Villain Decay / Professional Wrestling

• In a cross promotional example, Shane Douglas came off this way in WCW, or really, any promotion that wasn't ECW, which is somewhat understandable considering him trashing the NWA World Heavyweight Championship is what kicked off ECW's notoriety in the first place. In WCW, he was the idiot who provoked Goldberg.
• For the Divas, Molly Holly. This two-time Women's Champion was forced to undergo a protracted Humiliation Conga that lasted almost a year after WrestleMania XX, when Victoria defeated her in a match, strapped her to a barber's chair, and shaved off all her hair. Eventually her hair grew back, but things only got worse for Molly, as she regularly lost every match she was in (even if it was a tag team match, she was the one who got pinned), hitting rock bottom when Stacy Keibler (of all people!) pinned her in three consecutive matches. This was truly the end for Holly, because if someone so inexperienced could pin a former champion three times, then who couldn't? It wasn't long before "Mighty Molly" wasn't so mighty anymore - indeed, remaining a jobber until finally leaving WWE in 2005.
  • Her problems began back in 2002. When she did her Face–Heel Turn, she revamped herself as a self-righteous prude and never got any heat because she was always easily silenced by the hot girls she ranted at by them just taking their tops off, leaving her with her jaw hanging open in shock. It didn't help that Molly wanted to play it for laughs, intentionally wearing the most matronly-looking outfits possible in situations where something sexy was called for. It got still worse when WWE unleashed the infamous "Molly's got a big butt" angle and was unmercifully ridiculed, even though she was Women's Champion (Word of God is it was a punishment for her real-life refusal to be Ms. Fanservice). WWE eventually realized they made a mistake and she temporarily Took a Level in Badass in 2003.
  • It should be pointed out Molly's losses to Stacy were because WWE were grooming Stacy for a reign as Women's Champion in 2004 and were trying to show she Took a Level in Badass by beating a former champion, but Stacy was so firmly entrenched in people's minds as a Faux Action Girl it backfired - badly.
• John "Bradshaw" Layfield. Remember when JBL was the longest-reigning WWE Champion in the history of SmackDown!? Yup, nobody else does, either.
• Kane is perhaps the best example of wrestling Villain decay. When he initially debuted, he was present as an unstoppable monster who was damn near impossible to beat. His first lost was to Undertaker at WrestleMania 14 where it took over three tombstones (then a major feet) to pin him and even then he got right back up after the match was over to attack Undertaker. Compare that to his heel run from 2013 to 2015 as corporate Kane were he was being beaten by pretty much everyone. Any time they go back to trying to present Kane is a scary monster, it only lasts for a little bit before he starts jobbing easily to everyone. It was especially laughable back in 2014 when they wanted to present him as a monstrous threat to Daniel Bryan after he just got squashed by The Shield at Wrestlemania 30 in a three minute match and had already been beaten multiple times in the last couple of months by Bryan.
• Every few months, WWE portrays Big Show as a major threat and every time after he loses that feud, he goes back to being a irrelevant mid-card guy. Like Kane it gets to the point where when ever they try this no one buys it now.
• CM Punk by the end of his run in IWA Mid-South. While he failed in what he later revealed to be his on going attempt to be stabbed by a fan upon his entry into the promotion, he did initially get several fans angry enough to try and physically attack him. By 2005 however, his attempts to agitate the audience had crossed so many lines that they instead started laughing his jokes and he went out with a half serious half comedy feud with Matt Sydal and Delirious.
• Lampshaded with Edge. After winning the World Heavyweight Championship in December 2007 (which he had never lost, as it had been stripped from him earlier that year due to an injury), he decided to safeguard his title by forging a strategic relationship with SmackDown! General Manager Vickie Guerrero. Although at first he only pretended to fall in love with her, as time went on he genuinely became enamored with her and transformed into a slightly effeminate character who swooned over Vickie every chance he got. In any event, the strategy was an enormous success: Edge had Vickie set up numerous scenarios in which his chief rival, The Undertaker, couldn't possibly win, and persuaded her to have 'Taker banished from WWE entirely. Edge proposed marriage to Vickie in the summer of 2008, but the ceremony ended in disaster after it was revealed that he had been cheating on Vickie with Alicia Fox, the wedding planner. Vickie told Edge that she hated him, which led to a brief period of Cry for the Devil as Edge begged Vickie for forgiveness. But Vickie would have none of it, and decided to avenge herself further by having Undertaker reinstated to WWE and booking him against Edge in a Hell in a Cell Match at SummerSlam. This turned Edge into a wild-eyed coward who didn't believe he could win the match without help, and so he sought advice from Mick Foley on how to win a Hell in a Cell Match. Foley flat out told Edge that he was going to lose the match, because ever since he had fallen in love with Vickie he had been a complete sissy....
  • ....which briefly galvanized Edge into regaining some of his badass status by murmuring "I....understand" - and then climbing a ladder and elbow-dropping Foley through a table.
• Jimmy Jacobs not only clawed his way into the main event scene Ring of Honor, going so far as to defeat Bryan Danielson with his new End time, but he was also the leader of the Age Of The Fall, a giant stable that not only had seven members in Ring Of Honor but had branches in multiple pro wrestling promotions around the country and at least one affiliate group over seas. Between Austin Aries taking his girlfriend and Tyler Black deserting him, Jacobs's power base dwindled to a mere two remaining Age Of The Fall members, Brodie Lee and MsChif and he wound up back on the under card.
• Averted with The Great Khali. Although he was marginalized a bit following the loss of his World Heavyweight Championship to Batista late in 2007, WWE managed to keep him sufficiently menacing up until his Heel–Face Turn a year later....and then the decay set in.
