Jeff Hardy arrested on WWE Smackdown; New IC tournament final confirmed

Bengaluru, May 30: The final match of the Intercontinental Championship tournament to crown a new Champion has now been finalized but not before a couple of dramas unfolded on SmackDown.

The determinant match will see Daniel Bryan battle AJ Styles where the winner of the match will win the now vacant WWE Intercontinental Championship.

The two semifinals going into last night's SmackDown episode were Daniel Bryan vs. Jeff Hardy and AJ Styles vs. Elias. The winners of those matches were supposed to meet in the finals. But the scenario changed as soon as the episode started airing.

It kicked off with a controversial angle where Renee Young informed us that it looked like Elias had been injured in a car crash outside of the WWE Performance Center in Orlando. It appeared that an intoxicated Jeff Hardy could have been the accused person. Elias was loaded into an ambulance to medical facilities while where Hardy was arrested and taken into police custody.

The car crash caused the setup semifinal matches to get canceled and that got replaced by a 10-Man Battle Royal where the winner would earn a spot in a new semifinal against Daniel Bryan. Winner of that match would then go on to face AJ Styles in the finale.

The Battle Royal featured King Baron Corbin, Shorty G, Drew Gulak, Jey Uso, Dolph Ziggler, Shinsuke Nakamura, Lince Dorado, Gran Metalik, Cesaro, and the winner, Sheamus. He eliminated Uso to become the last man standing in the ring and face Daniel Bryan in the main event of SmackDown only to come up short. Jeff Hardy returned to the Performance Center to provide a distraction to him and Bryan capitalized on it by picking up a pinfall win.

The commentators were surprised with Hardy's return as he was arrested earlier the night. There's no confirmation either on where the creative team will be heading towards with the controversial angle with Jeff Hardy.

It seems next week, they will explain his return to the building at the end of the show. He looked like he was fine and released of the accusations and the angle was done to continue the feud between Sheamus and Hardy.

Daniel Bryan vs. Aj Styles for the vacant Intercontinental title will now go down just two days before 2020 Backlash that is on the go-home edition of SmackDown. WWE recently declared the title vacant after stripping Sami Zayn of it. The storyline says that Zayn is injured, but the real reason behind his absence is that he opted not to work during the coronavirus pandemic owing to potential health concerns.