10 Wrestlers Who Should Have Stayed Retired
Father time remains undefeated, including against some of these pro wrestling icons...
Bret Hart both should and shouldn't have returned to WWE in 2010.
The reality of his departure from the company a little over 13 years earlier had haunted him and his legacy ever since, to such an extent that he made nice for a DVD profile piece just to ensure a planned hatchet job didn't do further damage to yet more incoming generations of fans. It was real to Bret when he worked, and it was just as real now that he couldn't go like he used to.
There was an immense sense of catharsis when he hugged Shawn Michaels in the opening scene of the historic January 4th 2010 edition of Monday Night Raw, and outside of simply the best punches you'd see in wrestling all year when he threw them, that probably should have been that. A Vince McMahon faux-reconciliation kicked off an over-booked WrestleMania build and a badly booked WrestleMania match, and the die was cast on what a post-Stroke 'Hitman' could do beyond the aforementioned flashes of magic with Heath Slater of all people later in the year.
Bret Hart had to come back for so much darkness in his life to disappear, even if his brilliance was always going to best reflected in the archives than in anything brand news. A lot of others had the same stance...
10. Ric Flair
Often considered the greatest professional wrestler of all time in spite of countless personal indiscretions that could and should have realistically tarnished any legacy forever, Ric Flair just can't and won't call time.
His retirement match at WrestleMania 24 against Shawn Michaels was the perfect send-off - maybe up to that point the best in the history of the entire industry. There was no bigger stage, put on as it was by the market leader in an act of genuine respect and deference to a locker room that mostly idolised 'The Nature Boy'. But Flair's story didn't end there.
He returned to the ring in 2009 - just one year later - to do some Australian house shows with Hulk Hogan before becoming a semi-regular TNA TV act the following year. He was back at it again in 2022 at the age of 73 for a one-shot "Last Match" pay-per-view against Jeff Jarrett and Jay Lethal alongside Andrade, his son-in-law. These matches were a far cry from his heyday, with the latter particularly raising concerns over his health and safety.
Flair's return did little to enhance his legacy; instead, it left fans worried, nostalgic or just simply depressed thinking of a long-distant time when Flair could live up to his many monikers.