• Also averted with Umaga. Although he did lose three consecutive pay-per-view matches in early 2007 after having previously gone undefeated for nearly nine months, he managed to remain a dangerous (if hardly ever successful) villain right up until his death in 2009.
• Vladimir Kozlov. Like Umaga, he managed to go for the better part of a year without being pinned until Shawn Michaels finally defeated him in early 2009. Within months, however, he and Ezekiel Jackson were playing second fiddle to William Regal, who was himself a pretty pathetic villain. His standing eventually fell so far that by the time he turned face, he was spending most of his time with Wrestling/SantinoMarella in a comic-relief (if occasionally successful) tag team.
• Played straight and then subverted with Montel Vontavious Porter. He was the longest-reigning United States Champion in the title's 33-year history until Matt Hardy finally won it from him in 2008. From there he began a long slide into irrelevancy, until by the fall of that year he was stuck in a months-long losing streak that made you forget he had ever been at all competent. But this eventually proved to be a blessing when the crowd began to cheer him out of sympathy, resulting in a Heel–Face Turn and a long-denied victory when he won a match that enabled Triple H to participate in the 2009 Royal Rumble. He then went on to be just as successful as before, even defeating Shelton Benjamin to become United States Champion once again.
• Tazz came into TNA as the evil mentor of Samoa Joe. After Joe joined the Main Event Mafia though, Tazz became redundant. They attempted to reverse this when Tazz was inducted into Aces And Eights, but that amusing lead to Joe himself forcing Tazz break ties with the group after it was forced out of TNA.
• After TNA presented Madison Rayne as the whipping girl of The Beautiful People from basically her debut in the company, they tried to break her out as a serious singles threat by having Rayne forcibly retire every woman she wrestled. While her career killer streak was put to an end when she was defeated by Angelina Love, the decay didn't set in until she gave a debuting Mickie James all of her best moves and still couldn't win until she hit James with a loaded glove behind the referee's back. Soon Rayne became helpless against James without the glove, to the point she had to bring back Tara, one of the wrestlers she retired, to stand a chance. And that resulted in decay for both of them when Tara won the Knockouts Title belt, voluntarily handed it over to Rayne, and then they both got beat up at once by an infuriated James.
• Rusev and Bray Wyatt were both at first present as very major foes to everyone they faced-scoring big wins and for both of them, after losing their feuds with John Cena became completely Nerfed. Rusev for instance kept losing to Dolph Ziggler. Bray Wyatt while having better luck at winning his mid-card feuds against guys like Ryback, loses every real major feud he is in weather it be against Undertaker, Randy Orton, or Roman Reigns.
  • Bray Wyatt would make a return later on repackaged as "The Fiend", which seemed to be a major return to form for his villainy, but decay sadly kicked in pretty fast again. While starting off very strong, including an introduction via a decisive victory over old rival Finn Bálor, he was prone to being booked to lose several high-profile matches in questionable ways, mostly infamously to Seth Rollins in during the main event of Hell in a Cell 2019 via no-contest, and to Goldberg during the main event in Super ShowDown 2020 via squash. History came full circle regarding his feud with Randy Orton, who beat The Fiend both in a 2020 "Firefly Inferno" match and during WrestleMania 37, the latter of which was not long before Wyatt was suddenly released from the company.
• Happened at an alarmingly fast rate with Tensai. He went from a true menace, defeating John Cena AND CM Punk (In a handicap match, but still...), two of the WWE's top stars, but within a matter of months, became nothing more than a big man for underdogs to prove themselves against.
• Chikara saw assailANT of the Gekido go through the entire process, becoming less and less of a threat until he wasn't a threat at all but in fact a nice guy to be around. The Gekido stable as a whole remained dangerous rudos but mostly because of the Shard, while assailANT joined The Colony, whom he was supposed to be set up to take down.
• Valkyrie went from forcing their way into SHINE's main event, leaving staff so intimidated they told the wrestlers "You're on your own." to a group who have little success beyond mugging mid carders and earning suspensions. Their decay started when internal conflict between their centerpiece and her heir apparent caused them to both be excised from the group, got worse when their new centerpiece got injured away from the promotion, leaving them disorganized and without title contenders then reached it's culmination when rival stable Valifornia put a price on the head of their resulting defacto leader which was pursued by Valkyrie's own unofficial associate while Valifornia absorbed anyone who remained to offset its own decay.
• Ryback, as a face, was a guy who never lost without a lot of interference and anyone only came out over him they had a big numbers advantage. Almost every match he was in was a complete Squash Match, and in pay-per-view main events, he was in control the majority of the time, with his losses mostly being caused by being screwed over by forces beyond his control. When he turned heel after WrestleMania 29, his opponents generally got in a lot more offense against him, although he still won non-title matches. The real decay set in when Justin Gabriel injured his leg, which led to him having to quit a match against The Miz of all people the following week. At the same time, he ended up in a feud with Chris Jericho, which did nothing but make him look like a spineless coward, and indeed, only beats Jericho with a roll-up pin during the pay-off match. He also walked out on a match with Mark Henry. Rather than being a Wrestling Monster, he merely acts as The Bully to non-wrestlers backstage.
• The Dark Order is a positive example of this trope. They were initially presented as a cult with a legion of followers and the imposing Brodie Lee as their leader. However, their comedic bits in Being the Elite made them popular among the fans and their more sinister elements were gradually phased out. By the time they made their formal Heel–Face Turn, The Dark Order were beloved as a bunch of Laughably Evil goofballs that treated each other like family.