(echoing boom) - 30 minutes!
- Oh my. - That is not what
they wanted to hear. (dramatic music)
(judges oohing)
- Being cool and laid back is all out the window, now.
What's poppin', everybody?
I'm your host, Conceited, and this is MTV's "Sneaker Wars".
We're the only show where two show customizers
go head-to-head and kick-to-kick,
but not only for bragging rights, but for a chance
to take home the "Sneaker Wars" trophy.
Each sneakerhead must take one classic kick,
one fire theme, and one secret element
to remix them into a never-before-seen creation.
Somebody has to win the war, and there has
to be a casualty of war.
And as usual, you know I brought my co-judges with me.
You've seen her on "Wild N' Out", she's also an NBA host
and sneaker influencer, Brittany Elena.
Yeah. (Brittany laughs)
And I have the man himself, the Round Two co-founder,
Sean Wotherspoon. - What up, what up?
- Are y'all ready to meet the contestants?
- Yep. - Can't wait.
- To my left, we have Suheel Sheikh.
- What's good, everybody?
This is Suheel, aka Feelgood Threads.
I'm a show customizer, and I also design for celebrities,
and I have a clothing line.
So I airbrush, I hand paint, I can tear a shoe apart
and bring it back together within different fabrics.
So even though I make clothing and everything,
sneakers pays my mortgage, it's what feeds my family.
Without it, I don't even know where I'd be.
- And now, going against Suheel,
we have my man to the right, John Manalo.
- What's up, y'all?
So, my name is John Manalo.
I'm from the Bay Area in California,
and I'm a full time YouTuber.
So, my YouTube videos are about sneaker restoration:
sole swapping mainly, taking an older shoe,
removing all of the crumbled midsoles,
taking a brand new shoe of the same model,
and replacing that old crumbled shoe
so it looks wearable again.
- Are y'all ready to see what shoe
we're gonna be customizing today?
- Let's go.
- Bring 'em out. (dramatic music)
I'm excited.
- What? - Oh,
they gave 'em a Croc!
Today's shoe is the Croc.
More than 300 million pairs of the foam clogs
have been sold in nearly 90 countries worldwide.
So the theme for today is festivals.
Since these shoes are the life of the party,
we're taking today's theme to the festivals:
music, culture, food, wine, whatever.
- Carnival, Mardi Gras,
there's so many different definitions for a festival.
- Now, there's also a must use hidden element,
the one thing you've never seen on a clog, shoelaces.
Are y'all ready?
Let's get some time up on the clock,
and let's get it poppin'.
(upbeat rhythm music)
- What are you gonna do with these?
This is my first time working on a pair of Crocs,
so this gonna be a really, really big challenge.
- Alright, he got Monarch.
- So I'm gonna implement my skillset in sole swapping
in this project.
- Haven't seen that before. - That's crazy.
- Wanna throw my Hot Pockets in there?
- I got some room.
- Dude, I could not believe you guys hit me
with the Croc today.
Starting off from the gate, I was sitting there looking
at designs, and how I could make this thing
go from a white Croc into something that the judges
would really like.
- Yo, this dude's got the Dremel out!
I think I might be more worried for Suheel on this one.
- Why are you more worried for him?
He's cooking the shoe.
- He's halfway through his process though.
- [Brittany] No, no, no, no, no.
- I don't see a starting point yet over here,
and that worries me.
- Hey John, what's up? - What's up, what's up, girl?
- And you got some stuff cooking cooking
over here? - I got it fully baked,
ready to serve.
I'm gonna be taking off the midsole
off of these Air Monarchs by using acetone.
- Okay? - It melts the glue,
it eats up the adhesive.
With the help of the oven, it just accelerates the process.
- Gotcha. - So, I can't use a heat gun
because the foam is too dense,
it's gonna burn the leather itself,
so that's why I use an oven.
This Monarch is wide enough to fill in how wide the Croc is,
so I'm gonna chop off the top of the Croc,
Dremel down the foam so my shoe will adhere properly,
give it enough time to cure, and then reactivate the glue
with a heat gun.
- Well, look, I'm gonna let you get back to it.
I love the smell of the acetone.
- What's good, Sean? - What up, Suheel,
how are you?
Got some sequin work going on?
- We're getting festive
over here, bro. - Very cool.
- My plan for this Croc today is to do a Mardi Gras theme,
so the first thing I'm gonna concentrate is the front.
I looked for some fabric or something to fill in the holes.
I added the sequins on next and then I add a gold trim piece
that would fit the bill perfect.
As soon as I saw beads in one of the drawers,
I thought, "You know what?
"I can drop those beads onto one of those shoelaces
"and I'll hit two birds with one stone."
- This is crazy, we're excited to see what you come up with.
(clock ticking) - 30 minutes,
you got 30 minutes left.
- Oh my-- - That is not what
they wanted to hear. - Gosh.
- I need a new watch.
- Being cool and laid back is all out the window now.
(suspenseful hip hop music)
- It's kind of intense to look at
the amount of tools he's using right now.
He's had the microwave, the acetone, the Dremel tool.
His workspace is maxed out.
- Thing is, he has nothing festival on yet,
nothing festival, no element.
And guess what?
(clock ticking) 15 minutes!
- Yikes. - Boom.
(fast suspenseful music)
- Suheel, are you gonna do the whole shoelace?
