Shortly after its release, Bill Bowerman decided to part ways with the company and focus on developing original shoes for their own company, Nike, which led to them releasing their own version of the same shoe called the Nike Cortez.

Blue Ribbon Sports was specifically created to sell Onitsuka Tiger's shoes overseas in the United States and both companies wanted to continue its success by releasing another shoe.

[2] The name, Azteca, was first considered for the shoe but then Adidas threatened both companies with legal action since the name was too similar to one of their track shoes called the Adidas Azteca Gold.

An offensive move in retrospect, the decision was made because he wanted to dominate Adidas in the market.

This caused a problem as both companies were selling shoes with the same name, Cortez, and both went to court in a lengthy legal battle.