National Basketball Association

Miami face-eating victim Heat fan

Published Jun. 12, 2012 1:00 a.m. ET

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Ronald Poppo, the victim of the grisly Miami face-eating attack, is a Heat fan.

Doctors at Jackson Memorial Hospital said Tuesday the 65-year-old has taken a keen interest in the team's run to the NBA Finals and, according to the Christian Post, even yelled, "Go Heat!"

Other reports said Poppo had requested the television always be switched off in his hospital room, with one exception: Heat games.

Doctors on Tuesday released a photo of Poppo, a homeless man who survived the "cannibal" attack but lost half of his face.

He has reportedly undergone skin grafts to repair the mutilations left when a crazed, naked man chewed into his face beside a Miami freeway May 26.

In the picture the lower portion of Poppo's face appears undamaged, but the area from his nose to the top of his forehead looks bloody and scabbed.

The suspect in the attack, Rudy Eugene, 31, was fatally shot by cops responding to the gruesome scene.

Authorities suspect Eugene was under the influence of synthetic drugs sold as "bath salts," which have been known to make some users aggressive and behave bizarrely.

Autopsy results on Eugene showed that he had no human flesh in his stomach when he died, but it did reveal there were several undigested pills.

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