10 Wrestlers Who Had To Take A Break... Only To Return Better Than Ever

7. Shawn Michaels

Bret Hart’s long-time rival Shawn Michaels knows all too well the benefits a hiatus can have on you. Shawn suffered a devastating back injury in 1998 when his back directly hit the casket in his match with The Undertaker at Royal Rumble. As a result, Shawn had to give up the one thing he always loved and was born to do in pro wrestling. He genuinely believed he would never wrestle again.

In the four years that followed he opened a wrestling school that was responsible for training Bryan Danielson and Brian Kendrick, married the love of his life and had a son, battled and recovered from his substance abuse addictions and self-destructive tendencies, found God and lost any shred of the ego he once had. And most importantly, his back had time to heal and recover from the surgery he underwent in 1999. All of these circumstances led to his return to the ring.

Wanting to test the waters, he asked WWE if he could work with Triple H in a street fight at SummerSlam. The match tore the roof off the building and is often listed as being in modern wrestling fans top 10 matches of all time. It kicked off Shawn’s amazing second run in WWE from 2002-2010, where he had some of the best matches and rivalries of his life (Jericho, Undertaker and Kurt Angle to name a few).