10 Times WWE Successfully Recycled Its Own Storylines
5. The Streak
If it seems incredibly easy to get performers over sometimes, it's because in certain cases, it is.
Ryback was subjected to "Goldberg" chants from a crowd that felt as though they'd seen it all before when he first rocked up with a chrome dome, goatee and penchant for absolutely murdering jobbers. As the wins stacked up the chants intensified, until the former Nexus goon gobbled them up with a "Feed Me More" call-to-arms.
WWE had profoundly failed to re-bottle this lightning with Big Bill himself a decade earlier, but had been no strangers to the undefeated streak. In the right hands it was transcendent, but even in the wrong hands it worked - Tatanka and Vladimir Kozlov didn't need 21 WrestleManias for their big matches to earn stakes as result of a string of wins.
Buyrates - or, specifically, one buyrate - spoke to Ryback's success. Hell In A Cell 2012 was headlined by a battle between the undefeated challenger taking on terrified WWE Champion CM Punk. The 199,000 buys outdrew every other B-show that year and the Cell show from the year before, even with the model "in decline".
In Vince McMahon's land of the giants too, it's always better to be bigger...