This season sees PUMA renew its alliance with world-renowned footwear blog Sneaker Freaker, creating the final chapter of an epic collaborative series – the Blaze of Glory ‘Bloodbath’. Joining the project from NYC is stateside collab Kings Packer Shoes, fresh off the back of one of the dopest releases of the year with the Diadora Raekwon N9000. 

This story begins back in 2008 after an unlikely incident. An abalone diver was swallowed up to the waist by a great white shark on Australia’s East Coast and amazingly, lived to tell the tale. Sneaker Freaker found its muse and applied the shark inspiration to one of PUMA’s revolutionary archive running models – the Trinomic Blaze of Glory!

First up was the ‘Great White’ Blaze of Glorys that told the first chapter of the Shark tale – silver mesh, blue water pops, an abstract ‘shark bite’ tongue logo and a ‘river of blood’ seemingly trickling from the Trinomic hexagon cells, emphasised by razor-sharp rubber fangs. With an anodised shark tooth trinket hanging from the kicks. They had classic collab written all over ’em.

Then in stepped the flipped version our personal favourite here jet black with those hits of pink and turquoise. The Black Beasts!

Then some of you very very lucky so and sos got that high end luxe version with that genuine shark leather. JUST 30 PAIRS!

In 2013, the partnership was refreshed in honour of the impending five-year anniversary. Redesigned and packaged in an oversize box laced with egg-shell foam, extra insoles and a leather lace pouch, the re-release of the ‘Great White’ and ‘Black Beast’ once had the heads in a spin. And we will have to verify this but we are pretty sure this is the first ever collab retro, that’s sneaker history right there.

And then the turquoise terror…the sharkbaits…50 PAIRS ONLY and many (including ourselves) disappointed fans. On the day of the release, sneakerfreaker.com repeatedly crashed as fans scrambled to secure one of the 50 pairs on offer. The aftermath of that e-comm meltdown initiated a lively discussion on Sneaker Freaker’s Facebook page. As disappointed fans expressed their salty frustration, one comment was particularly memorable for Sneaker Freaker founder, Simon ‘Woody’ Wood. ‘They should do another Blaze in red and call it ‘Bloodbath’, because that’s exactly what happened today!’

Inspired by that epic recollection, Sneaker Freaker has once again teamed up with PUMA to launch the Blaze of Glory ‘Bloodbath’. Creamy crimson red leather, gum soles, mint highlights and metallic gold PUMA branding are the icing on this aquatic cake.

The Blaze of Glory ‘Bloodbath’ will be sold at a pop-up store at the Refinery Hotel in NYC in conjunction with Packer shoes on September 3. A global release will follow, dropping at Dover Street Market, Hanon, END and Footpatrol from October 10.

RRP – £140

In addition to the shoes, the pop-up shop will offer a complete apparel capsule featuring limited co-branded ‘Bloodbath’ hoodies, tees, shorts and hats.