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Man Gets Sucker-Punched, Knocked Unconscious ‘Because You Look Like Shia LaBeouf’

Shia LaBeouf
Shia LaBeouf attends the Film Independent Live Read of 'Dr. Strangelove' at LACMA on Jan. 21, 2016.

A doppelgänger disaster! On Saturday, April 23, a man named Mario Licato was punched in the face and knocked unconscious by an attacker who seemingly had a problem with the New York City resident’s uncanny resemblance to Shia LeBeouf.

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In an interview with Gothamist, Licato said he was exiting a subway station a little after 8 p.m. on Manhattan’s Lower East Side when he was unexpectedly assaulted.

"I was walking up the stairs," Licato recalled to the outlet. "I had my head down — there were people in front of me — just to make sure I wasn't going to fall. I didn't even see the guy. I just see his fist coming towards me,” he continued. “It knocked me, and while I was falling down the stairs, all I hear was, 'This is because you look exactly like Shia LaBeouf!’”

Once Licato, whose eyeglasses were shattered in the scary incident, regained consciousness, a couple came to his aid and asked him, “Did you know that guy?”

The couple told Licato that the aggressor was in his mid-20s, muscular and about 6-foot to 6-foot-3. Other eyewitnesses told Licato that the LaBeouf-despising culprit ran downstairs to catch a train following his brutal strike. Licato is still troubled by the odd occurrence.

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“I was so confused. I was even more confused because I got up and I was like, am I crazy or did I hear him say, ‘This is because you look like Shia LaBeouf?’” he explained to Gothamist. “And [the couple] were like, ‘Nope. That's exactly what he said as he was running away from you.’”

While he's been compared to LaBeouf for years, this is the first time Licato has been besieged for bearing physical similarities to the actor. "[I’ve been told I look like Shia] so many times," Licato said. "That's why I knew I wasn't that crazy. I got it three years ago. I've been stopped on the street before, at least 10 times in my life.”

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Now Licato can’t help but wonder what LaBeouf did to the assailant to warrant such a violent reaction. "I wanna know what Shia LaBeouf did to him," he quipped. "What did Shia LaBeouf do to him that he punched somebody that looks like him? He must have did something so mean. Did he steal his girlfriend? Did he just see his last performance art piece?” 

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