 2017 and immediately went to work on his campaign. That work seems to have paid off, as Jacobs got more than 14,000 votes in the GOP’s May 2018 primary while his closest rival only received around 4,200 votes.
Knox County is largely Republican so Jacobs did have somewhat of an advantage early on. However he only narrowly beat his Republican challenger by 23 votes.
Jacobs would of course not be the first pro wrestler to successfully transition to the political world. Jesse Ventura served as the Governor of Minnesota from 1999 to 2003. John Wodele, one of Jacobs’ aides, compared the two men in an interview with Knox News.
“A lot of people (not only) underestimated his ability to get elected but they underestimated his intellectual capacity, “Wodele said of Ventura. “He’s a smart man. We could see this as we went about forming and government and hiring people.”
Glenn Jacobs did return to WWE as Kane in June of 2018, making the save for Daniel Bryan on SmackDown Live. The two reformed the wildly popular Team Hell No and quickly became a hot act once again in the company.
Team Hell No was set to challenge for the SmackDown Live Tag Team Championships in July but a foot injury sidelined Kane and he has been out of action since then.
Glenn Jacobs the politician however was recently endorsed by the Knoxville News Sentinel, which may put him over the top. The election will be held on Thursday, August 3.
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