“I went to go see ‘Rogue One’ in theaters and there were a bunch of people taking pictures after the movie, and one handed out a card with a QR code and it turned out they were a member of a little lightsaber fighting club around the corner from me,” deMartino said. But when he ignites his saber, he becomes the sixth highest ranked fighter in the national men’s ladder for the league. A superfan who remembers going to see the original movie as a kid, he doesn’t have any formal fencing or martial arts training. One of the competitors was Thom deMartino, who wields a red blade of a Sith lord. The event awarded competition grades only, which go into the ranking system. The official rankings are separated into cadets (young adults), men and women. 23, with star appearances from some of the top-ranked saber fighters in the Lightspeed Saber League’s official national rankings. All ages – from fans who were raised on the epic film series that first hit big screens in 1977 to those raised on “The Clone Wars” TV series that debuted in 2008 – competed for interstellar bragging rights.Īfter months of studying the game tape from the film episodes I through IX, the Saber League met and competed for four hours on Oct. The league consists of “Star Wars” fanatics who, in the spirit of the endless battle between good and evil embodied in the franchise, compete in lightsaber fencing for sport and fun. BUENA PARK, California – A not-so-long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a group of lightsaber-wielders left exile to converge in an epic battle of the heroes.Īlthough the evil of COVID-19 remains unvanquished, for the first time since the start of the pandemic in 2020, the Lightspeed Saber League held an outdoor tournament, allowing saber-to-saber combat while maintaining the recommended 6 feet of distance.

The different types of lightsabers