12 WWE Hall-Of-Famers Who Wrestled After Being Inducted

8. Ricky Steamboat

WWE Day 1 Edge Beth Phoenix
WWE

Hall of Fame induction: 2009

This is a great example of a wrestler who suffered a career-ending injury but then managed to make one last comeback to go out on his terms.

Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat’s career ended prematurely in 1994 on a freak accident, which is always heartbreaking to see. There never really were whispers that the Dragon had “one more match” left in him, so when he and several Hall-of-Famers started feuding with Chris Jericho in the lead-up to WrestleMania 25, it was a real surprise.

But the real surprise came when Steamboat finally got into the 3-on-1 handicap match and started taking Jericho to his limit. Despite not wrestling for 15 years, Steamboat looked like he hadn’t lost a step, including skinning the cat, deep arm drags and other signature spots.

The Dragon would lose that match, but he would get a one-on-one PPV rematch at Backlash, which he also lost. What many (including this writer) might not know is that Steamboat would compete in several house show matches that summer against the likes of Drew McIntyre, Jericho, and Sheamus.

Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.