The monster was actually created by Jerry Lawler’s son Kevin, who was a wrestler in his own right through the 1990’s, and he also promoted USWA shows in smaller towns for Jerry. According to his own social media, he’s still involved in wrestling to this day, working for Tommy Rich’s Wild Fire Wrestling.
The man under the mask has become a bit of a recurring character on this channel, but in this video we’ll be looking at the very early career of Glenn Jacobs, way before he became Kane. In his 2019 autobiography, Glenn Jacobs goes into more detail about how the Christmas Creature came about, and really puts into perspective how early in his career he was. He got into Memphis based USWA through training with Jeff Jarrett, who was running a class on Saturday mornings in Nashville at the time. He says he “drove the five hours to Nashville every weekend to train with around fifthteen others in the class.” “Getting in front of Jeff did help me establish a relationship with USWA management, which led to my first appearance on TV.” The management he’s referring to are USWA co-owners Jerry Jarrett, Jeff’s dad, and Jerry “The King” Lawler.
To give you an idea of what was going on in Memphis at the time, at the start of December ‘92 Jerry was in a feud with Koko B. Ware, who was defending the honour of the WWE. Koko would even defeat Lawler for his USWA unified world heavyweight title on December 7th, but the King would regain it one week later. If you’re thinking that sounds odd, between December 1988 and August 1997, Jerry would have twenty seven separate reigns as Unified World champion, with some lasting seven of those lasting less than a month. He’s also credited as a fifty one time AWA Southern Heavyweight champion, with many of those being very short reigns too.
Of the origins of the Christmas Creature gimmick, Glenn Jacobs is his book says “One afternoon after work, I arrived home to a message from Jerry Lawler, asking that I call him. Butterflies filled my stomach. I anxiously thought this is the break I’ve waited for. Well not quite. This big break was as generic and bland as it gets.” You see, the call Glenn got wasn’t to be the Christmas Creature, a dentist or any other of Glenn’s more famous gimmicks. “Jerry told me that he wanted me to don a mask, and team with another big guy from southern Missouri , and portray Russian wrestling champions, complete with gold medals.” That’s right, Kane’s first gimmick of note was a masked Russian. He is referring to the Russian Unified Team, consisting of two unnamed wrestlers who appeared to have wrestled a handful of matches in August 1992.
While this gimmick went nowhere in itself, it did lead to him getting a phone call later in ‘92 from Kevin Lawler. “Like his father, Kevin was a talented artist. He sent me a rendering, the picture looked like a cross between a christmas tree and a swamp thing.” Looking at the costume, it kind of reminds me of the swamp monster who was around in Chikara back in the day. According to Chikara roster member Chuck Taylor, many different people put that costume on over the years, but as best I can tell there’s only one dressed up for Christmas. In an episode of Table for Three produced for the WWE Network in 2022, Kane notes that he did the Christmas gimmick because he was doing nothing else at the time, but there was an important other reason to play along with Kevin’s creation. “It was all kinds of ridiculous, but it gave me the chance to wrestle against Jerry Lawler, which I knew was a big step in the right direction.”
On the December 19th ‘92 episode of USWA television, the show would begin with Santa Claus greeting the children in the TV studio when he would be interrupted by Bert Prentice. Bert would chase Santa away even attacking him, leading Jerry Lawler to come to his aid. The King would stare down the Christmas Creature, who would get into the ring for his match. In a very one-sided contest, the Creature would destroy his opponent Trey Keller. As Kane would note in an episode of table for three on the WWE network, he wasn't that good a wrestler at this time, moving awkwardly around the ring, and at one point trying and failing to lift Keller up. The creature would finish Keller off with a familiar move, lifting him up for a choke slam much like he would as Kane for many years.
A few days later on December 21st at the Mid-South Coliseum, early on the card Santa Claus would defeat Bert Prentice, getting his revenge for what happened on the previous Saturday. Also on the card, Jerry Lawler would defeat the Christmas Creature. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any footage of this match, but the it is listed on sites such as cagematch and wrestling data, and it was also advertised at the end of the December 19th TV show for the Mid-South Coliseum card on the following Monday. These events weren’t typically televised, though highlights would air on the Saturday television show, the idea being that the television show was meant to draw fans to the Coliseum on Monday. On the next TV episode, they would show the end of a six-man tag main event that also took place on the 21st involving the Moondogs and Lawler fighting the Harris Twins and Mike Miller. Mid match the Christmas creature returns to attack Lawler, along with what looks like a thousand other wrestlers in what becomes a wild brawl.
