Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!

This page details one or more prototype versions of Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!.

An early prototype of the NES Punch-Out!! was found in 2026. The prototype cartridge allegedly belonged to a former Nintendo of America employee who had sold it in a garage sale. The cartridge was auctioned off at Heritage Auctions and sold for $45,000 to an anonymous user who graciously allowed the prototype ROM to be released.

General#

• No sound code or data is present whatsoever. The memory locations that would trigger sound effects or music are never accessed or written to.
• The game only features four boxers fought in this order: Glass Joe, Bald Bull, King Hippo, and Don Flamenco.
  • Von Kaiser, Great Tiger, and Mr. Sandman are also present, but are in way less complete states.
  • Mike Tyson, Soda Popinski, Super Macho Man, and Piston Honda are not in the game at all. The PRG banks (04, 05) that would contain their programming are completely blank, and there are no graphics for them at all.
• The Minor and Major Circuits contain 4 matches each, while the World Circuit contains 7.
• The training and newspaper cutscenes are present, though only the former gives passwords.
• The password algorithm (starting at A983 in the proto) is slightly different from (and incompatible with) the final.
• None of the six special passwords (Dream Fight, Another World Circuit, staff credits, and the busy signals) exist.

Screen Differences#

Title Screen#

Proto/Prize Edition	Mike Tyson	Mr. Dream

The title screen matches with the Prize Edition Famicom version released in Japan. Unlike the retail releases, the game boots straight to the title screen as it lacks the brief black screen. This is because the black screen is caused by the game spending the entirety of its CPU time feeding the crowd noise sample to the APU, and there is no sound code in the prototype.

Intro Screens#

The Guest Stars section is probably the most interesting part of the prototype:

• It makes mention of Piston Hurricane and Pizza Pasta from the original arcade game, but neither of whom are present in the final game. While Hurricane would eventually resurface in Super Punch-Out!!, Pizza Pasta has yet to make it out of the arcade.
• Vodka Drunkenski is Soda Popinski's original name from the Super Punch-Out!! arcade game.
• Rockyhead and Mongol Khan are completely unknown, and may or may not have been turned into different fighters seen in the final game.
• Don Flamenco and King Hippo are fightable opponents, while Von Kaiser and Great Tiger are unused and very incomplete. None of them are mentioned in the intro.

Win Screen#

Proto	Prize Edition	Final

The victory screen is in an early state, using a different color palette that's identical to the intro's. Early text with rougher English is shown, including quotations around certain text and more dotted lines. The Prize Edition finalizes the color palette and graphics, and gets rid of the quotation marks, while the final game cleans up the text and adds some of the quotation marks back in for some reason.

Lose Screen#

Proto	Prize Edition	Final

The loss screen is similarly different to the victory screen.

Game Over#

Proto	Prize Edition	Final

The game over screen is an obvious placeholder, with a near-completely black screen and some... rather dishearteningly blunt words.

Newspaper#

Proto	Prize Edition	Final

In the Newspaper, where the game tells you to press start to begin the fight against Mike Tyson/Mr. Dream, there's instead the time for the previous fight, perhaps meaning that this screen was meant to display right after the World Circuit title bout rather than showing the Win Screen first like in the final game. Secondly, where the password for the fight against Super Macho Man should be, there's a small text that says "What is the key?" and the word "Macho" is missing from the text that says "I lost my belt!", which implies that the World Circuit champion wasn't decided yet.

Early Graphics#

Boxing Ring#

Proto	Prize Edition (Minor Circuit)
Prize Edition (World Circuit)	Final

There's only one palette used in this prototype for the boxing ring, and it doesn't change no matter the circuit. The color of the ring is the same teal used for the World Circuit in the final game, and is the same used by the Minor Circuit in the Prize Edition version. Interestingly, the palette is identical to the one used for the Prize Edition's World Circuit.

Characters#

Little Mac#

Proto / Final (Mr. Dream Fight)	Final (Minor & World Course)	Final (Major Course & Tyson Fight)

• Here, Little Mac has sea green gloves and shorts instead of light green as in the final version. Interestingly, in the fight against Mr. Dream, Little Mac will have the exact same colors seen in the prototype.

