Dale didn't have an easy return to his alma mater, though. He accepted a weak angle in which he resurfaced as DCWL's "Real World" Champion. This situation earned him a lot of heat from both the roster and the fans. He ended facing the Vindicator at WINTER PLUNDERLAND just a week after his debut. Dale lost the match but at the next Dementia, he would rain on Vindy's "Celebration Parade" by showing up with the mythical UWAC Universal Championship Belt! That same night, commissioner JT Damon merged both unsanctioned titles to form the "Jumble Jam" Tag Team Titles!
Dale and his wife Elaine shined brightly at the Winter Season Awards ceremony, plus him being voted "Craziest Wrestler of the Season" and awarded the infamous Monkey Suit Award! His new friendship with fan favorite Cousin Cletus and short feud with superheel Skye Ashner dissipated any doubt about his ethics and his eternal babyface persona was restored, putting the fans by his side once more! Still, he was trapped in a tag team with his arch-enemy the Vindicator, who at a point even insulted Elaine! Sick of that crap, and decided to finish his feud with the self-proclaimed "Metropolitan MEGAstar", Dale faced him at a special edition of TOTAL DEMENTIA: "ON LOCATION". There, they collided in the first "Monkey Cage Escape Match"! Despite being assisted by his hench-monkey, Diddy, Vindy was thrown from the top of the cage by a mysterious stranger who had stolen the Monkey Suit earlier that day (he was even wearing it), allowing Dale to escape and get his revenge! Up to this day, the Vindicator keeps blaming Dale of the stranger's interference and Diddy's raping at the hands of a bunch of horny baboons in that match, and seems obsessed with destroying "The Mirror".
But Dale had more important things to do than listening to Vindy's trash, like reaffirming his status as a major player and a force to be reckoned... and he achieved just that by being selected the No. 1 contender to the DCWL Grand Championship, less than two months after his return! He went to face the monstrous Jack Ketch, who had wrestled the Title from Guido the Great a few weeks back. They clashed in a bloody epic at ARK OF APOCALYPSE, which saw a level of violence rarely seen (thanks to Dale's previous "training", courtesy of Rex Creed). Dale fought courageously, but blinded by rage; and at the end received a Ketch Widowmaker on top of a ladder to lose his second supercard in a row. Dale may have lost the Title... but he won a lot more: the recognition and respect of his peers and a new and more demanding generation of fans!
DALE "THE MIRROR" STANWYCZ