10 Best WWE Comeback Runs

Comebacks are in vogue in the wrestling world at the moment.

Last year, we saw Kurt Angle and The Hardy Boyz rock up on WrestleMania weekend after leaving TNA. This year, it's CM Punk, who will resume his WWE career in June, after the number of fan requests for him to return on Twitter passes the one million mark.

That, to be fair, is probably (definitely) wishful thinking, but online reports circulating at the moment have proffered one realistic name for a 2018 comeback run. Namely that of Rey Mysterio, who has already featured in WWE TV this year after a cameo in the Royal Rumble in January.

Should wrestling's ultimate underdog agree to a full-time return, he will become the latest in a long line of wrestlers to get back in the WWE ring after taking a few years off. And the good news is that, more often than not, they come back in from the cold reinvigorated.

Many wrestlers, in fact, have enjoyed the biggest moments of their careers in their second or even third runs, putting paid to the widely-held idea that youth is always better. Sometimes, it's the wisdom accrued from years spent on the road that can help you deliver your best work.

We have to concede, straight off the bat, that Goldberg's comeback run one year ago consisted of just four matches (one of them being the Royal Rumble), and that those four matches lasted a total of about 10 minutes.

What do you want though? The dude was 50, hadn't stepped inside a ring in more than 12 years, and was doing it all so that his son could get a glimpse of his old man being a superhero inside the ring (and - perhaps - a massive, Vince McMahon-sized paycheque as well).

Fleeting though it was, there's absolutely no denying that beating Brock "The Main Event" Lesnar in about 80 seconds, winning the Universal Championship at Fastlane, and then competing in one of WrestleMania 33's marquee matches represents a pretty impressive run - at any age, let alone in your twilight years.

The ex-WCW star even succeeded in momentarily disabusing cynical smark fans of their deep-seated conviction that proper wrestling has to mean a pair of streamlined twenty-somethings doing suicide dives to the outside of the ring. It was like being a kid again, and for that, you have to take your hat off to all involved.