411mania.com/wrestling/triple-h-game-nickname-owen-hart/

I normally wouldn't post something so trivial, but the whole "Owen Hart was intended to be The Game!" rumor has always struck me as one of the weirdest. For starters, I never heard this rumor until years after the fact. But since then it's taken on a life of its own to where people on some corners of the internet practically view it as indisputable fact. 

Well, here is HHH setting the record straight. 

Though I'm sure the True Believers will accuse Trips of lying.

Nothing about Owen's character suggested he was in line for that push. If anything it seemed like he was about to turn babyface and things were going to come to ahead between him and Jeff Jarrett heading into SummerSlam.

Meanwhile HHH was clearly getting rocket-strapped and they had made multiple changes to his character before the sit-down interview with JR. When the year started he was still wrestling with dry hair and those tacky green tights. By May he had the wet hair and trunks look which became standard for him and he came across the sledge hammer in that Casket Match between The Rock and The Undertaker.

It's just one of those weird rumours, like Jake Roberts being the Higher Power.

I always thought it was more the moniker than the gimmick intended for Owen.

But what a fuck you to Bret. Triple H, HBK’s best friend taking Owen’s supposed gimmick after his death. Sounds like vintage Vince McMahon.

The only source I've ever seen cited for it was Triple H himself.

I've never seen any interviews where Triple H admitted Owen came up with the gimmick and there was never any rumours around that time of Owen undergoing a gimmick change. The only story is that Russo pitched an angle where Owen was playing up with Debra which would lead to an Owen Hart vs. Jeff Jarrett Intercontinental Championship match during the Summer. Ideally, that would have made a good match for SummerSlam.

Russo got in on the action a couple years ago to dispel the rumor, although he took credit for writing Triple H's "off the cuff" line because of course he did. 

"A listener asks Russo about the development of Triple H’s ‘The Game’ nickname, and if that was initially meant for Owen Hart as has been widely speculated. Russo informs that he wrote that into one of Triple H’s promos, with the goal of getting him to refer to himself as ‘The Game’. Luckily, he delivered the promo well and that moniker stuck. He says that nickname was never intended for Hart."