The Riot brought their show on the road! It’s always fun when leagues viewed as “regional” expand and start to do events in other territories so for the team to not only bring an event to Atlanta, but bring a battle like Rum Nitty vs A-Ward to Atlanta is amazing. The Riot obviously isn’t the biggest league out there, but their events always get the culture buzzing and this was no exception. Not only did they bring us a dope event, they brought battle rap to King of Diamonds!! It’s always dope to see the Culture expand to different settings.
Although we didn’t get every battle announced for various reasons I appreciate the transparency they showed with the postponement of the Swamp and Chef Trez battle, letting people know early that the battle would be moved to a later card. Something for The Riot to consider in the future could be smaller cards, I understand them wanting to overload the card due to the PPV price point, but sometimes less is more and I think the reaction to the card despite it having a few hiccups is the proof of that. Despite there being a couple of cancellations/postponements we did get a solid event and this can definitely be viewed as a success.
Salute to Geechi Gotti and the whole team at the Riot for being able to put on a fun event for the culture. And one more salute to Geechi for always wearing multiple hats in battle rap and having such a seamless transition in any role he partakes in.
LTBR Award Recipients
Battle of the Night: A.Ward vs Rum Nitty
Biggest win: Fonz over Real Name Brandon | Clone over FoetDev
Best Performances of the night: #1A Rum Nitty & #1B A.Ward | #2 Fonz | #3 Clone |
Best Round of the night: Rum Nitty 1st vs A.Ward
Ron Compton vs Rio
Recapped by France
A fun one rounder as an appetizer for the night. Ron Compton brings a bar heavy performance while Rio brings a gritty street talk approach to his content. If you prefer the punches in every fucking bar, you’ll like Ron’s round more. if you enjoy the feel that a certain type of talks gives. You will enjoy Rio’s round more.
Hansel vs Dylan 5x
Recapped by France
The first 3 round battle of the night. Hansel and Dylan set the tempo for the night.
Dylan starts the battle off with a strong pace and solid introduction, but Hansel is able to completely shift the momentum. Hansel establishes asserstive presence that dicated the pacing for the rest of the battle and he put Dylan in a position where he would have to play catch up for the rest of the battle. Hansel did have an abrupt ending to his first round, but I would still edge him the first round off content.
Dylan was incapable of ever regaining the control in the battle, as he loses the second clearly and is unable to deliver a clean third round and Hansel puts a ribbon on a dominating and good performance. He has been making waves lately in the west coast circuit of battle rap and continues to display his consistency and potential to rise to the next level.
Foetdev vs Clone
Recapped by France
An interesting match of two aggressive styles. FoetDev starts the battle with a powerful first round and is delivering and clicking on all cylinders. While he had a very good introduction to the battle, Clone is able to not only match the intensity but also exceed it. Clone is landing punch after punch and was not rattled by the threshold set by Dev. It’s almost as if it invigorated him to step up his performance and energy in his delivery and it paid off.
Dev 2nd round is a notch below his first round but he does land some big haymakers and has some powerful moments in that round. Clone 2nd round experienced the exact same result. Both emcees came down from a very high start but still delivered potent and good 2nd rounds. This round is a bit more debatable than the first but Clone is arguably up 2-o at this point of the battle.
Dev’s third round completely plateaued from the momentum he built for himself and ends the battle on his weakest round. Meanwhile Clone ends the battle in the complete opposite direction and has his best round of his performance and is landing haymaker after haymaker. Clone was on one this entire battle from start to finish. All of the experience Clone has gained from his KOTD & RBE battles has surely paid off. And he took this battle a little personal seeing that Dev got the call for the Hitman Holla house and Clone didn’t.
So Clone was looking to make a statement and he does just that by being one of the best performers of the night. FoetDev may have spread himself a bit thin, seeing that he has 3 battles scheduled in Septemeber. He will be going through another phase of the URL crucible and he will be trying out for the Bags and Bodies TV show. If there was any battle for Dev to lose in this busy schedule, it was this one, as a loss to Clone impedes the less amount implications on his future.
A fun one rounder as an appetizer for the night. Ron Compton brings a bar heavy performance while Rio brings a gritty street talk approach to his content. If you prefer the punches in every fucking bar, you’ll like Ron’s round more. if you enjoy the feel that a certain type of talks gives. You will enjoy Rio’s round more.
