12 Hilarious WWE Backstage Skits You Probably Don't Remember
10. ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas
Arriving on Christmas Eve, RAW’s holiday show in 2012 featured Santa Claus himself being run over by Alberto Del Rio’s posh car, causing Michael Cole to break out his Owen voice and the entire babyface WWE roster to call for the Mexican Aristocrat’s blood in hilarious fashion. If that wasn’t goofy enough, the inevitable main event match saw Cena and Del Rio take part in a vengeful Miracle On 34th Street Fight, a match with traditional no-DQ street fight rules and ridiculous amounts of festive international objects to be used on one another.
Like any other pro wrestling match, holiday-themed gimmick matches like this live or die by suspension of disbelief. This one worked much better than it had any right to, due solely to the fact that it was Christmas Eve: bowling balls, Christmas trees and teddy bears flew about with mad abandon, and the crowd ate it up.
Don’t get me wrong… the Santa injury angle was genius, especially with how over the top everyone was about it, treating it like the President had been shot. It was backstage comedy gold, as unrepentantly, cheerfully dumb as a box of knees.
It was just bizarre that it was Alberto Del Rio and Ricardo Rodriguez who were cast as the Kris Kringle killers, given that Del Rio was right in the middle of his very first main event babyface turn, that Rodriguez was already over as a babyface, and that both men were clearly playing up how distraught and devastated they were.
Still… FOR SANTAAAAAAA!