No, this isn't a clever bit of guerrilla marketing for today's Foot Locker-exclusive "Before the Bite" and "After the Bite" Air Max Plus release.
Daily Telegraph of Australia reports that 13-year-old Decklan Manley was attacked by a man at Sydney's Macquarie Centre mall in an attempted robbery of the teen's Nike Air Max Plus sneakers.
The suspect allegedly approached Manley and demanded the sneakers. "Give me your shoes, cuz," the man says in the video above. Manley resisted, and that's when the assailant turned full-on savage and proceeded to bite the teenager's cheek.
"It felt horrible. His breath stunk, it was in my face and all that. And I couldn't let go or anything because it would just rip off my face," Manley told 7 News reporters after the incident.
As if this story wasn't already unbevliable enough, there's another layer: the Air Max Plus shoes in question are said to be fakes that Manley purchased for $25 in Thailand just weeks prior.
Known as the Nike TN to Australia locals, the retro runner is one of the country's most beloved sneakers and has a storied past, but this is certainly a first.
