10 Uplifting Wrestling Moments To Cure Your 'Mania Hangover

10. The Resurrection Of Jake The Snake

Morbid office death pools surely had Jake Roberts near the top of the field at the turn of the 2010s.

The legend had been in a sorry state for well over a decade, notoriously embarrassing himself at the Heroes Of Wrestling pay-per-view on October 10, 1999. Paralytic, he slurred and stumbled through a promo and simulated masturbation with his snake. It lent Steve Austin's seminal King Of The Ring 1996 promo a depressing retrospective dramatic irony. Jake took his bottle of Thunderbird and emptied it.

Grim appearances at grim independent shows haunted him; a 2012 appearance for the Coastal Wrestling Federation cast yet another shadow of ignominy over his career. The man who was once able to manipulate the people like no other was no longer even capable of seeing them in front of him. It was a sad ending.

But it wasn't; Roberts committed to sobriety and Diamond Dallas Page's yoga programme. He wanted to appear in the 2014 Royal Rumble match, to both reward and symbolise his recovery, but that didn't happen. He was instead ushered into the Hall of Fame and dispatched to the ring on the January 6, 2014 Old School RAW. He capped off CM Punk's GTS on Dean Ambrose by draping a snake over his face. Ambrose, then playing the heel role, couldn't help but break character and plaster a smile over his face.

He wasn't the only person elated by Roberts' miraculous comeback.