11 Times WWE Was Better Than Literally EVERYTHING

A lack of nostalgia for so much of the 2010s has resulted in a blanket erasure of a period that - often against the grain and the wishes of then-boss Vince McMahon - got over in spite of a system working against it. The 2025 return of AJ Lee was objective evidence that certain talents that survived the sludge left the deepest of connections with the audience that remained.

The iconic strains of her "Let's Light It Up" theme could barely be heard when she skipped out to take down Becky Lynch in revenge for her physical and verbal assaults on husband CM Punk, and it was hard not to draw comparisons to Punk's 2021 and 2023 returns to AEW and WWE respectively. The company had done a magnificent job over a relatively short period of making some longstanding fantasy booking a reality when Lynch got involved in the Seth Rollins/Punk rivalry, presenting a promo battle between 'The Man' and 'The Voice Of the Voiceless' that comfortably stood up as the year's best verbal sparring session.

Serving as an absolutely gripping sales pitch for what was made real when Lee formally returned, it was a perfect go-home segment for the following Chicago-based SmackDown, where Lee's adopted hometown crowd blew the roof off the Allstate Arena. The best kind of certainty in pro wrestling is a 99%er, where the 1% of doubt is only because the company hasn't outright promoted the name and thus can't be accused of a bait and switch. It doesn't happen often because it's a gamble big enough to flop if the talent can't live up to the hype or the company itself can't deliver the performer they've all-but promised. To generations of fans that had long written off her return as an impossibility, this was beyond any best case scenario even they could have manifested.