Top 5 Greatest Wrestling Returns

In this edition of The Wrestling Estate roundtable, we list our top five greatest wrestling returns.

Steven Jackson’s Greatest Wrestling Returns

Shawn Michaels

The first person that comes to mind is Shawn Michaels at SummerSlam 2002. After four years away from active competition, to return and arguably be even better than he was when he took early retirement is phenomenal!

The Hardyz

The Broken Hardyz took the wrestling world by storm. They created an incredible universe which took the pantomime of wrestling to its limit. It was only a matter of time before the Hardyz were called back to WWE, and that moment when their music hit and they came out at WrestleMania 33 gives me chills to this day!

Brock Lesnar

It was eight long years since we saw Brock Lesnar in a WWE ring and when we did, the night after WrestleMania 28, the whole world cheered. I was in my element and it was the return I had been waiting for!

AJ Styles

After his lengthy tenure with TNA/Impact Wrestling came to an end, AJ Styles began a tour of the independent circuit, as well as Japan. Being the Ring of Honor fan I am, I was so excited for AJ Styles’ return to ROH in 2014. AJ made a name for himself in ROH and seeing him come back and wrestle against a new crop of stars was wonderful.

Bret Hart

After the Montreal Screwjob, no one thought Bret Hart would ever step back into a WWE ring again. How wrong we were! At the start of 2010, Bret Hart shocked the world and triumphantly returned to Raw to an amazing reception. Add into the mix that the world saw the reconciliation of Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart.

Chad Gelfand’s Greatest Wrestling Returns

Roman Reigns

This is an obvious one as it’s a testament to Roman Reigns’ doctors and his own strength that he was able to return so quickly after being diagnosed with leukemia. It was an emotional return for a man who wasn’t even sure of his own immediate future, let alone returning to a wrestling ring.

Edge

Even with rumblings that Edge was trying to make a comeback, his return at Royal Rumble 2020 is still one of the most legitimately shocking moments in my wrestling fandom. The emotion, passion and gratitude in Edge’s eyes that night with him finally being able to return to the thing he loves doing the most was genuinely moving.

Daniel Bryan

“Fight for your dreams and your dreams will fight for you.” For years, the only person that believed that he would wrestle in a WWE ring again was Daniel Bryan. He fought and explored nearly every treatment possible to help heal from the concussions that seemingly put him permanently on the shelf. Bryan’s return in 2018 was the culmination of a personal battle, and the fans got to see the return of one of the greatest wrestlers of all time.

John Cena

Royal Rumble 2008 was one of the first instances of John Cena’s Wolverine-like healing powers. Cena’s return was so shocking that he inspired a hostile MSG crowd into popping for him before they came back to Earth and resumed their booing.

The Rock

This return was made even more shocking for me after I changed the channel to Monday Night Football for too long during a commercial break and flipped back to see THE ROCK in a WWE arena for the first time in seven years. I was blown away and did a double take when I realized finally The Rock had come back.

John Corrigan’s Greatest Wrestling Returns

Steve Austin

Just like Undertaker’s gong, Stone Cold’s glass shattering was the perfect record scratch for whatever was happening. Sidelined after being run over five months earlier, Steve Austin returned at Backlash 2000 to save The Rock from the McMahon-Helmsley regime. Physically unable to perform the stunner, the Texas Rattlesnake simply blasted everyone with a steel chair in the loudest pop I’ve ever heard.

Goldberg

Although we’ve all soured on Goldberg’s never-ending comeback story, when he first returned to Raw in 2016, it was awesome. A rare instance of WWE treating a WCW guy like a star, especially one Vinnie Mac fumbled 13 years prior, it was redemption for Da Man to close out Raw, enjoy the fanfare and accept Brock Lesnar’s challenge. I’ll always love his closing line: “Brock Lesnar, not only does that mean that you’re next. But most importantly, it means that Brock Lesnar, you’re last!” Ugh, if only…

John Cena

My hatred of John Cena is well-documented, but even I have to give the devil his due. His return at Royal Rumble 2008 shocked the world.

Undertaker

This guy wrote the scroll on greatest wrestling returns. Coming down the aisle on his motorcycle in the last 90 seconds of the Judgement Day 2000 Ironman match, the Deadman was gone and the American Badass was born. One by one, he cleaned house on the McMahon-Helmsley Faction, although he mistakenly ended up helping Triple H win the title. But when Taker goozled Stephanie, sweet Jesus, that’s the Attitude Era in a snapshot.

Vince McMahon

The first time I popped as a wrestling fan. The McMahon-Helmsley regime stacked the deck against The Rock, screwing him out of his guaranteed WrestleMania 2000 title shot. So, The Rock offered to leave WWE forever if he couldn’t beat Big Show, even with Shane O’Mac as the referee. Well, Triple H and Stephanie didn’t know Rock had an ace up his sleeve…Mr. McMahon.

Jack Goodwillie’s Greatest Wrestling Returns

Chris Jericho

While shock value weighs heavily on how great some of these returns are, the return of Chris Jericho after a two-year hiatus from WWE wasn’t necessarily shocking. In fact, this particular return had been teased for weeks on end, being framed as a combination for the fans to solve. The tagline “Can you break the code?” was brilliant and got fans talking ahead of a return in a way that hadn’t really been seen before. At that time, a great return was entirely contingent on the element of surprise, such as Lex Luger’s return to WCW.

