The reality era is a term that pseudo-marks have invented to explain their really poor understanding of wrestling and how it works as a show. This isn't really about you to be honest but is just a general frustration about the state of wrestling fandom, especially in the new generation of wrestling fans who would be early college age.
This massive overanalysis of wrestling has disconnected them ironically from the reality of the show and instead they live in a world which has invented rules, which of course wrestling always breaks because they aren't playing by the same rules. I personally blame Dave Meltzer for this and was posting on message boards when he was just a knobhead with a newsletter that everybody used to laugh at for getting shit wrong on a daily basis and blowing Ric Flair like he was his personal whore. Now apparently he's this accurate reporter who people should listen to and appreciate his stolen star rating system. In reality he's a weeaboo who prints whatever he is told to print by people with agendas.
But this idea that the pseudo-marks have gotten about wrestling comes almost entirely from his influence. Let me explain exactly what I mean in the form of an analogy.
If you speak to wrestling fans these days and ask them who are the greatest wrestlers who ever lived, the answers generally come back with things like Chris Benoit, Bret Hart and Daniel Bryan. These are all objectively wrong answers. The possible answers are Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin and Ric Flair. Because the point of wrestling is to draw money and not to make a tiny subsection of the fanbase dazzled with your wonderful work rate. It's also why the Young Bucks may as well call themselves The Indie Superstars Who Will Never Draw Big Money.
Now, ask yourself these questions:
1. Is Finn Balor now in a position to draw more money because of this match?
2. Is Kevin Owens now in a position to draw less money because of this match?
The answer to 1 is yes, Finn Balor has been legitimized onscreen as a rising star who people should pay attention to. The answer to number 2 is no, because Kevin Owens is currently IN A FUCKING PROGRAM WITH THE BIGGEST STAR OF THE PAST 15 YEARS and a single loss on the WWE Network in some Japanese house show isn't going to matter because next week he again gets to stand next to THE BIGGEST STAR OF THE PAST 15 YEARS.
It's like those complete morons who argued that Bray Wyatt shouldn't have lost to Taker at WM or shouldn't have been in a program with him. This would be the program that put him front and centre on TV and gave him 10 minutes of mic time every RAW leading up to WM, only to face off against the biggest legend in the industry in his once a year showing on the biggest possible stage. Oh yeah I'm sure he was gutted at that.
Single wins and losses do not matter. They didn't matter even when people thought that this was real, they matter even less now. What matters is whether you are been promoted and given time to show your character to a global audience and get yourself over/in a position to start drawing some money. Nobody gives a shit who wins and loses and nobody ever has.
