Sami Zayn was stripped of the Intercontinental Championship in May after deciding not to attend WWE’s television tapings. WWE held a tournament to crown a new champion, which AJ Styles won by defeating Daniel Bryan in the finals. Then on last week’s episode of SmackDown, Jeff Hardy would win the championship from Styles. In hindsight, it appears this was done, so a babyface held the title ahead of Sami Zayn’s surprise return this week.
Zayn had been away for five months but returned to SmackDown last night, still in possession of his version of the Intercontinental belt. He’d confront Jeff Hardy, after he had successfully retained against Shinsuke Nakamura, and would leave him laying after a Helluva Kick. This is reminiscent of the feud between Razor Ramon and Shawn Michales that started in 1993 between when Michales was stripped of the title for testing positive for steroids. Ramon would win the title following a battle royal and a match against Rick Martel. Michaels would return claiming to be the legitimate champion leading to the now iconic ladder match at WrestleMania X.
WWE’s current plan is Hardy will defend the Intercontinental Championship against both Zayn and Styles at aptly named Clash of Champions pay-per-view on September 27th. It will be interesting to see if WWE resume their plans for Zayn and has him reclaim the title, or move him down the card after he opted to stay home.
