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Shopping For Coveted Air Jordans Gets Ugly In Staten Island, Jersey City

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- The new Nike Air Jordan XI Concord is turning into the hottest sneaker of the holiday season.

LISTEN: WCBS 880's Alex Silverman reports

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The shoes are identical to the original Air Jordans released in 1996, when Michael Jordan was at the height of his basketball career. At some malls in our area and across the country, the frenzy to get a pair got downright ugly.

In Jersey City, authorities said that a man was stabbed after a brawl Thursday night at the Newport Centre Mall. About 300 people were waiting to buy the shoes there.

That victim said that the fight occurred after he and another shopper got into an argument. That individual also said others joined the fight, during which he was stabbed in the back, shoulder, leg and arm.

A separate incident involving the much-coveted shoes took place at the Staten Island Mall Thursday night, when thousands waited in line for the midnight release of the shoes.

Police had to forcibly remove a man from the line and charged him with resisting arrest among other charges. That individual reportedly exchanged words with another person in the crowd before allegedly trying to get away from police officers who approached him.

The situation at the Staten Island Mall got chaotic when the first thousand people in line found out that tickets that were handed out by an individual did not actually hold their spot in line, according to a report on SILive.com.

The website reported the man was not associated with the mall and as word spread that the tickets were meaningless, people from the back of the line moved toward the front, causing chaos.

Mall officials said the turnout for the shoes was much greater than they had anticipated.

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