Dean Ambrose Returns From Injury to Support Seth Rollins Against Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre

Dean Ambrose made his long-awaited return on Monday Night Raw this week, joining forces with Seth Rollins to take out Drew McIntyre and Dolph Ziggler during the Intercontinental Championship contract signing.

Ambrose went down with a torn tricep back in December that was expected to keep him out for nine months. He appears to have just beaten that estimated time frame by a few weeks.

Ambrose appeared noticeably different from the last time his was on WWE television, as he had cut most of his unruly long hair, let his beard grow out and noticeably bulked up his shoulders, arms and back.

Prior to his injury Ambrose reunited with his former Shield stablemate Seth Rollins to win the Raw Tag Team Championships at the 2017 edition of SummerSlam. The two retained the titles all the way up through November and, in the process, briefly reformed The Shield along with Roman Reigns.

The trio was supposed to have their first match in a 3-on-5 tables, ladders and chairs match at the TLC pay-per-view in October, but had to swap out Reigns for Raw general manager Kurt Angle due to a viral infection.

The three finally got their return match at the Survivor Series pay-per-view in November, where they successfully defeated The New Day.

With Ambrose back, Rollins will finally have a man in his corner when he takes on Ziggler for the Intercontinental Championship at SummerSlam.

With Ambrose out and Reigns dealing with his own feuds, Rollins turned his attention towards the IC title in early 2018, leading to him defeating The Miz and Finn Balor in a triple threat match at WrestleMania 34 to win the title in April. He’d go on to hold the belt for 71 days before dropping it to Ziggler in an open challenge match on an episode of Raw in mid-June.

Following a failed attempt to win it back in a rematch on an episode of Raw, Rollins challenged Ziggler to a 30-minute Iron Man match at the Extreme Rules pay-per-view in July. At the end of their main event clash the two each had four victories over the other, prompting Angle to come out and restart the match under sudden death rules. McIntyre interfered just as the announcement was made, allowing Ziggler to nail Rollins with a Zig Zag for the win.