Why Super Punch-Out is a forgettable symbol of modern boxing
Super Punch-Out!! (1994)
Super Punch-Out!! (1994)
I’m Irish, which means boxing is in my blood. Mind you, I’ve never actually stepped into the ring mind. Nor have I done anything remotely resembling boxing training. Even if you put a gun to my head, I couldn’t eat that foul pitcher full of egg yolks like Rocky does in that one film.
I can run a little bit, which would surely be useful on fight night, when I come up against some opponent 3 times my size, from a country with a Human Development Index several times worse than Ireland’s. Whether that’s me running at the opponent in anger, or running to safety well away from him, I’ll let you be the judge.
But let’s be honest, pro boxing’s lost something, hasn’t it? It had it, lost it, and now it doesn’t know how to get it back. All this talk of boxing being the noble art and the sweet science and all of that stuff, the reality seems to be that more and more people prefer stuff like UFC - throwing an opponent onto the floor, mudwrestling with them for a bit and then raining hammerblow after hammerblow on their prone body, long after they’ve been knocked unconscious. Not really my cup of tea, to be honest.
Even though I am rapidly getting over the hill, assuming I was ever fit enough to be near the hill in the first place, I still harbour that slight hope that one day, if it all came down to it, I could be that boxer. You know, the great Irish hope that beats up the more glamorous countries and comes away holding belts and Gold Medals and tricolour flags aloft.
When it comes to sending teams over to the Olympics, Ireland generally sends over a parish full of boxers, with the odd sailor and rower and showjumper thrown in to round things off. They all go and do the best they can, but the boxing is always the one to watch.
Watching our sailors and sprinters give their best is always great, and all credit to them. But they don’t throw wild punches at people or try to get sly elbows and headbutts in, do they? Not that Katie Taylor would ever dream of skulduggery like that.
You know who Katie Taylor is, of course? No? Well, she’s only the greatest athlete this country has ever produced, and I’ll go to my grave championing that woman. I do this in the vain hope that she will notice me, which should be any minute now – Katie, if you’re reading this, you’re welcome round for tea any time, chicken.
When she isn’t punching out fools for Gold Medals, she’s scoring goals for Ireland. She took my dreams and made them her own, so I have to respect her for that. But you’ll notice after each and every single one of her 700 boxing victories, she always thanks God for being at her side and giving her strength.
Is it really divine intervention deciding victory for her? As a hell-bound doubting Thomas myself, I’m not really qualified to comment, but I do know that you’ll probably need God in your corner to beat some of the foes in Super Punch-Out.
The original Punch-Out for NES (not really the original at all, but you know what I mean) was all about the underdog story. You took the role of Little Mac, 80lbs of smiley muscle and 3 foot tall to boot. With the help of your not-Apollo Creed trainer, Doc Louis, you took on hulking behemoths who were wider than Mac was tall and had dancing pecs bigger than his head.
Eventually you triumphed to batter Mike Tyson – that’s right, in a colourful and dorky Nintendo game, the baddest man on the planet was waiting for you at the end, surely ranking as the scariest end boss of all time. Although let’s be honest, you didn’t actually beat Tyson. You sort of shambled into the ring, already trembling, before he knocked your head clean off with his first vicious uppercut that left you convulsing, in the man’s own words, “like an infantile retard.”
Obviously Nintendo couldn’t let a convicted rapist headline their next boxing game, so it was all change for the Super Nintendo’s Super Punch-Out. Released to pretty little fanfare, late in the console’s life, this one is a bit of an odd duck. To start with, you don’t even play as a character who could recognisably be called Little Mac.
Doc Louis is at home sleeping, a lot of the most memorable opponents from the NES classic are gone, and each match is only one round of three minutes. There’s no Decision either – if you haven’t done the biz by the time the three minutes are up, whichever fascist in charge of scoring and ringing the bell will announce you as the sad, crushed loser and you will have to suffer the rest of your days with a loss against your record.
Rather quickly, your social invitations will dry up, your wife will run off with your best friend and your children will hate you. But at least you can always have another go, and work out how to beat the next cheating opponent on your way to winning the coveted World Video Boxing Association belt.
And boy, do your opponents cheat. Off the top of my head, you have tricky buggers who’ll charge at you from across the ring, spit at you, headbutt you, aim actual karate kicks at you, break your hands and force you to keep fighting, elbow you, cause localised earthquakes, strike you with canes, and open fire at you with a tactical assault rifle.
I made up that last one, but you well believed it, didn’t you? But the rest of it is all real, and will happen to you frequently. Against all of this monkey business, your counter-offensive consists of ‘honest boxing’, which isn’t really much of a strategy by comparison.
Really, to call Punch-Out a series of boxing games is a short-sighted mistake, perhaps as critical a mistake as thinking that a 450lb clown is going to be a pushover to defeat in the ring. You could liken Super Punch-Out more to a puzzle game, where you need to figure out your opponent’s cues, i.e. know whether they’re going to spit, scream, duck, dodge or throw a flying forearm smash at you from atop the ropes.
Once you know what your ridiculously proportioned foe is going to do, it’s simply a matter of dodging and then slugging him back – or if you’re really brave, countering his punch at the risk of taking a haymaker yourself.
It’s this high-risk, high-reward counter punching play that’ll keep you coming back to Super Punch-Out, trying to improve your times in the ranked time trials. Taking down the world champion in 11 seconds? It’s possible, if you’re skilful enough.
The game can be a bit annoying occasionally, with its one-round rule, some bland opponents (a long way from the goofy national stereotypes from Punch-Out NES) and the cheating will definitely grate on you at times. But it’s OK, those are just fairly mild body blows, nothing that will leave you battered and bruised.
Super Punch-Out gets a bit left in the lurch by the NES original and the really excellent Wii title, and it simply doesn’t have the replay value that those two sluggers have, but this one isn’t too bad. I lap it up, to be honest. It’s just that the game ends up a little bit too much like the boxers it features, and a bit like the boxers of today, really – obviously talented, and occasionally good to watch. But sadly, just a tad forgettable.
29 May 2026