10 Wrestlers Who Returned From Injury Better Than Before
5. The Undertaker
As wacky a time as the Attitude Era was, it apparently wasn’t quite wacky enough to have a supernatural, undead mortician competing in the main event. As such, with The Undertaker rehabbing groin and pectoral injuries in late 1999, he decided it was time for a change of pace.
Come May 2000, when he was finally ready to return to the ring, we saw Undertaker make his comeback under a totally different guise. Gone was the Deadman and all his macabre spiel and in his place was the American Badass, a bandana-clad biker who rode his motorcycle to the ring to songs by Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock.
In hindsight, it isn’t remembered as his most popular incarnation, but it was rather more in tune with the time than his previous shtick had been, and it helped to give 'Taker a new lease of life during that early-2000s period.
Plus, and perhaps most significantly, the switch-up allowed him to eventually make a dramatic return to the Deadman persona a few years down the line, when he really went on to be better than ever before and become the icon he’s remembered as today.