Hitman Holla vs Geechi Gotti: So Who Really Won This Battle ?

Hitman closes strong, too, with the Welvin The Great/Deez Nuts. Gotti flips and leaves this round being almost impossible to call. For how spectacular Gotti was, Hitman was firing on all cylinders the whole round. It’s a razor close round and really will come down to preference, but gun to my head I give the round to Geechi. 

The Eazy/Hitman/Geechi round robin is really a fascinating study of the margin for error in these big main-event battles. Because all three battles share this in common: the first rounds are extremely close, but then the 2nd round is where separation is created and in all of the battles between these greats. That separation always comes in the way of tactical choices and angle approach.

Geechi starts off his 2nd round with a few rebuttals. The “I’m a Boy Damon” one is very funny, and I thought the Spike Lee movie one was too, but I want to highlight another one. He has a rebuttal for Hitman’s “laid up in the hospital next to Verb momma” bar, and it’s along the lines of “You said this, but when Cinnamon was in the hospital, it wasn’t funny”

The rebuttal lands, and it’s effective, but there’s this level of bending the truth here that makes it hard to really get into the bar. The Hitman and Verb fallout has been highly covered and publicized, it’s out there for us to pay attention to and have a timeline of. Just calling a spade a spade, Verb is the one who took it to the level of saying disparaging things about loved ones. So anything Hitman does say isn’t some unprovoked attack or case of taking things “too far.” Because I have that level of awareness because of how public the situation is, it makes it hard to immerse myself in Gotti’s spin on it, and that really is the tale for this whole round.

I want to be clear: Gotti’s round got over in the room and was well received by the PPV viewers. Because of that, there are a lot of people who have Gotti winning the first two rounds. It was effective, and it worked; I’m not here to argue against or debate that at all. But when I analyze the content, there are things it’s hard for me to be able to buy into, despite how well Geechi packages it.

Straight up, spending so much time on the idea that Cinnamon didn’t get shot does nothing for me. It’s a nonsensical statement to say the whole thing was orchestrated as some publicity stunt. It’s an angle that doesn’t land for me, and it feels like Gotti doesn’t even believe it. The first sign is the Verb rebuttal, and he mentions Cinnamon being in the hospital. If you don’t think she got shot or that it was fake, why is your counterpoint based on the reality that she was hospitalized? He spends a good amount of time trying to illustrate how preposterous the story of her getting shot is, just to then switch about halfway through and say, “Well, I love black women, so let’s just say she did get shot.”

What was I supposed to take the first half of the angle as then? Comedy? A half-baked conspiracy theory that he didn’t even believe? I’m not really sure what to make of it. Again, it worked, but after how great I watched Geechi be in the first with how airtight that writing was, the 2nd round is a clear drop off in the level of focus in my opinion.

Where he does heat up for me is that later approach of saying that Cinnamon getting caught up in that situation was Hitman’s fault because of his temperament and the way he flashes and gloats about his lifestyle. And he gets some great bars out of it, the “letting her engage in a shootout when she’s not even engaged to you” hit heavy, but this whole stretch feels like a retread of ground Eazy the Block Captain already thoroughly tackled in his battle with Hitman.

Geechi closes with some Verb stuff, and while I do like the line of Big Gerald responding to Verb in Verb and Hitman’s famous battle was a sign of the respect Hitman’s father had for Verb, the angle Geechi takes with Hitman being salty about Verb’s 3rd round from their battle being the impetus for their tension is another thing where that is pretty much impossible for me to give points for. Again, the feud between those two has been highly discussed everywhere. Enough has been put out there for us as outsiders to be able to draw our own conclusions and what we believe based on the info we’ve been provided and because of that, this is a hard angle to sell me on. 

The flip side of this is Hitman starts his round with some content alleging things about Geechi Gotti’s wife. After everything I said about Geechi’s round, I’d be a hypocrite to not pose some skepticism to what Hitman is presenting. For me though, I do find there to be at least a little bit of difference between accusing somebody of sleeping around versus accusing someone of setting up a fake home invasion to garner sympathy and attention.

With that being addressed, Hitman had a great haymaker in the midst of that angle with “ignore the red flags,” and it allowed him to get into his storytelling bag, something we don’t get to see him do too much of these days but was one of his old calling cards. And the way he was able to build that into the “yousa bitch” slogan flip pocket and the way it kept building to the “made in China” bar is a testament to Hitman’s ridiculously underrated rapping skills. 

From then on Hitman’s just flowing, the pocket and rhythm he’s in is just building more and more momentum. That Hitman flow that’s some sort of chain punching/Philly flow hybrid, has a snowball effect when it gets going. And what’s great about Hitman is his in-between lines aren’t just filler material; they’re actually well-thought-out great jabs before the big swing. His “I’m Hitman, a penthouse suite with the balcony, that’s the only views that I pay for,” and how he gets, there is all built on how well he’s rapping and structuring everything. With how potent Hitman was all around, I have Hitman taking round 2. 

Geechi doesn’t write uphill the way he did for Eazy and I think that comes back to bite him a bit. Maybe his idea was to front load his material because the perception of Hitman is he isn’t known for being great all 3 rounds, but with how lackadaisical Geechi’s 3rd is and how strong Hitman closes, it wound up not being the greatest move. Geechi’s 3rd is solid, it’s classic Geechi with some quotables but it doesn’t reach the heights we’ve seen his 3rds take in other big battles with that sort of content. It feels like he takes his foot off the gas.