Bill Goldberg has had the kind of in-ring career that any wrestler would envy. He's a multi-time world champion in both WWE and WCW, a WWE hall of famer, and the holder of a 173 match winning streak in kayfabe, an achievement that lasted from the late 1990's until Asuka finally managed to break it in 2017.
But the greatest accomplishment of Bill Goldberg's career might not have come inside the wrestling ring, but in his role playing a demonic, kill-happy Santa Claus in the 2005 straight-to-video classic Santa's Slay. Goldberg had dabbled in acting before that, mostly playing himself in various cameos. But he had flexed his action star (and B movie) muscles before playing a bad guy in 1999's Universal Soldier: The Return. Santa's Slay would be Goldberg's first lead role, and it's every bit as much campy, slasher fun as the title would indicate.
The film is written and directed by David Steiman, Brett Ratner's personal assistant. It was produced by Ratner as a favor, and it seems worth noting that Steiman never wrote or directed another film again. In it, Goldberg does not play the jolly old St. Nick beloved by children of all ages, but a Santa Claus born of a virgin birth to Satan as a counterpart to Jesus, thus technically making Santa the anti-christ. Goldberg's Santa delights in slaughter, delivering over-the-top, cartoonish violence instead of presents, until in the year 1005 an angel defeats him in a curling contest -- curling as in the Winter Olympic sport akin to shuffleboard, that is, not the weightlifting technique (naturally, the flashback curling sequence takes the form of an old Rankin/Bass holiday special). The terms of his curling defeat require Goldberg's Santa to deliver presents and joy for a thousand years, but with his obligation up in 2005, he's finally free to rampage through the subtly-named village of Hell Township, sowing the chaos and murder he delights in.
The film takes great pleasure in thinking up the campiest, most over-the-top ways for Goldberg's Santa to creatively slaughter his victims, while also winking at the fact that Goldberg himself is proudly Jewish. The opening scene features Goldberg crashing down a chimney to interrupt the Christmas celebration of a family played by other notable Jewish actors, including James Caan, Fran Drescher, Chris Kattan, and Ratner's former girlfriend Rebecca Gayheart. The scene sets the tone that the rest of the movie will follow by having Goldberg's Santa set fire to Fran Drescher before drowning her in egg nog, choke James Caan with a turkey leg, launch a Christmas-tree star at Gayheart, and super-kick Chris Kattan through a curio cabinet after a brief display of Kattan's martial arts prowess.
Later scenes include Goldberg spearing Saul Rubinek through a deli counter before stabbing him with his own menorah, running over the main character's grandpa (who, naturally, turns out to be the angel who defeated him in curling a thousand years before) with his hell-beast of a reindeer, tossing explosive presents from his sleigh, and attempting to kill the main character with a Zamboni before reprising his curling battle in front of a sinkhole to hell. One extended set piece features Goldberg rampaging through a strip club, complete with "Ho-ho-ho" one-liners, a mistletoe gag, Goldberg's Santa taking time to sanitize a stripper pole before ripping it from the wall to use as a massive bludgeon, and burning the whole place down with a red-hot piece of coal.
The film has fun with Goldberg's wrestling background, allowing him to show off a few wrestling moves (though sadly, not his signature Jackhammer), designing Santa's belt to look like a wrestling championship belt, having Santa wear a beanie emblazoned with Goldberg's famous tribal tattoo, and closing with a post-credits scene of Goldberg's Santa examining his Naughty List, turning to camera, and asking "Who's Next." At a listed running time of 78 minutes it still somehow manages to feel at least 20 minutes too long, but more than delivers on it's central premise, "What if Bill Goldberg was a murderous Santa who dropped a ton of holiday-themed one-liners."
For Goldberg himself, the film's most lasting legacy might be that it's where he met his wife Wanda Ferraton, one of the film's stunt performers. But for fans of the cult film, Santa's Slay will continue to deliver holiday joy -- in the form of yuletide terror -- in the greatest acting performance of Goldberg's career.