10 Biggest WWE Return Pops Ever

Khali would have been number 11.

undertaker triple h
WWE.com

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but what they don't tell you is that you can usually only expect a few fleeting minutes of adulation before the mere sight of your face begins to get on everyone's nerves.

That's often the way in wrestling, though. You bust your butt to get back to the ring after months on the treatment table (or touring with Fozzy) and your return is duly met with a chorus of cheers from fans who finally quickly remember how much they loved you while you were away.

But how do you harness that reaction so that you get it every single time you walk down the entrance ramp? You can't. Don't even try.

The ear-popping ovations that can be heard reverberating around an arena when a long-departed star finally returns to the ring are a rare sight (and sound) to behold, and it's because it happens relatively infrequently that moments such as these stay with us for so long.

Long enough that you don't even mind, a few months later, when they are inexplicably revealed as the long lost father of Jason Jordan.

10. The Undertaker - Judgment Day 2000

On paper, this had the potential to go badly wrong. Undertaker the Deadman had been part of the WWE furniture for nearly a decade, and it was completely possible that the fans of the time would reject his new appearance as the American Badass.

But they didn't. Instead, he rode down to the ring on his motorcycle amid a thunderous ovation from the Judgement Day crowd, and proceeded to clear the ring of everyone with even a passing relation to Triple H (including poor Stephanie McMahon, who nearly took a chokeslam for her sins).

This followed an injury-forced hiatus of more than eight months - 'Taker's longest absence from our screens - and it was, albeit completely inconsequential (Triple H walked out of the match with his title), a fitting way for him to return to the action.

Contributor