10 WWE Stars Who Left And Returned More Badass
9. Ric Flair
Ric Flair came close to approaching his G.O.A.T greatness during his first WWF run; his attempt to defile the image of Miss Elizabeth was man's man stuff by the standards of the time, and outlasting 29 other men from a then-unprecedented #3 slot was hardly the work of a cuck. Still, he was never The Man as he was for Crockett, and though we were treated on occasion to his technical excellence, the ranting mad shagger that lit up the World Championship Wrestling studio was largely absent.
Upon his 2001 return, Flair, well past his physical prime - he was past his physical prime during his initial stint - borrowed a trick from old rival Terry Funk. The new Flair survived a vicious onslaught at the hands of the Undertaker at WrestleMania X8, having retained his selling ability, if not the dynamite workrate of old.
As the years passed, Flair used more shortcuts to keep up with the generation he refused to let surpass him. He took gruesome bumps from great heights in Money In The Bank ladder wars, bled like a warlord in a famous Steel Cage match against "protege" Triple H at Taboo Tuesday 2005, and even, with some hypocrisy, used the same barbed wire and thumbtacks he demonised Mick Foley for relying on in a quite astonishing series of ECW cameos.
The man Scott Steiner referred to as a "Shar Pei puppy" in 2000 spent the ensuing decade fighting like a grizzled old dog.