Jim Cornette reveals if George Lucas owns Vader's name due to the Darth Vader character
Former WWE legend, Vader, throughout his life, was a force in the world of wrestling. Vader's name had a lot in common with Darth Vader, and a fan asked Jim Cornette a question about whether WWE had called Vader, The Man They Call Vader because they were trying to avoid infringing on the rights of Star Wars.
Jim Cornette, on the 152nd episode of Jim Cornette's 'Drive Thru', talked about Vader and the rights to his name in WWE, if George Lucas actually owned it, and what NJPW tried to do about it. He revealed that there were some issues with NJPW, but due to George Lucas, they could not do anything about it.
Jim Cornette on the rights to the Vader name
Talking about the issue, Jim Cornette revealed that George Lucas was never a problem to Vader, and the only reason he had the 'The Man They Call Vader' name, was because it was felt that it was a better introduction at the time than just saying 'Vader'.
"I can't sit here and say with a 100% certainty that no one ever contacted him because of his name, but obviously nothing ever came of it. I can tell you in the WWF, no that was not the reason. The reason was the same reason they used to announce Sting as 'The Man They Call Sting'. Because one-named people were not all that common in wrestling in those days and it was like a better intro. The Man They Call Vader to Vince was a better intro than Vader, but that's pretty much as deep as it went, I don't mean to be disappointing."
Jim Cornette went on to say that while Vader was in WCW, NJPW tried to create problems over the usage of his name, but George Lucas owned the character Darth Vader, and so there was nothing they could do.
"They came up with a gimmick that they basically stole themselves, and when the guy left, they could not stop him from taking it somewhere else because they did not own it begin with. But yeah, basically a one-named guy... The Man The Call Dips***, whatever it may be, was just a bit more of a build-up.99"
Unfortunately, the wrestling veteran passed away at 63 years of age.
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