10 Best Late Career Runs In Wrestling History
2. Shawn Michaels (2002-2010)
Regardless of whether you prefer Shawn Michaels’ first WWE run to his second, what HBK was able to achieve after returning in 2002 was nothing short of remarkable. No wrestler has ever returned from a four-year absence in such spectacular fashion, and when Michaels wrestled his first match back against Triple H at SummerSlam ‘02, it was clear he hadn’t missed a beat.
Somehow, HBK looked better than ever in the ring. He’d lost some athleticism, but Michaels had returned as a smarter worker, and a masterful in-ring storyteller. Kicking-in when Shawn was 37 years old, this unlikely revival produced some of the best matches of his illustrious career, with opponents like Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho, and The Undertaker giving Michaels swathes of classic matches to add to an already impressive body of work.
Michaels wrestled his last match at the age of 44, and has since resisted the temptation to potentially spoil his legacy by returning. It didn’t matter than the run yielded just a single major title win: the spotlight-hogging backstage politician of old was gone, and the quality of Michaels’ matches spoke for itself. Regardless of whether his true peak came in the ‘90s or ‘00s, nothing can detract from Shawn’s late-career surge.