Let's say Thug does win, and Rob returns to Ward 2 as councilor and gets appointed deputy merryl. And the both of them somehow skates away from the COI. Then the last defense* is the city council. Since afaik and I could be mistaken on this one, I doubt Doug is able to ram through his wish list of budgetary veto power and strong mayoral system.
I still say don't underestimate Fofam and don't take your eyes off them, but they're facing a pretty steep climb from what I'm seeing.
*edited ps. IIRC the province theoretically could step in, but IMO after that last round of buck passing by everyone including Wynne, Horwath, and Hudak, I'm not optimistic with that.