Ranking 15 WWE Debuts And Returns In 2020

10. Rob Gronkowski

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WWE

If you tuned out WWE in March-April, you would have missed NFL star Rob Gronkowski spending some time mixing it up in the pro wrestling world.

And make no mistake, Gronk wasn’t just doing a one-off like he did at WrestleMania 33. Gronkowski was actually joining WWE after his retirement from football. His signing was heralded by WWE at the beginning of the Empty Arena Era (making Mojo Rawley relevant for a hot minute), and he hosted WrestleMania 36, where he did a dive off a platform and won the 24/7 Championship.

However, shortly after Mania, Gronk came out of retirement and signed with the Tampa Bay Bucaneers (ironically enough, their home stadium is where Mania 36 was supposed to take place), cutting his tenure with WWE short. Gronk would lose the 24/7 title to R-Truth and that would be the end of his run with the company.

Still, Gronkowski’s 24/7 title reign meant he was one of only two debuting superstars to actually win a title in 2020. And he is a legit sports star, so he kind of falls somewhere in the middle when ranking these debuts and returns.

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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.