Danny ‘Swift’ Garcia Bamboozles Brandon ‘Bam-Bam’ Rios

_You mad cuz my style you're admiring/ don't be mad… UPS is hiring/You shoulda been a cop – fuck Hip-hop/with that freestyle you bound to get [shot] _

—Notorious B.I.G, “Flava In Ya Ear” [Remix]

“BoOm!”

Like a vintage Nike commercial in the spirit of a revolutionary Malcolm X, former WBC welterweight champion Danny “Swift” Garcia (34-1, 20KOs) morphed into an angry Philadelphia Eagle and leveled Brandon “Bam-Bam” Rios (34-4-1, 25KOs) with a right hand full of volume in the 9th round.

It was Radio Raheem smashing Bam-Bam with his boom box in front of Barney Rubble and Fred Flintstone in Bedrock.

You can decide which of the two was WBC/WBA welterweight champion Keith “One-Time” Thurman or rugged badass “Showtime” Shawn Porter. (Spoiler Alert: DSG is my dude… So if I come off like a fan, that's because I Am What I Am.)

In shades of Shane Mosley looking to steal shine from Floyd Mayweather after rinsing Juan Manuel Marquez in September 2009, Showtime decided to get in the ring in front of those very cameras to get some sort of Swift justice– but Philly was in the building. Flanked by father/trainer and henchman Kenny, Porter grabbed the mic and started swinging it like a mop, before the father/son tandem of DSG took them both off the clock and dropped vintage flava.

“This is my town!” or, “I do shit in Vegas!” made us consider Shawn clowned while all but saying: “Make us!”

DSG, in decoded and modern Eminem urban vernacular, basically surmised of Porter, “Look, I got cha bio…you from Ohio” in very dismissive Jigga “Dirt off ya shoulder” fashion, before letting him know ‘we can take this to the streets'.

That shit was gangsta.

As if an eagle with talons from the back of an all-seeing dollar gone LIVE hovering in the middle of the ring, all Thurman could do is watch like an excuse riddled spectator from ringside, while DSG acted like a WBC/WBA welterweight boss is supposed to. Behind the scenes at the Barclays Center last October, after WBC super welterweight champion Jermell Charlo destroyed Erickson Lubin, I asked OT if he would fight Brandon Rios in a comeback fight.

“I mean… reluctantly,” dropped Thurman, while all but saying “unt-uh” on a fight with Rios. We got the tape Keith. Exactly who are you willing to face after holding the two most glamorous belts in the world hostage?

A few weeks ago at a PBC press extravaganza in New York City, Thurman gave an actual Radio Raheem a hot analogy about his comeback situation. He factually stated that boxing is not a team sport, likening himself to a star NBA player asked to go one-on-one with another star player. The problem with that is, once healthy, Kobe Bryant would have no doubt in his fucking mind about going one-on-one with LeBron James. He wouldn't look for a game with Stephen A. Smith.

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Rios fought hard, but he didn't realize he was being farmed and cattle-prodded into a right hand that turned him into a 147lb Philadelphia cheesesteak with extra pickles.

It was a performance that complemented  the massacre of Lamont Peterson by IBF welterweight world #1 Errol Spence Jr; a showing from DSG that should sit comfortably in between the bombing of WBO title renter Jeff Horn, by a Terence “Bud” Crawford ready to ‘whack up' a real welterweight.

Legendary SHOWTIME ring interviewer Jim Gray nearly lost his mind during the Garcia/Porter ruckus– which was an instant boxing classic. So much so that PBC would be out of their minds to not make Danny “Swift” Garcia V “Showtime” Shawn Porter next. That's an obvious ode to the sport owed to fans of that moment. It's title elimination time. If Biggie was still alive today, he might quote Niccolo Machiavelli who told us:

“It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.”