ADIDAS AND METALWOOD PUT CORE BLACK ON THE PREDATOR SALA

Oiled nubuck, patent leather, and nylon canvas cover the adidas Predator Sala in a colorway adidas and Metalwood Studio call Core Black, and none of that material list belongs anywhere near a cleated boot. Style code HP4953 opened at Undefeated's Silver Lake and Phoenix doors on Saturday, September 12, at 11am, with Undefeated.com live four hours earlier at 7am Pacific, alongside Flatspot, Feature, CCS, Daddies Board Shop, Civil, Drift House, and Metalwood's own site. It is the second Predator Sala colorway Metalwood has built with adidas, and the release clock underneath it is the detail worth reading.

Where Vino split its debut across two separate days in January, Core Black compresses the whole rollout into one Saturday, an identical clock to the one Undefeated ran for Salomon just two days earlier. The shoe borrows its name and its silhouette from a boot with a specific origin: the Predator line traces back to a 1994 prototype from former Australian footballer Craig Johnston, built around rubber fins meant to grip a ball on contact rather than look good on a shelf.

Two Doors Instead of Six

Undefeated carried Salomon's Domingo XT-4 across six stores on September 10, from La Brea to New York, opening doors at 11am with Salomon's Domingo XT-4 launch going live online four hours earlier at 7am Pacific. Two days later, adidas and Metalwood ran that exact schedule for a fraction of the footprint: Silver Lake and Phoenix only. Six doors carried a trail sneaker collaboration built across Undefeated's full national footprint. Two carried a Predator silhouette rebuilt for skating, sold as narrowly as the Domingo release was sold wide. Undefeated is not scaling its release mechanics to the product; it is applying one clock to every partner that comes through that week, whether the count is six doors or two.

Nubuck, Patent Leather, and a Hidden Lace Flap

Core Black replaces the shaggy suede Vino wore in January with oiled nubuck, patent leather, and nylon canvas, layered across a sculpted forefoot built for board feel, not ball control. Patent finishing covers the Three Stripes and heel counter, swapping out the glossy leather hits that sat over Vino's burgundy base. The Predator's fold over tongue survives the switch, still hiding its lacing under a flap that was originally built for a clean strike zone with nothing for a ball to catch on mid stride. On Core Black, that same flap just keeps a shoelace clear of a skateboard's grip tape, a detail that only makes sense once you know what the tongue was built to do in the first place. A rubber outsole and a printed insole round out a build priced well below the Predator Elite's Strikeskin upper and Controlframe plate.

Vino Split Its Release. Core Black Did Not.

Metalwood previewed this Predator Sala crossover at Paris Fashion Week in 2025, its second project with adidas after a 2024 partnership, then split the first Predator Sala colorway's release across two separate days that January: in store on the fifteenth, online on the sixteenth. Core Black drops that gap entirely, landing in store and online inside the same four hour window instead. Metalwood built its name flipping golf's rules for a skate audience, then pushed the crossover further by putting the first Predator silhouette ever adapted for skateboarding into shops that also sell boards from CCS and Daddies. Core Black keeps that same three sport premise, a football lineage sold through skate shops and a sneaker boutique at once, without repeating Vino's staggered two day rollout.

Forget the Cleat Tech. This Is a Silhouette Play.

Core Black retails for 120 dollars, well under the 50 to 280 euro range adidas charges for the Predator Elite and F50 boots built with actual match technology. That gap is the honest read on the shoe: buyers are paying for the silhouette and the Metalwood name, not for Strikeskin fins or a Controlframe outsole, because neither survived the translation to a skate build. Buy it for the fold over tongue and the patent detailing on a shoe that was never meant to touch grass, and for a two door release that will not repeat at this size. Skip it if the appeal was ever the actual Predator boot, because that model still costs more, keeps its Strikeskin fins, and does a different job entirely.