The Legend

This past Saturday, the most feared and famous heavyweight boxer of our generation was put out of his misery. Kevin McBride, an Irish slug boxer, won by TKO over a Mike Tyson who is nothing more than an insane shell of his former self. In the 1980’s, Mike Tyson was an icon. He blasted onto the boxing scene with thunderous knockout after thunderous knockout. His right hand made a fool of “champions” such as Michael Spinks and Larry Holmes. He hit poor Trevor Berbick so hard he was stumbling around the ring like a drunken cast member from "The Real World". Tyson was mean, he was young, and he was devastating inside the ring.

Then one night in Japan, Buster Douglas ruined it all. He did what no one thought could happen when he floored Iron Mike. Just like that, the mystique was popped like a balloon. The days of Iron Mike are gone. So today, we will take a look back at a time when Tyson’s dominance was at its pinnacle. It was a time when only one person was widely regarded as being badder than Tyson himself…video game Mike Tyson. In honor of what hopefully will be the final fight in the roller coaster career of the kid from the Catskills, we’re taking a nostalgic look at one of the top sports video games of our time: Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out.

	Setup For those of you who might not remember the Nintendo classic, the main player is an up and coming fighter named Little Mac. Mac was roughly 3 foot tall, a tactical mastermind who was believed to be the first professional male prizefighter to box while wearing a tank top. He was trained by Doc, an overweight black man who had a passion for bike riding in the city.
The Path to Tyson
	Glass Joe Like every fighter, Mac had to start at the bottom of the barrel. Up first was the fighter who was so gawky he made Manute Bol look like Sugar Ray Robinson. It was Glass Joe. Joe carried a record of 1-99, with the one win presumably coming against a blind, armless fellow. Joe was pretty much the worst opponent in video game history. If you’ve ever lost to Glass Joe, just stop reading now; chances are you don’t have the hand-eye coordination to scroll to the bottom of the page anyway.
	Von Kaiser The second bout of young Mac’s career pitted him against the evil German Nazi, Von Kaiser. Much like Mac, Kaiser scoffed at traditional boxing attire, bypassing trunks in favor of pants in the ring. His spandex leg wear was accompanied by a curly cued mustache, reminiscent of the great Iron Sheik. While most fighters went to the corner in between rounds to get water and strategy, Kaiser went for mustache wax. Unfortunately, his stiff jab and Rollie Fingers facial hair wasn’t enough to compete with the jumping hooks of Little Mac.
	Piston Honda This large-headed Japanese brawler made a habit of speaking in Japanese clichés in his corner. In what could only be deemed an intimidation tactic, Honda made a habit of screaming “Kamikaze! Sushi! Nippon! Bonzai!” at his opponent before the fight. Not exactly “I must break you,” but I suppose it carries with it a certain level of fear when it is coming out of the mouth of a man with an abnormally large cranium. Honda had a habit of flicking his eyebrows before unleashing a flurry of punches, making it easy to defend and providing ample opportunities to counter. A little concentration and the Minor Circuit belt was easily attained.
	Training Montage- To prepare for life in the Major Circuit, Mac jogs through the city as Doc follows him on his 10-speed. What the game didn’t show was Doc stopping to grab a cheese hot dog off a street vendor during the ride.
	Don Flamenco After handling Honda, Mac graduated up to the Major Circuit and was greeted by the first gay fighter in the game. Flamenco was a Spanish featherweight who danced into the ring carrying a rose in his mouth. Just imagine Jim J. Bullock as a boxer and you've got Don Flamenco.
	King Hippo In a huge contrast to the frail and flimsy Flamenco, King Hippo was an obese monster that would just as soon rip off Mac’s arm, dip it in ranch dressing and eat it like a chicken strip. Hippo was a cross between Sloth Fratelli and George “the Animal” Steele, a massive, somewhat retarded beast that lacked the skills to stick with the polished Mac. Good thing about Hippo is that when you finally knocked him down, his fat ass wasn’t about to get up.
	Great Tiger To this point, the Major Circuit consisted of the stereotypical skinny guy and the stereotypical fat guy. Great Tiger represented the stereotypical foreign guy. The creators of the game took every known stereotype of Indians/Middle Easterners and applied it to Tiger. He wore a turban into the ring and the jewel on his forehead blinked before he went into his magical flurry of haymakers. If you looked close enough, you could see him in the corners reading the Koran and plotting ways to take out America. He posed a mild threat with the disappearing uppercuts, but a few well-timed ducks and Mac was on his way to the Major Circuit Title match.
	Bald Bull It took 6 bouts, but with Bald Bull, Mac finally gets a quality opponent. Bull was an intimidating character. He’d look at you from across the ring with his bald head, thick Eastern European mustache and crazed eyes. If you looked deep into those black eyes you could see that they yearned to shed the blood of his little white nemesis. You knew Bald Bull was trouble. When the man went into his bull charge, he could flatten anyone with one shot. Luckily, a quick stick to the gut could save Mac from getting his head knocked into the fifth row.
	Training Montage 2: Little Mac is still running with Doc trailing him on his ten-speed. Obviously, Doc didn’t want to mess with the training methods. It is an unconfirmed rumor that Little Mac had to tape a Whopper to his back to get Doc to follow him that far.
	Piston Honda Somehow while Mac was busy tearing up Hippos, Tigers and Bulls, Piston Honda leaped into the World Circuit. Apparently his Japanese verbal taunts were enough to get him a shot at the big time. Bonzai or no Bonzai, he still sucked.