Well hello again, precious internet darlings! Just a few words before we dive into the column this week.

• I’m going to warn everyone here and now that there is a tl;dr soapbox diatribe buried in the report. I don’t plan on doing something this lengthy on the subject again, but I feel that With Leather has a wonderful community of intelligent readers, and if anyone can have an open and honest dialogue about things we should and should not accept when it comes to professional wrestling, it’s you.

• Last week’s column got an overwhelmingly positive response, and I can’t thank you guys enough for the comments and support. It means more than I can say, and I hope we can keep this going. I’m having a heck of a lot of fun writing about the most un-fun wrestling show on television, and you guys are a big part of that.

• Be sure to like us on Facebook, comment at will, share with all of your friends, and send all of your appreciative telegraphs to UPROXX so we can continue in the new year. You can follow me on the twitters here, and follow With Leather for all of your comedy sports and mascot-related needs here.

This week on Impact, Kazarian and Christopher Daniels give us the best Christmas present we could ask for, Jeff Hardy makes some memories, and I give Taz the worst I promised myself I would never take the time to write. Round 2, FIGHT! Doodoo doodoo doodoo doodoo doo doo doo!

Last week we featured a video of the Dallas Mavericks murmuring their way through ‘Sleigh Ride,’ and if you thought that’d be the end of their wacky Christmas updates, you are underestimating a 12-13 team with nothing better to do.

Today’s installment in what I hope is a Dallas Mavericks Christmas Trilogy is Dirk Gives Presents To His Mavs Teammates, a short film about “Santa Dirk” giving Angry Birds boxers, rotary phones, ‘Saved By The Bell’ sweatshirts and Viking helmets to his fellow Mavericks. It also features O.J. Mayo delivering the best line of dialogue I’ve heard in months:

“Yo, Dirk got me a Christmas gift, I wonder what it is.”

Nailed it.

Anyway, you’ll want to watch this clip. Shake Weights are involved.

Read the rest of this entry »

As a kid who grew up fearing the pink aisle because of what it said about me, I’m happy kids like this are starting to exist.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. I spent Christmas Eve facepalming in Cowboys Stadium and I don’t even like the Cowboys. If you got gifts and want to let strangers know about them, tell us what you got in the comments section below. We’ve got staggered, “thread” style commenting enabled now, so people can troll you directly.

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Links

On A Christmas Story, Its Lessons For Hip-Hop & Biggie Smalls - “Rich and chocolate like Ovaltine!” – Ludacris, probably [Smoking Section]

New And Improved And Watchable Jingle All The Way - This makes me want to spend all day watching Commando. [UPROXX]

The 100 Greatest Christmas Shows - My pal Mike Westfall’s list from 2004, which sadly cannot include Annie Edison putting baby Jesus in the tree. Still a pretty definitive list. [Progressive Boink]

All I Want For Christmas Is A ‘Game Of Thrones’ Teaser And A Fresh Prince Reunion - My weirdest and most Abed-like career goal is to buy (or recreate) the set from The Fresh Prince, live there, and occasionally have James Avery stop by and hang out with me. Getting him to say WHAT THE BLAZES would be a bonus. [Warming Glow]

20 Screaming Santa Visits - I feel like kids who cry on Santa’s lap are fundamentally wrong, and this should be an indicator that what you’re doing isn’t working. A child should not be terrified of someone who wants to give them tons of gifts and already has their parents’ permission. They’re going to suck when they get older. [Buzzfeed]

The Colts Choked When They Tried To Suck - That gif is just the greatest thing in the world. And yes, the Texans blowing that game was a Christmas present to Indianapolis and/or St. Louis, you can’t convince me otherwise. [Kissing Suzy Kolber]

Hey Zelda Fans – The Timeline Exists, And Here It Is - I can’t believe I’m actually looking at this thing. It’s like I’ve found my way to El Dorado. [Gamma Squad]

Every Batman Suit Ever - Also, a great reminder that everything ever said by Batman not written for The Animated Series or the Justice League cartoon is f**king stupid sounding. [Film Drunk]

The 25 Greatest MMA Photos Of 2011 - MMA would be 100% better if they didn’t do that forced staredown thing every single time. Also, pro wrestling would be better if they didn’t try to do the MMA staredown for their video packages every week. [Cage Potato]

Lindsey Vonn Says She Isn’t Dating Tim Tebow - … but isn’t “opposed” to dating him. Well, hopefully that changed after this weekend. [Sportress Of Blogitude]

ACW: Delusions Of Our Childish Days 2011 - The Dirty Dirty Sheets review of the latest Anarchy show in Austin. Still not 100% on why I’m not their correspondent for these things, but hey. Rachel Summerlyn in a Santa suit. [DirtyDirtySheets]

During the hockey game between the Philadelphia Flyers and Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday night, the Flyers ran the above commercial, titled “Hockey Fights Cancer,” on their Jumbotron. The video features hockey players imploring fans to help them raise money and awareness in the fight against cancer. When the video ran, a number of Flyers fans booed upon seeing rival hockey players displayed in their arena, and almost immediately people starting falling all over themselves to talk about Philly fans “booing an anti-cancer ad.” Puck Daddy has a nice collection of tweets on the subject (as part of a very reasonable take on the situation), and I’m sure you won’t be surprised to see a number of people going to tired cliches, including, of course, the time Philly fans booed Santa Claus (pictured, at right).

As Uproxx’s resident Philadelphian, this crap drives me bonkers. First of all, you idiots, they were booing their hated rivals, not cancer prevention. I know it fits your narrative to shoehorn everything into the “Haha Philly fans are jerks” angle, but come on. If this happened in Buffalo or San Jose, it’s not a story. And the Santa thing. GOOD LORD, the Santa thing. Do you know when Philly fans booed Santa? 1968. Timely reference. It’s not like they just showed up at a shopping mall and started pelting the guy with ice, either. There was a backstory that actually made it somewhat understandable in context. But every time something like this happens, people trot out these lazy cliches and demonize me and my brethren for the actions of one rogue goon, or things that happened 10-20 years before most of us were born.

The whole thing makes me so angry I could wing batteries at their stupid heads.