These Are The Days
I need about tree fiddy
I have heard over the years that Owen was supposed to be called "The Game" but he was never supposed to get the push HHH got in mid 1999.
That I can buy in to, Paul Levasque (or however the hell you spell it) was in with Vince for a long damn time and was due for a push as far back as 1996 but the "Curtain Call" incident with Hall and Nash basically pushed it back a year and Austin got it instead. I don't know why Owen never got the strap. Aside from breaking Austin's neck (as Austin says, he talked to Owen before the match about a piledriver done going to his knees ala tombstone to which Owen replied "I land on my ass" and Austin tried to clear it up but Owen insisted and I think what happened was the two never agreed on Austin's positioning to take the bump) he appeared to be a very safe worker. He was solid on the mic too. But I digress, I don't have any insight to the WWF's reasoning at the time. He is right up there with "Best to never have the belt" and I argue he laid the foundation for Kurt Angle many years later.
But Owen coming out getting called "The Game" on top of his already amazing ring prowess and doing whatever it took to win any given night during a "serious character" heel run makes perfect sense to me. I buy the rumor so hard because he's the only other guy in the WWF at the time to be worthy of such a monicker because the idea that "the game cheats" had been ingrained into our societal fabric for almost 15 years at the time. And God knows by 1999 Owen and HHH were the dirtiest of the bunch. Hell, Haitch won the bulk of his matches as a baby face dirty too. Now granted, I can't remember any match Marc Mero won without a low blow but he was long gone by then.