In the immediacy after WrestleMania 30, WWE started to change up the roster a little. Suddenly you had Daniel Bryan, Bray Wyatt, Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns, Cesaro, Rusev and Paige all getting featured pushes. That was enough to convince some fans that we'd entered a new "era" of wrestling. That alongside the fact a few wrestlers briefly mentioned "reality". Granted, some new stars were getting pushes, and some storylines were indeed blurring the lines between work and shoot. But was this really a new era? Four months on and the answer is a resounding no. Nothing's really changed. The reality era was just a term that WWE was throwing around for a week, instantly making marks jump up as if it actually meant something. Face it, many of the supposed 'reality' storylines were in fact nothing new. The Authority against Bryan? It's a storyline that goes back nearly twenty years to McMahon vs Austin! As for the supposed new pushes that defined the reality era, only Roman Reigns looks certain to be a new star. Ambrose, Rollins and Rusev are still getting pushed but you wouldn't say WWE are fully behind them just yet. As for Bray Wyatt, clean losses to John Cena and Chris Jericho seriously hurt his progression. Then you have Cesaro, who WWE simply gave up on mid-storyline. Paige was a complete disaster in her push and has now been turned heel. The Reality Era basically lost steam before it even got going. With John Cena playing the show closing act of the last few special events, we're definetely still in his era. As for Daniel Bryan, who was the poster boy for the reality era, his broken neck has kept him off television since May. He's now lost so much momentum that he'll never be the force he once was. Face facts, the Yes Movement and The Reality Era were works. We fell for them as marks and then WWE quickly moved on. In so many ways, pro wrestling is still fooling the audience as much as it ever has done.
