Glenn Jacobs, the WWE Hall of Famer who wrestled as Kane, is being named as a possible appointee to a United States Senate seat in Tennessee.
Axios reported that Jacobs is viewed as a top candidate to fill Senator Marsha Blackburn’s seat if she wins the state’s governor’s race in November. Blackburn has said she intends to stay in the Senate until she is sworn in as governor, which would leave the appointment to her rather than to the current governor.
Nothing has been decided. Blackburn’s campaign manager Abigail Sigler told Axios there will be no discussions about a replacement until the appropriate time, and that the campaign’s focus is on November.
Jacobs is not the only name in the report. Axios also lists Representatives Tim Burchett, who held the Knox County mayor’s office before Jacobs, and Chuck Fleischmann.
Jacobs left the Knox County mayor’s office on September 1, term-limited after two four-year terms. He announced his campaign for the job in March 2017, was elected in August 2018 and re-elected in August 2022. He had been discussed as a candidate for governor himself but did not enter the race and backed Blackburn instead.
He has not said whether he wants another office. Asked about it by WATE, Jacobs said he would have to work out whether it was the right decision for his family, and whether running Knox County had given him the skill set to represent all 95 counties in the state.
President Donald Trump posted about him in May, writing on Truth Social that Jacobs has a big political future in Tennessee. Anyone appointed would hold it until a statewide election in 2028. The winner of that election would serve out the remainder of Blackburn’s current term, which runs to 2030, with the next full six-year term decided that year.
The situation has several steps in it and none of them have happened. Blackburn has to win in November, take office, and then make the appointment, and Jacobs has to want it. What the report establishes is that his name is in the conversation, not that anything has been offered.
Jacobs joined WWE in 1995 and worked under two other identities before the character that made him. He debuted as Kane in October 1997, coming through the door at the end of the first Hell in a Cell match to attack The Undertaker, and worked the role for the next two and a half decades. He beat Steve Austin for the WWE Championship at King of the Ring in 1998 and held it for a day. He won the World Heavyweight Championship in 2010 by cashing in Money in the Bank, and held it into the autumn of that year. He also held tag team championships with a long list of partners, including a run with Daniel Bryan as Team Hell No.
Knox County is the fourth most populated county in Tennessee and covers Knoxville, so the job Jacobs held was a city-sized one rather than a rural county seat. That is the experience he was weighing against a statewide role when he answered WATE.
The two careers overlapped. Jacobs continued making WWE appearances during his first years as mayor, and the company has used the character sparingly since. He is in the WWE Hall of Fame.
Wrestlers moving into elected office is not new ground. Jesse Ventura was elected governor of Minnesota in 1998 and Linda McMahon, WWE’s former chief executive, ran twice for the Senate in Connecticut before serving in two federal administrations. What separates Jacobs from both is that he has already served eight years in office and left on a term limit rather than a defeat.
