Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) a comeuppance, a punishment.

1894

S. Crane in N.Y. Press Nov. in Stallman (1966) 105: If you ain’t on the level, you get a swift, hard throw-down sooner or later – dead sure.

2. (US campus, also shakedown) a party.

1981		N. George ‘The New Street Art’ in Buppies, B-Boys, Baps and Bohos (1994) 73: And then (throwdown!) we’re grooving on ‘Good Times.’.
1996		Eble Campus Sl. Sept. 5: shakedown – big party. [Ibid.] 6: throwdown – big party.
2007		B. Coleman Check the Technique 134: ‘[A] sorority party or two here and there, and some student union throwdowns’.

3. (US black) a (gang) fight.

1981		Detroit Free Press (MI) 6 July 17/1: throwdown (there was a throwdown after school) — a fight.
1994		N. McCall Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 63: Respect was incomplete until we had proven ourselves in the serious throwdowns with downtown boys.
2005		W.D. Myers Autobiog. of My Dead Brother 165: ‘[T]here was going to be a throwdown between the Counts and the Diablos’ .
2015		‘Harry Brandt’ Whites 4: Throwdown in the three-two, both shooters female, one on the sidewalk, the other in the rear seat of a ghetto cab.
2021		S.A. Crosby Razorblade Tears 156: [I]nstinct honed from hundreds of throwdowns, inside and on the street.

4. (S.Afr./US) a challenge.

2009		Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg) 24 Sept. 🌐 No, I am not a zol monkey. This is not a throwdown from a bonghead.
2010		Codella and Bennett Alphaville (2011) 139: The message isn’t lost on anyone Lopez deals with. But for Davey it’s a throwdown.