Wrasslin: Remembering Xanta Klaus

Happy Holidays to all. We’re feeling festive here around SoBros Network at this time of year, and hopefully, you all are as well. But also, as a sidebar, just know it’s okay if you’re not. Nonetheless, that’s the vibe I’m getting as I look down at my to-do list for 2025. I’m feeling festive, so why don’t we act accordingly?

Any wrestling fan knows there’s certainly no shortage of Christmas-related moments in the WWE‘s history. Themed matches on themed episodes of Monday Night Raw litter the brand’s history. I’m pretty sure Braun Strowman speared a Christmas tree one year, and there’s always some sort of Christmas Street Fight every year. It’s a time-honored tradition in wrestling history…even the local promoters down at the Gladeville Community Center usually get Santa Claus to show up for a show or two in December to take photos with the children and maybe even hand out a gift or two.

But, I wanted to dig a little deeper. There’s so much hokey WWE Christmas content that it felt too easy to write about. I really want to get in there deep into the bowels of wrestling history to find something different to talk about every once in awhile. That’s why I landed on Xanta Klaus. It was a glorious shit show, one that really has no winners except for those of us with sick twisted senses of humor that find failure like this hilarious. While the entire gimmick might’ve lasted no longer than two weeks, the story is so downright entertaining that it’s worth remembering from time to time.

Bruce Prichard said on an episode of Something To Wrestle (linked below) that “Vince does love Santa Claus.” I find that both hilarious and insightful. It does seem that Santa does have a way of popping up around December throughout WWE’s history, but back in 1995, Vince and company pivoted to a twisted vision of Santa Claus. The premise for the Xanta Klaus gimmick was simple. Imagine if Santa had an evil twin from the South Pole who stole presents from children instead of giving them out. That’s Xanta Klaus, and the world met him at In Your House: Season’s Beatings in December of 1995.

“The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase, who was working as a manager at the time with his wrestling days behind him, came out and ran down Santa Claus to the crowd, calling him a fraud…even insinuating that there actually was no such thing as Santa Claus. The audacity! Savio Vega, a fabled mid-carder of the era, wouldn’t stand for it. He came out and reassured all of the children in the audience that Santa Claus was real. Lo and behold, Santa Claus walked down the aisle himself, presumably to back Savio. Instead, he turned on him and delivered a vicious beating as DiBiase laughed. The sour Santa was introduced as Xanta Klaus the following night on Raw, and had a couple of televised matches before riding off into the sunset, never to be heard from again.

While working on one of the segments, DiBiase recalled asking his producer, “whose idea was this anyway?” The guy simply replied, “Vince.” When the guy signing the paychecks tells you to do something, you do it. Vince had it in his mind that a heel Santa would work in 1995. But for as awful as that sounds in its own right, the story gets even weirder when you peel back the curtain.

Diehard wrestling fans would recognize Xanta Klaus as ECW mainstay and hardcore legend Balls Mahoney! Listening to that aforementioned episode of Something To Wrestle, we learn that Vince actually wanted to keep the guy around, but he wasn’t exactly an agreeable guy back then. Rumors vary between Balls Mahoney calling Vince McMahon and cussing him out because he thought he was Vince Russo and that Balls got drunk one night and asked George “The Animal” Steele (a producer with WWE at the time) for money. Steele was not a man you wanted to mess with, and whatever the altercation was, Mahoney lost his job over it. There’s no shortage of drama in the wrestling world, that’s for sure. For this ill-fated idea to work out the way it did in disastrous fashion on the screen and off of it, it almost feels poetic. This is quintessential carny wrestling shenanigans. Go check out Bruce Prichard talking about this whole thing on Something to Wrestle.

Is there a parallel universe where a heel Santa gimmick worked? Absolutely. Hell, they got The Boogeyman over in 2006. It’s simple to me – you take a worker, put him in a suit, and only trot him out at Christmas time. Make it a tradition like Pete Rose at WrestleMania those few years, and maybe you’ve created something that wrestling fans will look back on as they do the Gobbledy Gooker.

Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, second on Football & Other F Words, analyst for Stacking The Inbox, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, the NFL Draft, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley.

Elsewhere on the SoBros Network: Check out Stacking The Inbox for premium coverage of the Tennessee Titans and NFL Draft. Subscribe to Nashville Movie Dispatch for all of our movie content. We get weird on Phone It In, the history podcast that explores legendary tales, important historical figures, and events.

The Best Shows I Watched This Year

I’m not the biggest television guy, so if you want to ream me for excluding your favorite show off of this list, just know there’s at least a 92% chance I just haven’t seen it. I rarely binge things. Anyway, since we’re in full on ‘best of’ and ‘recap’ season, I figured I’d sit down and share my favorite shows that I watched this year.

The Best Shows I Watched This Year

9. Black Rabbit – The ending just goes from way too off-the-rails to tied up nice and neat with a bow on top for me. It completely took me out of the show. But, I still give them a ton of credit for episodes three through seven.

8. Peacemaker – Season 2 of Peacemaker really dug in and twisted the knife from an emotional standpoint, and I loved the way we really fleshed out the characters’ trauma, but man, that was one of the more “what the fuck?” endings in a show I’ve seen in awhile.

7. Untamed – It never really popped the way I thought it was going to pop, but it was a steady series led by a bristly Eric Bana.

