10 Awesome WWE Stars Who Returned Even Better Than Before

While we could argue that Triple H wasn’t technically a better wrestler after returning in 2002, I think we can just about guarantee that to be the case with Stone Cold Steve Austin in light of his neck injury from 1997.

After legit breaking his neck from a piledriver at SummerSlam 1997, Austin was forced to drastically change his wrestling style from a scientific approach to a more smash-mouth, brawling style. From a purist perspective, that might have been a bit of a step down, but given Austin’s beer-drinking, hell-raising, rule-breaking gimmick, the new style was far more in keeping with his character’s intentions.

Over the coming years, that style would help him become probably the most popular wrestler of all time as the Attitude Era took the world by storm and essentially helped the WWF put WCW out of business.

I’ve highlighted his 1997 return as that’s the one that yielded all that wild success in the Attitude Era, but you could easily make the case for his return in 2000 featuring on this list, after he’d once again been under the knife in late 1999.

Upon returning, he was just as hot as he’d ever been - the pop he received at Backlash 2000 proving a testament to that - while this comeback also saw him headline what is perhaps the greatest WrestleMania of all time against the Rock in 2001.

Either way, there was no keeping Austin down, as he went from strength to strength despite the multiple lay-offs.