Of course, Triple H (2002) had been teased, but there was no mystery to it. And while the fans eventually “broke the code,” a bewildered “Jim Ross” was kept guessing up until the moment Y2J turned to face the camera in a classic viral video (one of my favorites). It didn’t matter that we knew Jericho would be the one behind the code. We mostly just appreciated the effort put in to his return from the standpoint of how well it was built, as well as the new look he came back with. Jericho had never been fresher than in that moment and upon returning immediately shot back up towards the top of my list of favorite wrestlers. Plus, let us not forget the outstanding promo he cut on Randy Orton, which was vintage Y2J.

Ric Flair

Ric Flair’s return to WWE in 2001, the beginning of an eight-year run and one of the most memorable of his career in any one company, was significant because of the circumstances surrounding it and how integral he became to the top storyline on Raw the moment he stepped into the ring. Flair had previously worked a short stint in WWE a few years earlier that nearly culminated in an ECW series with Shane Douglas of all people before taking Time Warner’s big money offer to head back south.

We came to learn later on how truly unhappy Flair was with that last WCW run and he really came to the WWE feeling he had something to prove, whether in the ring or as the authority figure he returned as. Flair’s return was bolstered by the fact that it happened in his hometown of Charlotte, N.C., perhaps better known as “Flair Country.” The pop was massive – the people were happy to see him and even happier to hear that Flair had “purchased” Shane and Stephanie’s shares of WWE, making him a 50% owner of WWE and “partners” with the elder McMahon.

Eric Bischoff

Many people believe Bischoff to have been the missing ingredient that could have transformed the way history perceives the Invasion. Widely considered to be a flop of a storyline that curbed WWE’s momentum in the early 2000s, the Invasion was certainly plagued by the lack of big names who were able to make the jump to WWE, due to lengthy, expensive contracts bankrolled by AOL Time Warner as opposed to WCW itself that, at that price, WWE understandably wanted no part of. But while we now look back at the Invasion and wonder “what if Eric Bischoff got involved,” at the time it seemed like a near impossibility.

Many consider Bischoff the man to have thrown the first punch in the Monday Night War, so as far as the fans were concerned, his career in wrestling was all but over…that is until Vince McMahon himself got Bischoff on the phone and hired him strictly to an on-screen role as Raw General Manager. Now, Bischoff had never really been involved with WWE in the first place, but it was a return to wrestling nobody saw coming, amplified by the one-time use of AC/DC’s Back in Black. If you asked me where the Attitude Era ended and the Ruthless Aggression Era began, the answer might just lie with the first appearance of Bischoff on WWE television.

John Cena

On Oct. 1, 2007, John Cena suffered a torn pectoral, which doctors say usually requires six months to a year to fully heal, five months at minimum for peak athletes. In Cena’s case, the muscle had been torn completely off the bone. Needless to say, WWE fans had already mentally written Cena off as a possibility for a marquee match at WrestleMania, let alone the Royal Rumble in 2008. So naturally, the fans at home were treated to one of the loudest pops you will ever hear north of 2002 when Cena appeared as the final entrant in the Rumble, won it and worked the remainder of the match just as he normally would without limitations. I can’t say enough about the recovery he made and it has to be up there with some of the most miraculous in athletic history, let alone pro wrestling.

I can recall being at a basketball game of some kind that night and missing the show, but also being completely stunned to find that Cena won the match. We all know the narrative on “LOLCenaWins,” but he deserved better than to take the pin from Randy Orton at WrestleMania XXIV. His recovery at 200% speed from an injury like that is all a promoter could ask for out of his lead horse, and should have been rewarded appropriately for his efforts, though it takes nothing away from one of the greatest wrestling returns we’ve ever seen.

Raven

Raven’s return to ECW had all the components needed for an excellent return angle to be executed: Name value, shock factor and a hot crowd.

Let me set the scene: The date is Aug. 26, 1999, and ECW is taping its first episode for TNN at the Elks Lodge in Queens, N.Y. Tommy Dreamer was set to face ECW Tag Team Champions The Dudley Boyz in a 2-on-1 handicap match for the gold, and at this point it had become public knowledge the Dudleys’ move to WWE was imminent. Earlier that month over in WCW, Eric Bischoff had staged a meeting with the locker room and stated that anybody who had an issue of any kind would be granted their release on the spot if requested. Raven was the only wrestler to stand up and head for the door. Per the terms of his release, Raven could not go directly to WWE, so instead signed an exclusive deal to head back to his old stomping grounds in ECW.

Little did the fans at the Elks Lodge know that Raven would not only be returning to ECW that night, but lending a helping hand to his former nemesis to form an unlikely duo. Despite all of the personal problems he was dealing with at the time, the fans blew the roof off the Elks Lounge when Raven slithered into the ring to hit Buh Buh Ray with the Raven Effect. This was the moment ECW needed to gain some juice on its new home. Unfortunately, TNN merely used ECW to later leverage a deal with WWE while ECW folded in 2001. Granted, Raven fled to WWE six months later, anyway, so it’s not like the angle really went anywhere. Still, in a vacuum, I’d put this return up against most for what it was.