Serial Escalation/Professional Wrestling


 * What ridiculously awesome move will somebody pull off next? What dastardly act will the Heel perpetrate to make the feud evem MORE personal? What kind of stacked odds will John Cena face and overcome?
 * Professional Wrestling as a whole was the definition of this trope in the Monday Night Wars as the main promotions one-upped themselves while the indy promotions (namely ECW) did more and more outlandish things in order to just stay noticed. How violent can hardcore wrestling get? How high will a wrestler fall as part of a stunt? How contrived can the flippy moves get? It got so bad in the late 90s that the WWE now is purposely defying this to the point of inverting it.
 * Ladies and gentlemen, the greatest counter ever.