WWE is a place where things are often pretty tame and generally reach status quo level and stay there for quite some time. Occasionally, though, something happens that either comes out of nowhere or is so shocking that even though it was all but confirmed to happen, you wouldn’t have believed it until you saw it.
That is the case for these five shocking moments in WWE history. Returns that nobody expected, returns that were rumoured but hard to believe, and even returns that were pretty much 100% confirmed but impossible to fathom. Some of these men were gone a very long time and some only a few short months, but all were shocking just the same.
#5 Brock Lesnar (RAW - April 2, 2012)
It was the night after WrestleMania 28. John Cena had just lost to The Rock in the first of their two “Once in a Lifetime” matches. He was having a bad day, and the return of Paul Heyman’s number one Beast just made that day even worse.
Brock Lesnar had been rumoured to return, and the speculation had essentially been confirmed to be true, but it wasn’t until his music hit at the end of the RAW after WrestleMania that people could really believe it.
Cena was shocked, the crowd went wild, and the return of Brock Lesnar after eight years had finally arrived. WWE went in an interesting direction by having Lesnar actually lose to Cena only four weeks later at the Extreme Rules pay-per-view, but it was an amazing match, the likes of which nobody had seen before.
Brock returned and not only shocked the world because we never thought he was ever coming back but also brought in a completely different style of wrestling, that made his performances feel as real as they could get.
#4 Chris Jericho (Royal Rumble - January 27, 2013)
There are always rumours and tonnes of speculation when Chris Jericho is gone. He’s going to return in this show, he’ll make an appearance on this date, he’s SURELY going to appear next week! Most of the time the rumours are unfounded and based on wishful thinking, but sometimes it’s true.
Dolph Ziggler was set to start the Royal Rumble match as the number 1 entrant, but he needed an opponent to start the match at number 2. After a long wait, an explosion happened and the familiar “JERICHO” TitanTron appeared.
Moments later the lights went out and the outline of a jacket covered in lights appeared. The crowd went nuts as Chris Jericho made his return after a five-month absence to confront the man who got him kicked out of WWE the night after SummerSlam 2012.
#3 Ric Flair (RAW - November 19, 2001)
The horrifyingly bad Invasion storyline ended the night before at Survivor Series when The Rock and the WWF defeated Stone Cold Steve Austin and the WCW/ECW Alliance. Yes, that made a lot of sense.
Vince McMahon claimed to be the sole proprietor of the WWF once again without opposition and wielded significant power throughout the night.
As the show was coming to a close, Vince was in the ring to attempt to award Kurt Angle with the WWF Championship that became vacant when Stone Cold, the incumbent Champion, lost the match for the bad guys.
He was never able to get it done, however, because they were in Charlotte, North Carolina and somebody from that neck of the woods happened to buy half of the stake in the company when Vince’s kids lost it.
Out walks the Nature Boy himself, Ric Flair, to a split-second of stunned silence, followed immediately by raucous cheers from the audience in Charlotte.
He was about six months late, as it would have been far more amazing to have him as a major player in the Invasion storyline, but it was better late than never, with Flair making his return to the WWF for the first time in almost eight years. Seemed like a lot longer, but a lot changed between the end of 1993 and the end of 2001.
#2 John Cena (Royal Rumble - January 27, 2008)
John Cena tore one of his pectoral muscles performing a hip toss in 2007 and was supposed to be out of action for up to a year. Cena, being superhuman, returned in four months and shocked the holy heck out of everyone in Madison Square Garden, as his music hit and he became the 30th and final entrant in the 2008 Royal Rumble match.
Just over eight minutes later, John Cena was the number one contender for Randy Orton’s WWE Championship.
It wasn’t even rumoured that he would show up. This return was an amazingly well-kept secret, which was incredibly difficult to do by that point with the massive reach of the internet. It happened, free of speculation, rumour or otherwise, and it was one of the greatest, and definitely one of the most shocking, returns in the history of WWE.
#1 The Rock (RAW - February 14, 2011)
WWE announced that the 27th annual WrestleMania event was going to have a special guest host, and of course, everyone speculated who it might be. Could it be Hulk Hogan? Stone Cold Steve Austin? Some random Hollywood celebrity that everybody would hate?
Or would it be a Hollywood celebrity that everybody would lose their minds over?
Indeed, the first name on the lips of many people when the announcement was made that WrestleMania would have a “host”, was none other than the People’s Champion himself, The Rock.
He had appeared sporadically over the years after having his last official match at WrestleMania XX in 2004, but between August 2004 (his last live show appearance) and February 2011, he existed on video screens only.
The only exception was in 2008 when he appeared at the Hall of Fame ceremony to induct his father into the WWE Hall of Fame.
After not having shown up in person on Monday Night RAW in almost seven years and generally distancing himself from the wrestling business, it was a gigantic shock when his music hit and he actually walked to the ring on Valentine’s Day 2011.
While he was the front-runner in the minds of most people when it came to who the host would be, it was still an incredibly stunning moment because many never expected him to make a physical appearance ever again.
Instead, the return led to a number of matches and even a short run as WWE Champion the following year. This was truly the most shocking return in WWE history. Who could have expected all of that to happen?
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