You might think then that this might be the end of the Christmas Creature, but you'd be mistaken. On the December 26th episode of Memphis wrestling television, the Christmas creature accompanied by Bert Prentice would get back in the ring against Ricky Hays. Much like in his previous match, the creature would quickly destroy Hays, finishing things with a chokeslam. Later on the same broadcast, the creature would be part of a drawing to determine entry numbers Royal Rumble style, for the Moondog battle royal which was taking place at the Coliseum on Monday December 28th. It's a fairly odd site to see the wrestlers all pulling out their numbers, especially the Christmas Creature politely waiting in line for his turn.
At the end of this show, we see another absolute brawl with all the participants in the battle royal. The Creature runs in and goes straight after Lawler, while the commentator's note that the two have an upcoming match where the Creature's mask will be on the line against Lawlers USWA world title. Lawler would win this title versus mask match which took place on December 28th, and presumably unmasking the Creature, maybe even revealing a Russian’s mask underneath. Sadly, again there appears to be no footage of this match available, and it also seems to be the last appearance of the Russian Unified Christmas Creature.
Speaking of masks, Jerry did actually manage to tie the Christmas Creature into the feud I mentioned earlier with Koko B. Ware and the WWE. On the December 19th show, Jerry talked about wanting to unmask the creature, because he thought an invading WWE star was under it. He even guessed that Sid was the man sent to go after Lawler. While Sid was a good guess considering the Creatures size, and arguably wrestling ability, he wouldn’t be in USWA yet. He would later become the Unified World Champion though, holding the title twice between 1994 and ‘96.
In the Table for Three episode that I mentioned earlier and in his book, Kane noted that his Mother made the Christmas Creature suit for him, which makes me think of Homer Simpson dressing Lisa up like Florida. Glenn said “it was extremely high tech because she integrated Christmas lights into it. We had a battery pack, so it was way ahead of it’s time.” Whether the lights don’t show up on TV of if they just didn’t work I don’t know, but they aren’t obvious in the two televised matches he had. If you’ve ever seen WWE’s Most Wanted Treasures, you’ll have seen that its sometimes remarkable what items collectors have gotten hold of over the years. With that in mind I wondered what might have become of the Christmas Creature costume. According to an interview Glenn did with WBIR news in 2019, he thinks it’s in his parents attic. Not the investigative swerve I was hoping for but you can’t always find them.
This of course wouldn’t be the last horrible gimmick that Glenn Jacobs would portray. He would return to USWA nearly a year later as Doomsday, the name he would also use in Puerto Rico wrestling for Dutch Mantell. Around this time in late 1993 there was a chance for Glenn to be brought up to WWE, and much like the Undertaker, his debut would have taken place at Survivor Series. According to Bruce Prichard on a 2018 episode of Something to Wrestle, Glenn was considered for the role of one of Shawn Michaels’ masked knights, in his elimination match against the Hart family, Bret, Owen, Bruce and Keith. Unfortunately Kane didn’t make the cut, as ultimately the knights would be Greg Valentine, Barry Horrowitz and fellow USWA wrestler Jeff Gaylord. Prichard noted that Glenn lost out because he was too young and quote, “greener than the Christmas tree outfit he wore.” He also noted that one of USWA’s owners, Jerry Jarrett was very positive on Glenn, and compared him to a young Sid. Maybe that’s why Lawler suggested that Sid was under the hood on screen during their brief feud. One other interesting this that Prichard said, was later on when Glenn was in WWE, any time a picture of the Christmas Creature costume might resurface, it would be posted up all over the locker rooms as a rib. As ribs stories from the attitude era go, thats at least a pretty tame one. From there he would be Unabom for Jim Cornette in Smokey Mountain Wrestling, while the real unabomber was still at large mind. Then we had Dr. Isaac Yanken DDS, the original wrestling dentist, and the fake Diesel. As you can likely tell, I’m no Tennessee resident, so I wouldn’t be the one to tell you if his current gimmick, mayor of Knox County is any better.
Sources:
Table for Three: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF_t1gOTRPU
Mayor Kane: My life in wrestling and politics, 2019,
Memphis wrestling December 5th, 1992, Koko picks a fight with Lawler
Memphis wrestling December 19th, 1992, Christmas creature debuts
Where the costume is: https://411mania.com/wrestling/wwe-news-kane-recalls-christmas-creature-gimmick-identity-of-santa-on-raw/ Knights: https://www.wrestlinginc.com/news/2019/12/kane-recalls-his-christmas-creature-gimmick-in-uswa-664012/
No comments:
Post a Comment