10 Awesome WWE Stars Who Returned Even Better Than Before

As popular and successful as Austin came to be after his devastating neck injury of 1997 though, it’s almost impossible to look beyond the irrepressible Shawn Michaels for top spot on this list.

Again, Michaels was an excellent performer prior to his injury, reaching the top of the mountain on multiple occasions and becoming the face of the company at one point. But when he returned from a debilitating back injury in 2002, he was somehow even better than he had been before.

That back injury had initially sidelined the Showstopper in 1998, leading to a four-year hiatus from in-ring competition before he’d come back in an Unsanctioned Street Fight versus Triple H at SummerSlam 2002. His performance was absolutely awe-inspiring.

This was no one-off though, as Michaels would go on to capture the World Heavyweight Championship shortly after, steal the show at numerous WrestleManias, provide a whole host of superstars with the greatest matches of their entire careers and, of course, put on perhaps the best WWE match of all time against The Undertaker at WrestleMania XXV.

All of those accolades are incredible enough on their own, but to have achieved all that after a four-year break since his last WWE match puts Shawn Michaels on a whole other level.