WWE and Christmas: How to Get Your Wrestling Fix with Some Holiday Spirit
By Bryan Heaton
During the holidays, watching WWE sometimes leaves out the holly and the jolly. These videos and events can give you the best of both worlds.
Ah, Christmas. For many, it’s a time to get together with family and friends, exchanging gifts and eating too much, reminiscing about the good old days. For others, it’s a lousy time of year for numerous reasons – estranged from the family, strapped for cash, and so on. No matter what your feelings are about the holidays, if you’re on this site you probably enjoy wrestling and WWE.
But in the midst of all the sports entertainment, there’s not always enough, well, Christmas in your wrestling to get your holiday fix. But watching all the same old holiday specials and movies not only gets boring, but there’s no Stone Cold Steve Austin, or Finn Balor, or even Santino Marella. If you’re someone who wants to cover all bases at once, you want Santa and snapmares, presents and piledrivers, elves and elbow drops.
So here’s a handy little guide to some of the best Christmas-related wrestling one would find in the WWE library. All of these YouTube videos are from WWE’s channel, and the full events can be found on the WWE Network. So watch till your heart’s content, and Merry Christmas from all of us at Daily DDT.
Mark Henry vs. Damien Sandow, 12/23/2013
This was “The Battle for Christmas,” pitting Henry as the Good Santa against Sandow as the Bad Santa. If Sandow won this extreme rules match, Christmas would be canceled by Bad Santa. Of course, Henry won and saved Christmas, despite the “Candy Kendo Stick” used by Sandow.
John Cena vs. Alberto Del Rio, 12/24/2012
One year before The Battle for Christmas, Alberto Del Rio almost ruined Christmas, albeit accidentally. See, Santa was out delivering presents, and Del Rio didn’t see him as he drove his BMW to ringside, and there was an accident. The superstars in the back didn’t take to kindly to this, and John Cena was nominated to face Del Rio, “FOR SANTA!” In this “Miracle on 34th Street Fight” (man, lots of rules get thrown out at Christmas time, huh) Cena emerged victorious, Santa was okay, and we all moved on with our holidays.
Santa Gives a Gift to Hornswoggle, 11/29/2011
Not everything here needs to be a wrestling match. In 2011, Hornswoggle had been around for a while, but never spoke. After getting his Christmas wish granted thanks to a Santa hug, that changed. ‘Swoggle immediately insulted Vickie Guerrero, but Santa had done his thing. Funny that Santa sounded a bit like Mick Foley, but clearly it wasn’t him since Foley popped up at the end of the segment. Bonus points to this backstage video for Dusty Rhodes and Roddy Piper losing their minds at Santa showing up.
That’s Not Santa – It’s XANTA, 12/17/1995
WWE/F pre-Attitude Era had a tendency to be kind of weird. Not that it’s not weird now, but the goofy cartoon characters in the late 80s and early 90s were so over the top. Factor in some holiday shenanigans, and you get XANTA CLAUS. He hailed from the South Pole, and stole presents. The Million Dollar Man tried to pass him off as the real Santa, but everyone knew it was bogus when he attacked Savio Vega at In Your House: Season’s Beatings.
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There’s tons more Christmas content in the WWE library, too. What are your favorite Christmas moments in wrestling?