Psst. Can you keep a secret? The squared circle’s “baddest son of a bitch you’ll ever see” is — get this — a computer geek.

And wait. There’s more.

KANE whose campaign of “hellfire and brimstone” has created a wave of horror through the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), could probably quote you a little Shakespeare.

You see, there’s more to Glenn Jacobs than the mass, mask (he’s since doffed) and a psychotic state cultivating an anger “deep from the fury of hell” he carries into the ring as Kane, his alter-ego and one of the stars on the WWE tour.

“I wouldn’t say I’m a bad ass,” laughs the big wrestler from St. Louis, one of the headliners for Sunday’s WWE Raw show, starting 1:30 p.m. at Mile One Stadium.

“After every show, I pretty much go back to my hotel room. I’m a big video game player — I’ll play everything like football, first-person shooting games, military games. And I’m a big computer person. I guess I like to have my privacy. I sort of keep to myself.”

At six-foot-eight and 300 pounds, Jacobs is more suited to the Tennessee Titans’ O line than flying off the ropes a la Jimmy ‘Superfly’ Snuka. And a career making tackles on the gridiron as opposed to leg drops in the squared circle was one Jacobs had intended as youngster majoring in English back at Northeast Missouri State University during the 1980s.

But a serious knee injury put the blocks to those plans. He got a look-see by the Chicago Bears after graduation, but was among the first cuts.

Growing up in America’s Midwest, a hotbed for professional wrestling, Jacobs got to thinking. He remembered the wrestlers he watched as a kid — Harley Race, Bulldog Bob Brown, Bruiser Bob Sweetan, Ray Candy and Baron Von Raschke — and wondered if there was room in the game for a 6-8, 300-pound human warehouse.

There was. Jacobs hooked up with promoters in his hometown and the more he wrestled, the more he met people and started networking.

So as hockey and baseball’s minor leaguers get the call to the NHL and major leagues, Jacobs was summoned to wrestling’s Show — the WWE — as Dr. Isaac Yankem, a psychotic dentist (not quite as corny as Adam Bomb, from Three Mile Island).

But Jacobs hit the big time two years later when, in 1997, manager Paul Bearer revealed the Undertaker’s unknown brother — Kane. After a falling out, the two met in a 1998 Inferno Match, a burning ring of fire (with apologies to Johnny Cash). The Undertaker set Kane ablaze and won the match.

Miraculously, Kane reappeared and won the WWE Championship in 1998, eight months after his debut. Since then, he's been the world heavyweight champ, two-time Intercontinental champion, Hardcore champ and nine-time WWE and WCW tag team champ.

"Kane's a monster," Jacobs says. "He's become a psychological monster as of late. He likes to play games with people's heads and he has a fun time torturing people.

"Hannibal Lecter (of Silence of the Lambs fame), he was a pretty smart guy ... most of your psychological bad asses, I guess, are smart guys."

But Jacobs is hardly a bad boy. Fact is, he's a 36-year-old good ol' boy who lives outside Knoxville, Tenn., with his wife and two little girls.

But he'd only be lying to you if he said he didn't enjoy playing the villain.

"It's more fun playing a bad guy," he says. "Either role is fun, but yeah, you definitely have a lot more freedom as a bad guy because you get to do whatever you want. That's pretty cool because in society we have norms and morals that most people adhere to and when you're a bad a guy, you have the freedom to break all those rules."

It's all part of the theatrics that make the WWE, the multi-million dollar corporate giant, far removed from the smoke-filled community centres where Bruno Sammartino, Baron Von Raschke and Killer Kowalski started.

And while theatrics are an big part of the WWE, don't suggest to Jacobs pro wrestling is all smoke and mirrors.

"Wrestlers, for some reason, have gotten a reputation over the years as not being tough guys which is absolutely untrue," he said. "Most of us are as good and tough as other athletes. I've been around sports all my life and we're as tough as any football player I've ever met.

"The ropes are four feet high and we fly off them eight-10 feet in the air. Do that and land on your back and then get up. I don't think the average person could do that. And people only see what we go through in the ring, but what we go through out of the ring with the travel and the grind, we've got to be physically and mentally tough."

Jacobs figures he'll spend about 250 days this year on the road. Friday night, the WWE performed in Oshawa, Ont., before a date tonight in Halifax. The wrestlers arrive in St. John's Sunday morning, perform Sunday afternoon and leave right afterwards for New York, where they perform Monday night at the Nassau County Coliseum on Long Island.

Of course, they're well paid. The good ones earn $750,000 a year, with the stars drawing a seven-figure salary.

So how much longer can Kane expect to be in the ring before the bell tolls on his career?

"Until it quits being fun," he says. "And right now, it's a lot of fun.”

rshort@thetelegram. The Telegram

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