Last offseason, the Flyers brought in John Garbarino to help younger players hold their own during fights on the ice. He had an ideal resume for the job: The South Philly native is an undefeated middleweight in the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship.
But early Sunday morning, the fight venue was a narrow street in Center City, where the closing-time bar crowd watched Garbarino pummel the plexiglass vestibule of Barstool Sansom Street and scream obscenities at people inside.
Garbarino, aka “Johnny Cannoli,” then destroyed an onlooker’s cell phone, sparking a seven-person fracas in the middle of the street.
Part of the incident was captured in a two-minute video obtained by The Inquirer on Wednesday.
The video shows that there were at least two uniformed officers at the scene, but they did not make any arrests. Instead, according to one eyewitness, an officer gave Garbarino a fist bump after the altercation.
A police spokesperson said the incident is under investigation.
Reached by phone Tuesday, before video of the incident surfaced, Garbarino denied hitting anyone and said that he was not the aggressor.
“If anything, I broke it up,” he said.
Although the police fist bump is not seen on video, Garbarino confirmed that it occurred and that the officer is a friend of his.
Garbarino, 30, did not immediately return messages left Thursday morning about the video footage.
After this story was published online, a Flyers spokesperson said Garbarino was retained for a one-time training last summer and was never paid by the team. “There is no ongoing relationship,” the spokesperson said.
On Tuesday, Garbarino said that he had been a “special guest” at Barstool on Saturday night, and that he left for an hour before deciding to return “for another reason.” He declined to elaborate.
According to a Barstool employee working that night, Garbarino and a group of associates were asked to leave the establishment at 2 a.m. because they had become unruly and it was closing time. Barstool management did not respond to a request for comment.
The Barstool employee said once the group was outside, Garbarino and an unknown associate began violently pounding on the door to get back in — which is where video shot from across the street picks up. Garbarino can be seen unsuccessfully trying to force the door open.
Marques Reed, who was working at a nearby bar, said people on the street started to film the two men thrashing at Barstool’s winter vestibule, causing the whole structure to shake.
The video shows Garbarino — a former sous-chef at Del Frisco’s who later worked at Michelin-rated Alinea in Chicago — unloading on the vestibule with a half dozen punches and elbow strikes while yelling at Barstool staffers or bar patrons watching from behind wobbling plexiglass.
After failing to break into Barstool, Garbarino stalks over to a group of onlookers.
“Garbarino comes across the street and says, ‘I’ll knock you the f— out,’” Reed said.
Garbarino then grabs an onlooker’s phone and spikes it onto Sansom Street, obliterating the device. That man goes after Garbarino as he is walking away, but a Garbarino associate grabs the man by the shirt collar. The man responds by throwing a punch at Garbarino’s associate.
A third member of Garbarino’s group then punches the man whose phone was destroyed, and he falls down. He punches him again when he attempts to get up, sending him reeling backward and out of frame.
Garbarino then appears to show restraint as he is face-to-face with a man he had shoved, and he seems to be trying to de-escalate the situation before walking away.
Moments later, though, someone yells an obscenity at Garbarino, who reengages with the man with the broken cell phone. That man pushes Garbarino and takes a swing at him, missing. Garbarino tackles him to the ground.
“John, don’t hurt him!” one of the men with Garbarino yells. Then, a woman with Garbarino kicks the man while he’s down.
After they get up, Garbarino shoves another man in the face, then sucker punches the man he had tackled while he appears to be arguing with the woman.
Garbarino on Tuesday vehemently denied throwing any punches and disputed a since-deleted Reddit post on the incident that described him as the aggressor. He said he was trying to defuse a situation he characterized as a “little scuffle.”
“I can’t control the world,” he said. “I’m not a referee.”
He did confirm one aspect of the Reddit post.
“The only thing that was accurate was the fist bump from a cop,” Garbarino said. “He was a friend of mine.”
Reed said he was troubled by the attack and the lack of action by police.
“Why is this sanctioned bare-knuckle boxer wildin’ out at a bar, beating on a door, then beating people up? Didn’t he just have a fight not that long ago?” Reed asked.
(He did, in fact: KnuckleMania VI, last month at the Xfinity Mobile Arena. Garbarino is now 4-0, having defeated Kaine Tomlinson Jr. by TKO in the fifth round.)
“This dude was a maniac. He was going crazy,” one witness said of Garbarino. He asked not to be named because it could adversely affect his employment.
The witness said he was shocked that police laughed it off and walked away.
“Everybody was like, ‘You’re just letting him go?’” the man recalled bystanders asking police. “The cops kind of thought it was funny. That’s a very old-school Philly thing that I didn’t think was a thing anymore.”
Eric Gripp, a police spokesperson, said that a complainant reported being assaulted shortly after 2 a.m. Sunday, and that the case is being investigated by Central Detectives. He declined to provide any additional details about the complainant or the alleged perpetrator, or comment on the police response at the scene.
Garbarino, who grew up playing hockey, said given his “position with the Flyers” and his recent success in the Philadelphia-based Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship, he is trying to do “damage control” this week over the allegations in the Reddit post. He dismissed the claim that he knocked someone out as “a joke.”
A representative for the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Garbarino said he would like to put the situation “to bed” as he pursues a world title.
“I’m obviously a popular guy in Philly,” he said. “I know violence pretty well. Nobody got beaten severely.”
