Jeff Hardy has captured the WWE Intercontinental Championship in an interesting turn of events, last night. The SummerSlam 2020 go-home edition of WWE SmackDown on FOX saw the Charismatic Enigma winning the belt from AJ Styles. It was the first encounter between the two veteran performers of WWE producing a solid main event match.
Before the match went down, AJ Styles had attacked Jeff Hardy earlier the night on SmackDown while RETRIBUTION was causing a chaotic situation in the arena. The former champion intentionally hurt his opponent’s legs so that he can’t compete in the much-anticipated bout. It raised speculation where the match would finally go down or not.
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The attack forced Jeff Hardy to put a knee-brace on the hurt leg while he was spending most of the SmackDown show in the trainer’s room. The medic performed one final check to him and then finally cleared him for the match as long as he okay with it and could bear the pain in his leg. Thus the two veterans locked horns on the show by the end of the night.
AJ targeted the hurt knee from the get-go of the match and further punished him with the Calf Crusher submission maneuver. He then went for the Styles Clash when Hardy’s knee with the brace hit him in the head, accidentally. This turned around the momentum of the match on SmackDown and allowed Jeff to gain the upper hand.
He hit the Twist of Fate on his opponent and then somehow went to the top rope to execute the Swanton Bomb that earned him the clean pinfall win on SmackDown main event. This is Jeff’s fifth reign with the WWE Intercontinental Title. After the match, he cut a promo mentioning how he never thought of reaching this spot and capture the title ever again after going through the traumatizing phases in his life, one year ago.
AJ Styles won the title back on the June 12 SmackDown show, where he won the vacant title by defeating Daniel Bryan in a tournament finale. Following SmackDown, both AJ and Jeff aren’t booked to perform at this year’s SummerSlam. It is likely a rematch is being saved for Payback pay-per-view which is coming on August 30, just a week after the biggest party of the summer.