Holy sacrilege, Batman!
When most gamers think of the ultimate videogame boxing badass, Mike Tyson (of the appropriately named Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!), immediately comes to mind. Unfortunately, they are quite wrong. Just like real life, Tyson’s deadly for the first 90 second of the match, but if you’re able to stay the path, he’s a prime candidate for kissing the mat.
The true Don of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! is one of the most intimidating characters in sports videogame history: Super Macho Man. Sure he’s a pretty boy. Yes, he has perfectly groomed hair. Yup, he has the body of a Conan-era Ahnuld. (but with a Speedo). But in terms of quality of performance from the opening bell of Round One to the closing of Round 3, no other digital boxer so lethally mixes style, skill, and power like Super Macho Man – - not even Iron Mike.
His style is uniquely unpredictable. While many of the game’s fighters rely heavily on jabs and hooks, Super Macho Man unleashes an arsenal of dome-crushing offensive maneuvers. The World Circuit Champion does have the aforementioned sharp jabs and slicing body blows, but his bread and butter is the Super Spin Punch.
His Super Spin Punch comes in two varieties. A few times each match, Super Macho Man disengages the battle by taking a single short hop back, and then surges back into the with a series of roundhouse punches. These aren’t the roundhouses you’d see in a typical boxing match; this mofo cocks his fist back into another time zone and then cut loose a series of 360 degree spin punches. You have to duck each and every one of them by pressing down quickly on the control pad, because even if a loose string from his wrist wraps touches Little Mac’s noggin, you’re down on the canvas.
Anyone that grew up with a NES during the ‘80’s remembers the rising tension as you ducked blow after blow after blow after blow, because you just knew that the CPU would find a way to jerk the crap out of you and bring you down – - which normally happened. It seemed that no matter how much you believed that you mastered the game, you’d always had to be on point for Super Macho Man because if your timing wasn’t absolutely impeccable, you’d be absolutely splattered. You had to be mentally prepared for Super Macho Man to bust out the Super Spin Punch at any given moment because not only did he do it at completely random times, but he’d also do it each time you floored him. So even if you were fortunate enough to put Super Macho Man on his back, there was still a rather good chance that he’s get up and return the favor. Nice.
Super Macho Man’s Super Spin Punches may have been more hazardous than being the wives of O.J. and Robert Blake combined, but his other punches, which he uses to set up the spinning roundhouses, are pretty damned deadly in their own right. The second variation of it is a single twisting roundhouse that the meathead unleashes, you know, just to mix things up a bit. Fortunately, Super Macho Man tips his hat for this one by vibrating rapidly. However, if he manages to connect with it, you won’t drop, but will lose a nice chunk of your life bar instead. Also, because Super Macho Man uses the same graphics and animation base as Soda Popinski, Super Macho Man was equipped with earth-to-heaven styled uppercuts that weren’t as deadly as his spin punches, but would rock your knot for heavy loss.
Naturally, some of the audience will question why Super Macho Man, the guy that preceded Mike Tyson is listed as his superior here. I can say this because I was, and still am, a videogame bastard. You know, one of those S.O.B.s who, in a boxing game, learned to dodge with uncanny precision just to show the world how literally untouchable he was. With my supreme evasion skill and Iron’s totally telegraphed move set, Tyson’s onslaught amounted to little more than a few dozen whiffs (except for his lightning jabs―-I openly admit to taking cover when those were rattled off). But even my top notch dodging was put to the test vs. Super Macho Man’s hell-spawned cyclone punches. Punches, which to this day, inspire a little bit of fear and a whole heaping of dread.
