WWE needs to figure out a new Intercontinental Champion so a tournament was arranged on SmackDown. They apparently didn’t have enough SmackDown Superstars to fill the brackets.
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Jeff Hardy, Sheamus, Daniel Bryan, Drew Gulak, Elias, King Corbin, Shinsuke Nakamura, and AJ Styles are all in the tournament. They set up some great introductory matches with story behind each one, but AJ Styles is not on the blue brand.
It’s unclear why WWE placed AJ Styles in a SmackDown tournament, but it’s very interesting. This could be an example of WWE using their new crossover rule. It’s unclear why they would use the crossover rule in a title tournament situation.