Brothers of Destruction

The Brothers of Destruction were a professional wrestling tag team in WWE composed of storyline half-brothers The Undertaker and Kane. Their storyline is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most iconic storylines in professional wrestling, the duo’s relationship alternated between periods of intense rivalry and dominant alliance. First introduced in the late 1990s, their supernatural personas and complex backstory captivated audiences. Together, they achieved significant success, including multiple championship victories, and are considered one of the most formidable and enduring tag teams in WWE history.

With more deep-seated drama and dysfunction than other WWE tag team combinations, their relationship/brotherhood was furnished with an elaborately dark and disturbed domestic backstory. In what became a fickle WWE sibling relationship with Paul Bearer (later learned to be Kane's father) only adding to the pendulum and complexities, The Undertaker and Kane went back and forth from one extreme to the other: alternatively feuding to barbaric lengths and yet teaming together as The Brothers of Destruction from 1997 to 2020 (The Undertaker's retirement).

As the Brothers of Destruction, they won three tag team championships (two WWF Tag Team Championships and one WCW Tag Team Championship). Their on-again, off-again feuding was typically rooted in the harboring of unresolved, harsh feelings from the arson incident dating back to their youth.

During The Undertaker's childhood, he had a little brother named Kane. The two were inseparable, spending every minute of every day together, causing destruction and chaos in their wake. However, young Kane soon became obsessed and fascinated with fire. One day while The Undertaker was coming home from school, he returned to his parents' funeral home to find it completely burned to the ground, killing his parents as well as Kane—or so The Undertaker thought. It was soon discovered that Kane himself had started the fire, and Paul Bearer, who oblivious to The Undertaker at the time was present during the fire, hid Kane in a mental asylum during the rest of Kane's youth into adulthood, eventually bringing him to the World Wrestling Federation to confront his brother. Unbeknownst to The Undertaker until spring 1998, his late mother had an affair with Bearer and, as a result, gave birth to Kane (therefore making Kane his half-brother). In the fall of 1998, The Undertaker admitted that he was actually the one that set fire to the funeral home, scarring Kane's face, and, in the same process, killing their mother and The Undertaker's father. To justify this, Undertaker stated that he had always known that Kane was the weaker and worthless of their mother's children, and sought to eliminate him with the fire.

While hiding his son away for years and apparently keeping this information confidential, Paul Bearer, in the meantime, joined the World Wrestling Federation and formed an alliance with The Undertaker. Bearer stood by his side for six years before eventually turning on him at SummerSlam 1996. After suffering repeated acts of retaliatory mistreatment at the hands of Undertaker, who was filled with rancor and bitterness over the betrayal incident, Bearer opted to exact vengeance of his own with an ultimatum: to either allow him to once again take over Undertaker as manager now that he had won the WWF Championship, or deal with the disclosure of his darkest secret. Feeling he had no choice in the matter, The Undertaker eventually obliged Bearer and became his protégé, though not like old times. While "managing" Undertaker this time around, Bearer took to abrasively overbearing and harassing behaviors towards him at every turn. At numerous points in which Undertaker attempted to take attitude, disobey, or even defend himself, Bearer would subjugate him by threatening exposure of the dark secret, forcing Undertaker to back down and comply with his orders each time. Eventually, Undertaker lost his patience and refused to allow Bearer to manage him any longer, leading to Bearer's exposure of the secret. At this point in time, The Undertaker denied the charges of committing the arson murders, claiming his younger brother, a "pyromaniac", was the culprit and, due to the incident, couldn't possibly be alive (note that Undertaker would reveal himself as the intentional arsonist a year later). Bearer accused The Undertaker of not only being a murderer but a liar, while The Undertaker continued to deny the charges. Kane had supposedly been hideously scarred by the fire—and to conceal Jacobs' identity—the character wore a mask, sported long hair, and wore red and black ring attire that almost covered his entire body. After being forced to unmask in 2003, it was revealed that Kane had no physical scars from the fire. Instead, it was explained that Kane's scars were more psychological in the form of severe body dysmorphia, convinced that he was hideously burned and scarred, when in fact the scars had either long since healed or had never existed at all.

After The Undertaker won the WWF Championship from Sycho Sid at WrestleMania 13, he started a feud with Mankind, managed by his former manager Paul Bearer. The Bearer/Undertaker feud escalated at April's Revenge of the 'Taker: In Your House event when The Undertaker launched a fireball into the face of his former manager. During the following weeks and months, Bearer threatened the exposure of The Undertaker's "deepest, darkest secret". Finally, at Badd Blood: In Your House, Kane made his debut and interfered during the Hell in a Cell match between The Undertaker and Shawn Michaels.

During the following months, Undertaker refused to wrestle Kane, stating he had promised their parents that he would never fight his own brother. This allowed Kane to frequently attack and humiliate The Undertaker on several occasions, as Undertaker would not retaliate. At the 1998 Royal Rumble, Kane cost Undertaker a casket match against WWF Champion Shawn Michaels and, after the match, Kane and Bearer locked Undertaker in the casket and set it ablaze, leading everyone to believe The Undertaker had been killed. After 2 months of absence, The Undertaker returned and finally agreed to face Kane at WrestleMania XIV, which Undertaker won after hitting Kane with three Tombstone Piledrivers. They met once again the following month in the first-ever Inferno match (Kane's signature match) at Unforgiven: In Your House, which again Undertaker won.

At King of the Ring 1998, Kane challenged for the WWF Championship against then-current champion "Stone Cold" Steve Austin in a First Blood match, with the added stipulation that if Kane did not win the championship, he would set himself on fire. During the match, Undertaker interfered with a steel chair and nailed Austin with the chair, which helped Kane to win the championship. Undertaker then formed a partnership with Kane after he later revealed that he intentionally attacked Austin because he didn't want his brother to be burned. This led Undertaker into a rivalry with Steve Austin, who later regained the WWF title from Kane, while Kane and Mankind won the WWF Tag Team Championship. At Fully Loaded: In Your House, the duo were forced to team up together and defeat Kane and Mankind to win the titles.