IC title in 96

At Summerslam 1996, Ahmed Johnson was to defend his title vs Faarooq, but got injured and had to vacate it, which led to Marc Mero beating Faarooq in the Tournament to win it, and then lost it 1 month later to HHH.

But what happens if Ahmed isn’t hurt? Does the transition from Faarooq to Mero to HHH still happen?

Also why did they take the title off Mero so fast? Also didn’t the Triple H-Mr. Perfect angle start before Mero won the title? How could they have known he would be the champion, so that they could turn on him later on?

Ahmed v Faarooq was supposed to go WAY longer but both guys got injured.  I’m pretty sure Ahmed would have been screwed out of the title because they wanted him for bigger things anyway, though.  So it would have ended up on Mero or HHH eventually.