10 Awful WWE Gimmicks That Only Lasted One Night

Some terrible WWE gimmicks are given plenty of time to leave their lamentable mark on the wrestling world, whether they are permitted on the airwaves for weeks, months or, indeed, years.

Others, however, reared their ugly little heads just once before being told to go back down whatever wretched little hole they came from.

Their sports entertainment lives may have been brief but, in a few cases, that brevity has only helped them live on in infamy.

These are 10 awful WWE Gimmicks That Only Lasted ONE Night.

10. Seven

We thought we’d get the cheating part out of the way first, because we’re kicking off with a WCW creation. Since WWE bought WCW then they can own their mistakes as well.

After a successful almost four-year run as Goldust, Dustin Rhodes left WWE and re-signed with WCW in late 1999.

He didn’t do so as ‘The Natural’ and he couldn’t be ‘The Bizarre One’, unless WCW wanted to get sued.

So we got Seven instead, who was introduced via a vignette showing Rhodes, wearing all black and sporting a face covered in white makeup and blood-red eyes, as he creepily peaked through a little boy’s bedroom window.

Ostensibly based on alien species The Strangers from the film Dark City, Turner Broadcasting’s standards and practices department were quite rightly concerned it would instead be interpreted as a child abductor and quickly put the kibosh on it.

Dustin only appeared once before the crowd as Seven, making a spectacular entrance on Nitro before denouncing the gimmick with a worked-shoot promo.

9. Crocodile Hunter Shane Thorne

Shane Thorne clearly thought stereotypes worked when he trialled a Crocodile Hunter gimmick during a dark match prior to the September 24, 2021, SmackDown taping.

After footage of the Steve Irwin-inspired character found its way to social media, Thorne made a point to note that the gimmick was his own creation and that he was inspired by Nikki ASH.

He also added that his former stablemate Dijak (AKA T-Bar) had been bugging him to embrace his Australian identity and had a hand in convincing him to bust out his best Skinner impression.

Well, WWE weren’t convinced, and they released him two months later.

Credit to Thorne for being proactive and trying something new, but the Crocodile Hunter gimmick belonged out back.

8. Emmalina

Another Aussie that got a rubbish makeover was Emma, who had enjoyed a good main roster run as both a babyface and a heel prior to suffering a back injury in May of 2016.

Five months later, vignettes began airing hyping her return. Not the return of Emma, mind. Oh no, this was going to be the emergence of Emmalina.

These videos, showing Emmalina prancing about in bikinis and whatnot, lasted weeks and then months.

If it felt like the protracted teases were an inside joke, it’s because they were, with reports suggesting that (despite the consistent airplay) there was no spot for Emmalina.

She eventually showed up on the February 17, 2017, episode of Raw, where she referenced the long wait and then announced the ‘makeover of Emmalina to Emma’.

She then walked off and that was that.

According to reports, the Emmalina character was supposed to be in the same vein as Attitude Era sex kittens like Sable and The Kat, but WWE twigged that Tenille Dashwood wasn’t feeling it and stopped it before it could get started.

7. Friar Ferguson

After spells in Stampede Wrestling as Makhan Singh and in WCW as Norman the Lunatic, Mike Shaw likely assumed he’d finally gotten his big break when he signed with WWE in early 1993.

Unfortunately for the super heavyweight – who was noted for a great series of matches he’d had with a young Owen Hart – the best WWE could come up with was a character called The Mad Monk.

Fearing a backlash from religious groups, WWE creative tweaked the character to a babyface called Friar Ferguson.

The good monk made his one and only appearance on the April 12, 1993, episode of Raw, where he won an unremarkable squash match.

The match might have been routine, but everybody watching could tell the gimmick was positively DOA. Including, it seems, WWE creative, since the character was shelved immediately after.

Friar Ferguson’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it tenure might have also had something to do with The Catholic Church of New York complaining about what they considered a sacrilegious depiction.

Whatever the real reason, the bottom line was Ferguson was fried and it was time for Shaw to move on to bigger and better things. And was there anything bigger or better than Bastion Booger?

6. Sister Abigail

There was a lot of lore around the character of Bray Wyatt and his Wyatt Family, but the part of his backstory that seemed to intrigue people the most was to do with the mysterious Sister Abigail.

The Eater of Worlds had named his finishing move after this supposed sister and would continually make references to Abigail in promos.

These teases would, inevitably, lead to renewed speculation that Sister Abigail would make her debut as a WWE character proper.

That never happened, but ‘Sister Abigail’ did show up on the October 9, 2017, episode of Raw. It was, of course, Bray Wyatt wearing a veil and using a voice modulator.

Though his promo on Finn Balor was meant to be menacing it was, in fact, laughable. You can actually hear people in the crowd laughing during this poorly thought-out segment.

Sister Abigail was due to clash with Balor’s Demon alter-ego at the TLC pay-per-view, when Bray unfortunately came down with an illness and was pulled from the show.

