We finally got that showdown between Cherelle Parker and David Oh. And, well, it lacked some bite.

I couldn’t help but wonder if Republican mayoral nominee David Oh stopped for a big breakfast on the way to the first showdown between him and his Democratic challenger, Cherelle Parker.

Because what was that on KYW Newsradio Thursday morning?

I think we all know that Parker’s historic win is nearly inevitable. Philadelphia is a blue city, after all, where Democrats hold a nearly 7-1 voter registration advantage.

But Philly is also a city of underdogs, and when you’re an underdog, you gotta be hungry and stay hungry.

And Oh came off as, well, not hungry.

To be fair, he performed better in the structured radio format than he did in a joint interview with The Inquirer Editorial Board last week. Then, Parker commanded the space, as usual, while Oh often got lost in the wonky weeds. (She even managed to turn a question on her 2011 DUI into a rise from the ashes “Philly thing.”)

There’s probably no way Oh will ever outperform the award-winning high school orator. Even when Parker is saying things I don’t agree with — which is more often than I expected — I’ve found myself getting lost in her delivery, tempted to grab a black turtleneck and snap like a beatnik at an after-hours spoken word performance. Parker is a natural performer. Oh is not.

But when you’re a long shot, you have to take each and every shot you got. And if someone hands you a gift, you don’t stop to admire the bow.

When the KYW debate moderator notes that Sam Katz, the last Republican to run a competitive campaign for mayor, once said Philadelphia would probably never elect a Republican unless Democrats nominated a candidate who was “unpalatable,” and then asks if Parker is unpalatable, you don’t just say, “No, no. She’s a good candidate,” as Oh did, and leave it at that.

You follow lightning quick with a big “BUT.” Because despite the veteran lawmaker’s undeniable chops, there are a fair amount of “yes, buts” when it comes to Parker, and we would all do well to listen a lot closer to what she’s saying, not just how she’s saying it.

Because often what she is saying — so passionately, so beautifully — should give us some major pause, especially when it comes to her aggressive policing approach that includes stop-and-frisk and rolling out the welcome mat for National Guard troops to help police the open-air drug market in Kensington.

Oh may still confuse a lot of us with his military service record and the color of his Army beret. But he was right when he pointed out that guardsmen are not trained in urban policing and that having armed, uniformed military members interacting with Philly residents without proper training could intimidate and harm residents.

When pressed on this and other law enforcement issues, Parker often inserts her “lived-life experience” as a Black mother raising a 10-year-old son in the city. And while her experience is legitimate, rolling back the clock to racist policing tactics will only lead to the targeting of the sons and daughters of other Black mothers trying to raise their children in Philadelphia.

And when Parker says that Philadelphia cops who abuse stop-and-frisk will be fired, she’s either posturing or conveniently forgetting the well-documented history of officers getting fired only to be promptly rehired after all kinds of bad behavior. Lie during official police investigations. Punch a woman at the Puerto Rican Day Parade. Take steroids. Beat your girlfriend. Hire a prostitute. Philly cops have done all those things in recent years — and then rejoined their colleagues at work.

There are now less than two weeks before the election on Nov. 7. Whatever the result, it will be a historic day in our city. Philadelphia will elect its 100th mayor, who will either be the city’s first Asian mayor or its first Black female mayor.

And while that is something to celebrate, the reality is that whoever is elected, whatever good or bad they do (and they will undoubtedly do both), we Philadelphians will make it work, because we’ve always had to. Because that’s what true underdogs do.

So go out and vote, of course — and then get ready to take every shot we get to remind whoever has the privilege of being our next mayor that they work for us, and that we won’t be blinded by shiny speeches or settle for empty promises, no matter how well they played on the campaign trail.

And if they don’t like that ... remember that we don’t care.