10 WWE Stars Who Left And Returned More Badass
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.
If only we could include Daniel Bryan on this list.
Daniel Bryan returned to WWE in what was a genuinely magic moment on the March 20, 2018 SmackDown. He returned - initially - as a badass, selling for and fighting off the combined might of Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn with such life-affirming electricity that one forgot, momentarily, that "Kami" were hardly a threat. An oddly structured WrestleMania 34 payoff followed, in which Bryan was attacked before the bell. It was an eye-rolling premonition of the events that followed; Bryan didn't return as a badass, but rather a Flanderised version of the Bryan we once knew. Opposed by a parade of giants, the message was clear: Bryan, a genuine polymath, was typecast as an underdog.
To intercept the incoming criticism: yes, as of Tuesday's SmackDown, The Miz feud is happening. That doesn't make any less deflating the preceding few months of boring Big Cass battles. Wrestling can be good all the time in different promotions. Only in WWE is mediocrity somehow accepted in the wilderness months before a Big 4 pay-per-view.
"Just wait."
Why wait?
But there is hope for Bryan yet - even on the evidence of WWE's dismal recent history...
10. Drew McIntyre
Drew McIntyre had to leave WWE in 2014, even if he didn't exactly jump; marooned as the third member of the worst Band since Kevin Nash tried to get it back together in TNA in 2010, the Scot was shot even as an undercard performer. And, even prior to those grim days, McIntyre rarely projected himself as a star. He was only ever presented as one through WWE's flatteringly optimistic lens. There was little separating McIntyre from his FCW peers beyond a brief commendation from Vince McMahon, who likely forgot all about that as Drew subsequently struggled on Main Event.
As Drew Galloway, the man completely reinvented himself on the Independent circuit. Drew came back thicker than Alex Riley's Twitter account, and where mass usually slows a man down, he became more explosive in parallel. It was reflective of Galloway's new mission statement: no matter how much stronger or more successful he became, he retained his hunger to burst through the ranks.
He arrived back into the WWE fold three years later, enjoying a truncated NXT stint in which he demonstrated his immense range in a bruising minor classic with Oney Lorcan and a genuine, elite-level TakeOver war opposite Andrade "Cien" Almas.
On RAW in 2018, Drew is one of very few performers worth the investment. Protected thus far, McMahon's love of the "ass-kicker" is writ literally large through Drew's incredible, backed-up physique.