Intercontinental championship tournament goes wacky on SmackDown

Well, this got convoluted in a hurry!

This week’s episode of Friday Night SmackDown opened with Elias being tended to by paramedics after he was presumably hit by a car. It was determined not long after that said car was a rental in Jeff Hardy’s name. Hardy, meanwhile, was found in some bushes, really out of it and smelling of alcohol, which was also found in the car. The police, naturally, arrested him.

Cut to backstage and Adam Pearce was left with a mess to clean up, figuring out how to proceed with the semifinals of the Intercontinental championship tournament now that two of its participants would be unable to participate in their planned matches.

AJ Styles campaigned for a bye into the finals, and he was granted that.

Daniel Bryan insisted on wrestling tonight as originally planned, so Pearce booked a 10-man battle royal with the winner wrestling Bryan for the right to wrestle Styles.

That winner ended up being Sheamus, who had previously been knocked out by Hardy. We are, presumably, meant to make some assumptions based on that.

It wasn’t surprising, then, that it was Hardy who showed up in the main event to interrupt Sheamus’ match with Bryan and, more or less, cost him said match. That feud will obviously continue while Bryan will move on to face Styles in the finals of the tournament.

Got all that?