Being sick is never a good thing, obviously, but the timing of this particular illness at least spared Windham Rotunda what was sure to be further embarrassment.

5. Doc Kabuki

When Steve Williams was shockingly knocked out by Bart Gunn in the Brawl for All tournament, any chance of a potential headline programme with WWE Champion Stone Cold Steve Austin (as had been the working plan) went out the window.

His hard man reputation in tatters and his hamstring hanging on by a thread, Dr Death had no choice but to take a few months away as WWE considered their next steps.

Williams re-emerged on the February 22, 1999, episode of Raw, interfering in the end of Gunn’s Hardcore Title match with former New Midnight Express teammate Hardcore Holly.

Wearing a Kabuki mask and doing some terrible karate thrusts, Williams threw Bart off the stage and through a table, costing him the match.

A variation of the gimmick (such as it was) had actually been pitched to Doc prior to his WWE debut. The idea was that Williams, having made his name and reputation wrestling in Japan for the past decade, had turned his back on his All-American roots.

In any event, Kabuki Steve Williams lasted exactly one segment and was never spoken of again.

4. The Jynx Brothers

If you were one of the lucky people to catch the October 6, 1996, episode of WWE Superstars, boy were you treated to a smorgasbord of complete and utter rubbish.

Zip! Salvatore Sincere! Leif Cassidy! Aldo Montoya! The Fake Diesel!

While all those characters lingered like a bad smell, one particular gimmick from this episode was over and done that very night.

Losing a short match to the Grimm Twins (Ron and Don Harris with another winner of a team name), the Jynx Brothers – that’s Ignus and Waldo, FYI – were masked little devils with neon-coloured hair.

Under the hoods, they were longtime WWE jobbers Matt and Jeff Hardy.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work and the Jynx Brothers were restricted to a single showing. Matt and Jeff went back to paying dues under their real names, but superstardom was right around the corner.

3. Hade Vansen

Those of you who have no idea who ‘Hade Vansen’ is obviously weren’t big fans of the Frontier Wrestling Alliance in the early-to-mid 2000s.

Vansen was plucked from WWE developmental towards the end of 2008 and pitched a storyline that seemed too good to be true.

Ultimately, it was. According to Hade, then-WWE writer Freddie Prinze Jr. outlined how he would be the leader of an X-Men-style group of supervillains who would target The Undertaker.

This, according to Vansen’s telling, would lead to a match between himself and The Deadman at WrestleMania 25.

One promo for Vansen aired – on the December 12 episode of SmackDown – before Triple H openly questioned why some no-name British bloke from FCW was getting a major match with The Undertaker, noting how Hade reminded him of the guy who cut his grass.

Vince McMahon laughed at the joke, agreed that Hade Vansen as some sort of masterful cult leader figure was dumb and the storyline was instantly cancelled.

Piling on the misery for poor Hade, he was wished the best of luck in his future endeavours just a few weeks later.

2. Phantasio

At 6’ 3” and a muscular 260 lbs, it’s easy to see why WWE felt like they could have something in Harry Del Rios, who wrestled for the Memphis-based USWA promotion as The Spellbinder.

He didn’t bring that gimmick with him to WWE, however. Del Rios instead tried out a new character called Phantasio.

His one and only televised match – a quick victory over Tony DeVito on the July 15, 1995, edition of Wrestling Challenge – was notable for the various tricks Phantasio performed before, during and after it.

Like his finisher, which saw him remove his opponent’s boxer shorts without tearing them in a magic wedgie.

Perhaps his greatest trick was disappearing forever afterwards. Outside of one more dark match against Rad Radford, that was it for Del Rios, who was duly sent back to Memphis.

Though the gimmick was utterly rubbish, another strike against Phantasio was the fact he almost burned down the backstage Gorilla Position (with Bruce Prichard in it) before his lone televised outing after dropping something flammable he planned to use in his act, something big Prichard revealed decades later.

1. Toxic Turtles

WWE have had dragons, bulldogs, snakes and all other manner of animalistic grapplers, but on only one night did they have Turtles. Toxic Turtles, to be precise.

Obviously, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were a huge hit with kids in the late 1980s and early 1990s and professional wrestling has never been shy about outright plagiarising a popular concept.

But the Toxic Turtles – who wrestled their one match at the March 9, 1993, Wrestling Challenge taping – wasn’t the brainchild of Vince McMahon or anyone else in WWE creative.

Rather it was the men in the suits themselves – jobbers Duane Gill and Barry Hardy – who’d had the costumes made in the hopes of working multiple times per night and, thus, making more money per television taping.

Tommy and Terry Turtle got the win in a match most notable for a spot where one or the Turtles landed on their back and couldn’t get up.

Yup, that was about as ‘good’ (and we use that term loosely) as it got, with WWE binning the Toxic Turtles off faster than you can say ‘intellectual property lawsuit’.