NXT vs Mackk Myron
Recapped by Tai Tai
Mackk Myron and NXT came bearing the gift of a competitive spirit to The Riot in ATL. Myron out the gate was punching hard, aggressive and very disrespectful. His pacing and energy were effective as he grabbed the crowds attention from the top of the round and kept their engagement until the end. He also takes the opportunity to take shots at Fonz and Loso.
A-Ward vs Rum Nitty
Recapped by Titus
Expectations are a difficult thing to live up to. When Rum Nitty vs A-Ward was announced the widespread opinion of the culture was that it would be a classic and had Battle of the Year potential. That is a lofty standard and somehow these two managed to live up to it! This will be on every Battle of the Year list at the end of the year and most likely near the top. From the start of it we had Rum bombing out the gate in his first round, almost every line was a quotable! Nitty hopped in his rapid punching bag and gave us a round that only he can. It served as a reminder that this is the best puncher to ever do it and ever will be.
A-Ward pulled up to our twitter spaces recap and said his feelings during that opening round was “So this is what it feels like to die?” That is the kind of pressure he was under. The scariest thing about that round is the fact that Ward’s first is incredible too!! There aren’t alot of emcees who could have stood in front of a round like that and not just evaporated into thin air. Ward managed to fight back and make it somewhat competitive. Rounds two and three are where the conversation gets interesting. Both guys were still on point and landed bombs on each other but the margins are much thinner which is why we have this as one of the best battles to date.
A round by round discussion doesn’t even feel right when a battle is this good I’ll just say just go watch, seriously, go watch it right now. You still here? That’s fine I had more to say anyway. Ward once again proved that he can hang with anyone in this game, at this point doubting that he can do so moves from criticism to just downright delusion. A-Ward is at his peak and is earning everything he’s getting while doing so on the hardest path in battle rap.
Rum Nitty showed once again why he is who he is and deserves every battle he’s ever asked for and more. On a consistent basis we’ve seen him take battles he didn’t have to just to help advance the culture by giving opportunities to up and coming talents. This man is one of the greatest to ever do it in the history of battle rap and it’s past time we start giving him that respect not just in praise, but in matchups too, so my message to all leagues, get Rum the battles he wants.
Fonz vs Real Name Brandon
Recapped by Cece
UM1 winner Fonz vs um2 winner Real Name Brandon. Respectfully that doesn’t even matter in this battle. All that does is who gonna out punch who.
Fonz had a great first round by opening it up with “Slashing names I don’t think that height gonna matter,” bar and “this must be a secret Santa cause we don’t know which f***kin name we gonna get.” By time Fonz hit RNB with “put everything in your momma name I’m a Big Tymer,” it was gonna be a long night for RNB. When the Cleveland battler recapped Brandon’s run in UM4 by saying he had bye weeks and felt MVP was cheated with the ending punch “even Gotti knows he lost that bitch to a St. Louis nigga like Ashanti,” was FIRE!!!! Fonz also showcases his name-flipped skills with, “Came in this bitch bumping RNB now I’m ready to clean house,” (JAZ FACE)!
Second round Fonz keeps beating RNB verbally with more punches like “the next time you do rhymes and recipes it’ll be in Hell’s kitchen.” He would go on to go crazy with more chef and cooking bars which were solid. This man even had a cleaning scheme which included “put a Bounty on this nigga, they’ll gonna find Brandon on a towel,” and “shot him as soon as he went for the gun, you gotta be a Quicker Picker Upper.” Fonz was really in his element and called out EFB’s Rum Nitty for Summer Madness. Even Geechi Gotti caught a few strays as he had to watch RNB getting cooked.
After RNB choked in the third it sealed the body bag. When Fonz flipped Real Name Brandon’s Peanut Butter and Jelly on a tortilla struggle bar by saying “that ain’t no struggle at all that’s just some fat shit,” it was a wrap! Honestly, Fonz’s third was hella short. Not sure if he cut it due to Real Name Brandon choking. If not, Brandon lost a chance to sneak a round from him.
To recap I have Fonz 3-0 clear versus RNB. Brandon had a solid first round but failed to out punch Fonz each round. Critical errors in choking helped sealed his fate. Fonz did a great jump putting RNB on the ropes to have to play catch up which in my mind he never did. In regards to Nitty, this just makes me want to see these two go head-to-head (pause) even more. This battle is now screaming SUMMER MADNESS! The fans deserve to see who is the best puncher in the game on the biggest stage. SMACK BOOK THIS BATTLE ASAP!
