"Times changed. Just telling a story and people accepting that storyline for what it is, as a storyline, is gone. A large portion of your audience just buys into that. Another large portion of your audience – they know everything that goes on every five minutes of every day. They know more about what’s happening sometimes than we do. And I think you get to a point where they just want to go the opposite direction. They want to see a certain thing, or they think a certain type of thing is what works." - Triple H

It’s all a work. HHH dangled it right in front of our face during his interview but knew we were all too focused on Bryan/Reigns to see it. Everything about the "reality era" is a work. I don’t believe that it started out as one, but rather that the powers that be fell into the greatest work since the IWC began.

HHH acknowledges the fact that parts of the IWC are onto what the WWE are doing almost instantly and try to make their voices heard about not liking the direction of a show or a character before the story even plays out. How do you keep people guessing and coming back if half the audience knows what is going to happen before you give it to them? The answer? Finally use the Internet to their advantage by slow burning HHH’s rise to taking complete control over the company and booking all while you think Vince is running the company into the ground.

How do you do this you ask? First, you acknowledge the Internet is here to stay and that if you want to work your customers over you first have to accept the fact they are going to do everything they can to not be fooled. Then you tease a storyline and leak rumors about a potential storyline about a power struggle between HHH/Stephanie and Vince McMahon. Then, you scrap those plans (wink, wink) because how could the WWE ever plan or book that far in advance because they aren’t capable of it anymore. Next, you hand HHH complete booking control over NXT with some of the biggest wrestling names across the globe and darlings of the IWC.

You slowly begin to acknowledge in interview that it has become increasingly difficult to keep up with the IWC because they are all "smart" fans and the number of marks has decreased. A good way to make a smart fan a "mark" again is to acknowledge their intelligence and pretend that you are unsure of how to combat them. IWC’s guard then goes down. The IWC then believes that they are better bookers than the powers that be and they become blind to the fact that they are being worked. Daniel Bryan is the focal point of RAW week in and week out but there are "leaked" rumblings that Vince doesn’t believe in him and doesn’t see him as the "face" of the company. Other than when he was injured, Daniel Bryan has been the main focus of this company since summer 2013. Certainly sounds like someone backstage believes that he is a main event player. Slowly the rumblings begin as NXT’s popularity begins to grow that HHH should be in charge of booking for RAW because of the fantastic job that he is doing in developmental. "Vince is running this company into the ground!" became the vocal cry of the majority of the IWC. Vince then sets up an interview with Stone Cold on his Network where they advertise that Steve Austin will not hold back and will ask any question that he chooses no matter the subject. What does Vince do? Trashes on his product and performers and says that nobody is grabbing the brass ring. He acknowledges certain people get pushes and certain people don’t. He presents the whole interview to us in character but we don’t see it because for the first time ever he is acknowledging backstage terms and going complete nonkayfabe therefore making it seem real.

The cries for HHH to take over for Vince only get louder after NXT R:Evolution, which is booked to absolute perfection. TLC? Crap. Up next for PPV, the Royal Rumble. Everyone and their mother knew for months on end that Roman Reigns was booked to win the Rumble. Then, Daniel Bryan announced he was coming back and entering the Royal Rumble making fans then question whether the winner was still set in stone. Then, more "leaked" reports that the winner wasn’t set in stone, which gave the IWC hope that their man, Daniel Bryan, would win the Rumble like he should have the previous year. Wrong. Not only did Bryan not win, but he was tossed out like a mere mid-carder after less than 10 minutes. Fellow fan favorites Dolph Ziggler and Dean Ambrose were also eliminated rather quickly and very easily despite fans clamoring for their success and main event potential. This is where the true brilliance of the long work comes to play. There is a massive uproar and even The Rock gets booed. "Controversy" about the Rumble leads to millions of upset fans, stories all over the Internet, and even acknowledgement about the ending by ESPN.

By eliminating the IWC’s favorite wrestlers the cries for the removal of Vince became louder and the accusations of Vince being out of touch with the fan base did as well. Then this brings me to my last point where HHH goes on with Austin and acknowledges that kayfabe is dead but then takes credit for all the good things that are happening within the WWE/NXT while also agreeing that he would change certain things (read: 2 hour RAW) that the IWC has always been clamoring for. HHH fully established himself as the face in this nonkayfabe but actual kayfabe interview. HHH also spoke out in an interview with Michael Cole that more members of the WWE Universe tuned into his interview than did Vince’s. That is what this reality era is folks. It is the acknowledgment of the backstage politics as well as that matches and pushes are predetermined, all while working you right in your face. I know this all seems a little Inception-esque about what is real and what is actually kayfabe but that is what the reality era is. We have nobody to blame but ourselves for this as we have fans have the constant need to be as up to date and in the loop as possible. When the nonkayfabe HHH that runs NXT and is a face starts showing up on TV replacing the evil HHH who hates the guys we love and begins challenging Vince on TV to save the WWE like he did with NXT don’t say nobody told you.