Villain Decay/Playing With

Basic Trope: Villain gets progressively less menacing, even after he started out curb stomping the hero.

Straight: The villain is beaten every single time he fights.
Exaggerated: The villain is consistently punched into space every time he steps into frame.
- The villain starts out a sadistic, genocidal Complete Monster who destroys cities and and innocent lives For the Evulz, then in his very next appearence, he becomes a humorous, Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain who hilariously fails at everything evil plan he tries. (Usually involving covering people's houses with toilet paper.)
Justified: The heroes get stronger and figure out more of the villain's weaknesses, giving them a better advantage.
- The villain may have had a narrow failure after sending most of the rebellion into comas or the morgue, but doing so ended up inflicting critical injuries to him and draining most of his resources, with any followers he may have had now dead, defecting, doing a Mook Face Turn or simply in jail. He's going to go down a lot easier this time around
- The Villain was going after the heroes instead of actually training and no longer learns new skills
- Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards
Inverted: The villain gets more menacing after his first appearances.
- It's the hero who gets less capable.
Subverted: He seems to be going through decay, but it's all part of one elaborate plot...
Double Subverted: ...Which falls flat on it's face, causing the villain to get more pathetic.
Parodied: The villain declares he's had it with the heroes always kicking his butt and gives up world domination for selling used cars.
- Because there's No Fourth Wall, the heroes (or the producers) tell him to improve his game or risk being Demoted to Extra.
Deconstructed: The villain is going through progressively tough times, meaning that he's losing his threatening stride...
Reconstructed: ...Doesn't mean that he's not out of business, though.
- The writers give him a villainous Crowning Moment of Awesome before killing him off for real.
Zig Zagged: The villain goes from being a legitimate threat to a weakling on several occasions.
Averted: He keeps his menacing stature throughout the series, even after all the circumstances.
- He stays as menacing, and might even become more menacing than before.
Enforced: The writers plan on making him more human, switch sides, or other circumstances that may change his cynical personality.
Lampshaded: The heroes recall that the villain used to be such a threat, but turned into a joke as soon as they beat him.
Invoked: The Big Bad purposely decreases the power of his minions somehow, to give the heroes a false sense of security before facing him.
Exploited: The heroes wait awhile to rebattle a powerful enemy.
Defied: The villain continues to be as powerful as ever, even learning from his mistakes.
Discussed: "Lord Facestomp shows up in the sequel, but only as a cameo."
Conversed: "The guy who almost crashed an asteroid into NORAD gets defeated in the first 10 minutes of Kickpuncher 2? LAME."

Look upon my Villain Decay, ye mighty, and despair!