10 Awful WWE Gimmicks That Only Lasted One Night

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’.