- I gotta do the whole shoelace.
- You know you don't have that much time, right?
- So I only had like 15 minutes to work on this shoe
at this point, and I'm panicking.
I'm thinking about how do I add that hidden element,
and so, I'm just literally throwing bead after bead
onto this shoelace.
- He's getting nervous,
the beads are falling. - Yeah, yeah, I got some beads
rolling back here. - Hands over here shaking.
John, you need something festival,
you gotta put the festival on there.
- [Brittany] And you have less than 15 minutes.
- I'm not a customizer whatsoever, so I was just like,
"You know what?"
I just took a pen and some paint
and drew what I'd be drawing like I'm in third grade.
- 10, nine--
- [Judges] Eight,
seven,
six,
five,
four,
three,
two,
one.
(buzzer beeps) - Step away from the kicks!
- Man! (uplifting horn music)
- Times up.
John, talk to me, what happened, man?
- So, I tried to implement as many
as a Croc element as possible, so we got a functional strap
and you got the Croc sole.
- Dope. - So, I went ahead
and used a Monarch, because all of the shoes now
are more narrow. - Okay.
- So it would fit exactly on the shape,
so this is the widest I could find.
- Monarch's nice and wide.
- So your odea of the festive was the color of the laces,
the palm trees and all that? - Yeah,
I'm not a customizer, so I was like, "You know what?
"I'm just gonna have fun."
So, over here, I was like, "I'm at the beach,"
you know what I mean? - Okay.
- I like that. - So that's me and my dog.
- You and your dog, alright.
- There's a smiley face, and it's me shouting out my mama,
hi mama.
- Aw, let's go. - That's dope, shout out mom.
- You know what I mean? - You did what you did,
this is not your game,
so, that's fine. - Exactly.
- Suheel, let us know what you got.
- So y'all hit me with the festival theme,
so I thought-- - Crazy.
- Color is definitely gonna be one aspect
that we gotta drop into this theme.
This actually bead is a shoe lace.
As you guys can see, the young lady here,
she's got the feathers behind her, the boa around her neck.
Then I sat there with the little crystals
and literally bedazzled her, just kind of give it
that extra bling and give it some detail.
Then at the end, I just glittered out the whole top,
kind of like a tiara
or a crown would be. - Right, right.
- And that kind of gave that Mardi Gras vibe to me.
And then lastly, we added the sequins on the bottom
and just the trim to make it look more royal.
- It looks dope. - Thank you.
- Alright, so I'm about to deliberate with my judges.
Put your kicks up. - Bring 'em up.
- Give me, give me (laughs)! - And y'all get kicked out,
we will call y'all back.
- Thank you, guys.
- The one thing I can say, we know John
is not a full-on customizer. (judges agreeing)
He restores.
I mean, now sole swapping is very difficult.
He took a whole Croc, which is all one piece,
one piece of foam. - It's two different kinds
of shoes completely. - So he really had
to slice it, put it on, which is dope.
- Sole swapping's not easy, even when you have a shoe
that matches up.
I think he conceptually came up with a great shoe.
- Now, on to Suheel,
we have something that screams festive
all day. - You said Mardi Gras
and he gave you Mardi Gras.
- This right here is the epitome of hitting the mark.
- Look at the detail of the glasses.
- He did each one of those
by hand, too, which is-- - Yes, by hand
while talking to us. - His work's really dialed in.
It seems like all the trim lines are perfect.
I mean, everything, even the lines on the lady.
- He used the element and put beads on the laces.
- He re-imagined it. - And made it different.
- He took laces and was like, "Okay, we can put laces
"on a Croc, how else am I gonna make this work?"
Boom.
- There really no need for us to even then discuss anymore.
I really think we already got it,
we got it. - Go for it, yeah.
- Let's bring 'em in!
Welcome back, welcome back, fellas.
So, we did some deliberation.
Brittany, what do you gotta say about John?
- First and foremost, not even being a customizer
and you just coming up with using the Monarch
was super dope.
I love how you still kept the little flap at the end,
and honestly, I love the little artwork
that you put at the end, (John chuckling)
love the shout out to your mom.
That was the cutest thing ever.
- It didn't really hit the theme too hard of festival
or like, that whole party thing,
but I kind of like the little hits.
Even my tattoo style is like, one here, one here,
one here, one here, you know?
You had some dope ideas come to life there,
so it's cool for us to see.
- [Conceited] Now, on to Suheel.
- Okay, Suheel, this is dope, the detail of it.
I love the bedazzle on the glasses.
Even with how you just used the cloth
and just decorated around it, you literally hit every spot
on the Croc.
- Yeah, I mean, this is like Mardi Gras
just hitting you in the face.
It's the way you put the trim on, it seems very attentive,
like you were paying attention to those small details
making sure it didn't come off the line or anything,
like you were super dialed in.
- So we came down to a choice.
Alright, now this is "Sneaker Wars",
somebody has to win the war, and somebody has to
be a casualty of war.
And the winner of today is
(dramatic music)
Suheel.
- I think Suheel paid the judges.
I thought I was gonna win.
- I literally wanted to do a Jordan moment
and jump up in the air.
Mama, I made it.
- Great job. - Hey,
congratulations, brother. - Thank you.
- I'm your host, Conceited.
This was MTV's "Sneaker Wars".
See you next time where we can kick it.
Peace. (pounding dance music)