5 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Raw (31 Mar - Results & Review)

4. Bate Returns To Job

Are we sure Vince isn’t back? Tyler Bate made his return to WWE from a nine-month hiatus… in his home country… and jobbed in his first match back.

The match also featured a completely out-of-the-blue face turn for Pete Dunne, who spent months attacking people for calling him Butch and jobbing to everyone under the sun, but now he was alongside a smiling Bate as a reunited New Catch Republic. And then New Catch lost to the New Day in a perfectly fine but perfectly forgettable tag match.

Sure, the idea here was that New Day are heels, so what better way to generate heat than to beat the British boys on their home turf? The problem is that New Day might have jumped the shark as a heel act – it’s been nearly four months since they turned on Big E and they’re still struggling to find their footing.

Worse, the victory on Monday was designed to position New Day against World Tag Team Champions the War Raiders, who came out to a polite reaction. This is a match that’s going to go on second or second-to-last on WrestleMania Saturday and die a terrible death.

Buried in all of this was Tyler Bate returning from an injury just to be on the losing end and an afterthought in a heatless tag title feud.