6. Bad Monkey – Vince Vaughn is having fun with this one, and the series should live up to expectations for fans of Carl Hiaasen’s work.

5. Adolescence – It’s a hard watch, for sure, but it’s one of the most effective and impactful shows I’ve watched in quite some time.

4. Shrinking – The newest season of Shrinking really dug into the roots of our main characters’ traumas and that gave the show an emotional heft I wasn’t sure they could top from the first season. But, some of the dialogue is starting to err on the side of “sitcom.”

3. The Righteous Gemstones – It’s the most riotous comedy series in the last decade. They landed the plane on this series perfectly.

2. The Four Seasons – I mean, you get this cast together to deliver a heartfelt look at love in our mid-lives and you’ve already got a home run.

1. The Studio – One of the more original series to come out in recent years. It combines the frenetic and chaotic energy of the film industry with a solid sense of humor to create tension that is broken by a good laugh. I loved the pacing of it. I loved the acting in it.

Poetry: Christmas Night Skies

I wrote this festive piece for my first volume of poetry, Seasons, Vol. 1: Salt of the Earth. Given we’ve made it to the most wonderful time of the year, I figured I’d take the opportunity to share a fitting piece from my book – a nice little freebie.

Christmas Night Skies

Soft purple.
Soft blue.
Stars twinkle, their light bouncing off the frost in the air.
All is merry and bright.

Something about a night sky this time of year
Causes pause.
It can hit you right in the chest.
Remind you of all you love.
Remind you of all you’re grateful for.

Christmas lights in the yard
Glow upon our house.
There’s something warm
about the array of color splashing about.

A restful time of year.
I think of the eagerness of childhood.
For the big day itself.
How the very Earth itself feels at ease.

The magic eventually wanes
At an age when spirits change
You don’t even notice
Until you’re longing for those simpler times.

I remember standing in my grandparents backyard
Cognizant of all the times I’d stood there under that very sky before
Reliving the memories of Christmases gone by
Burning the image of that moon in my brain so I’d never forget it.

I knew they wouldn’t be here forever.
I knew I wouldn’t be either.
Something told me to savor that moment
And it turned out to be the last time I ever gazed upon that night sky.

I see Christmas as a sort of checkpoint.
Another year older.
Another year wiser, I certainly hope.
Did I do what I set out to do this year?

The season may mean many things to many people.
I’m not exactly your model Christian
But I implore you to look upon those Christmas night skies
And see how they speak to you.

Remember the love behind a perfect gift.
Remember your fortunes, for not everyone has them.
Remember where you came from.
Remember where you want to be.

It’s warmth and cheer
It’s a connection to yesteryear
It’s glory and rest
And a reminder to count your blessings if you believe in such things.Perspective in the night
Moon glowing to light the way inward
And beauty to humble you.
These Christmas skies, how they move me.

Buy your copy of Seasons, Vol. 1: Salt of the Earth on Amazon. Image courtesy of Blair Fraser on Unsplash.

Time to Relive the Weird Sexual Tension in the Folgers Christmas Commercial

The holidays are here, and with that comes the incessant barrage of holiday commercials as well. I’m not complaining. I get it – everyone wants to tap into that festive feeling to sell their products or services. That’s just common marketing. We all know that. But, it’s like everything else…sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. In the case of Folgers coffee, it didn’t work. They tried to tug on our heart strings with the reuniting of a brother and sister at Christmas, and the whole thing just came across as a little too sexually tense. I never said it out loud because I was afraid that I was the only one who saw it, and I was overreacting to a harmless commercial. But, as it turns out, I’m seeing many people on social media sharing the same sentiment I had. I’m no longer afraid to share my opinion – this commercial is actually creepy.

I remember seeing this for the first time and thinking, “whoa – this feels a little charged.” Glad I wasn’t alone in that sentiment. The commercial was done in a way that made it unclear what the relationship between these two actually was from the jump, but the more times you saw it, the more you realized that they were brother and sister. I don’t know – it’s the bashful eyes that do it for me. The way these two look at one another tells me they’ve done some shit that makes them unable to maintain eye contact with one another. You can see it in the brother’s eyes – he longs for this woman, but the shame he feels just looking at her is too much to bear. It’s gross and I’m not sure what Folgers thought they were tapping into with this one.

Unless, and this is some real big brain shit here, Folgers knew what they were doing and thought they could plant little subtle hints at incest to creep us out enough for us to remember this commercial long after it had run its course. They knew that if they just did it in a way that seemed indiscreet, they could get away with it. It’s just vague enough that they could be like, “oh no – no way that’s incest. We didn’t mean for that to come across that way,” while also being like “if we make them think there’s incest here, they’ll remember this commercial forever.” In a way, this could be some of the most brilliant marketing of all time. I don’t know, and either way, I’m feeling a little uncomfortable watching this commercial.

Top 100 Candidates to Be the Next Titans Head Coach

If you thought this was serious, I am so sorry. I’m about to completely waste your time. I kind of just wanted to see if I could rattle off 100 random football coaches and sprinkle in some surprise names along the way. I think this is good comedy, and yes, I am that vain to sit and dedicate time to this piece just to make myself laugh (#OnlyChild). I also kind of wanted to make a tongue in cheek jab at all of the “potential head coach” lists that are out there because I’m fighting this nihilistic feeling that none of this even matters. It’s who the team hires in 2028 once the roster’s been rebuilt that matters. Anyway, let’s see how big of a smartass I can be.