KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A man now features a long cut across his face after a dispute over a parking space in midtown.

Paul Burns said he was on his friend's porch on Knickerbocker Road at 3 a.m. Sunday morning when an SUV pulled in front of the building, and a comment by his friend over parking turned into a heated exchange.

Burns said he tried to stay out of it, until the driver's threats extended to him as well.

"He was saying, 'Shut the F up, or I'll make both y'all regret it.'" Burns said. "When he said both, that became a threat, that's when I stood up."

Burns said the man and his girlfriend tried to get on the porch and he tried to keep them off.

In the altercation, Burns was sliced on the left side of his face. Burns said the young man and woman in the SUV took off immediately after slicing him, and he was not able to get the plates of the vehicle.

"It certainly got real ugly real, real fast. It was over in less than five seconds," Burns said.

Burns said a surgeon told him the cut probably came from a box cutter or a razor - and could have hit an artery if it were not for a layer of subcutaneous fat protecting it.

"I guarantee that if ever challenged on the street again, I will probably be less likely to try to put on a false sense of bravado," Burns said.

Burns said he is an actor and director and said when he first got a look at his wound he was horrified.

"When I got a first look at it, I was putting a towel to my face to stop the bleeding, it looked like something out of night of the living dead," Burns said. "It really did. It was pretty scary."