Glass Joe#

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• Glass Joe's hair has an orange tone of color instead of being blonde similar to what is seen in the Prize Edition.

Bald Bull#

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• Here, Bald Bull's shorts are colored with pastel blue instead of light cyan. This version is seen in the demo and the final version, and is also present in the "Major Course" of the Prize Edition.

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• In one of Bald Bull's dodging sprites, the waist and part of his shorts are slightly different here.

King Hippo#

• King Hippo's skin was changed to be more pink in the Prize Edition. This was reverted with the Mike Tyson release.

Don Flamenco#

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• Don Flamenco's boxing gloves are sea green instead of light purple, just like when he's fought in the World Circuit rematch in the final version.

Von Kaiser#

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• Von Kaiser's boots are dark blue here, instead of black.

Great Tiger#

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• Great Tiger's boxing gloves are pink here, in addition the outline of his shorts and boots are dark green instead of dark blue.

Mr. Sandman#

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• Mr. Sandman's shorts are green instead of gray, and his teeth and eyes are pink instead of white.

• Due to Bald Bull and Mr. Sandman sharing the same body shape, the area around his shorts and waist have the same differences, albeit it's hard to see due to having to reactivate features for the 2p controller as mentioned below.

Gameplay Differences#

General#

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: What actually causes star punches to cause instant knockdowns?

• Health bars start at zero and rise up as the match's introduction plays, much like the arcade version.
• Characters do not flash when winding up for a punch, thus giving far less of a tell that they're about to attack.
• Star Punches take much longer to wind up and deal much less damage, though eventually they will instantly knock down the opponent.
• The rapid punch mechanic in Glass Joe and Don Flamenco's fights don't exist yet.
• Getting hit makes you lose two Star Punches instead of one.
• There is no 1,000-point bonus upon KOing an opponent.
• While Mac winning by decision is implemented, it isn't possible to gain enough points to do so during a match. Mac can still be declared the winner if the score is edited (e.g. set $03E8 to 09 09 09 09 09 09)
• Losing the final match of the World Circuit ranks you down all the way to the bottom, forcing you to restart the entire circuit.

Glass Joe#

Glass Joe is relatively similar to the final game, albeit with a few differences.

• He doesn't raise his fist in the air for his intro, instead immediately trotting towards the center of the ring.
• It's possible to get Star Punches starting with the fourth punch instead of the twenty-first.
• His taunt's animation is slightly slower, the timer doesn't freeze during it, and the 1-Hit KO punch after it isn't implemented.

Bald Bull#

Bald Bull is very early in development, with nothing but one punch and a few animations at this point.

• His only attack is a right uppercut. Rolling Jabs, Hooks, and the Bull Charge aren't implemented yet.
• His guards are much slower than the final game's, allowing you to hit his gut or face far easier.
• Many of Bald Bull's animations are unfinished or unrefined, such as his stunned sprite's eyes not rapidly flashing.

King Hippo#

King Hippo's fight is nearly identical to the final game, but lacks polish and details here and there.

• During his introduction, he doesn't bark as he's hopping to the ring.
• His delay between his punches can be much longer than he can in the final game.
• Like Bald Bull, some of his animations are slightly less refined.

Don Flamenco#

Don Flamenco's fight is interestingly an early version of his rematch in the World Circuit. However, his attack patterns are wildly different than the final game.

• The fight starts with hooks and jabs thrown in a seemingly random pattern.
  • He blocks after throwing jabs, making them impossible to counter. He also always blocks the gut when idle.
• He doesn't only throw uppercuts when you're exhausted.
• At 30 seconds into the fight, he becomes extremely aggressive, throwing out rapid jabs and hooks. He'll also start throwing uppercuts if he blocks your punch. Starting at around 2 minutes, he becomes aggressive with his jabs and hooks again. This is similar to the final game's Round 3 pattern, though here it appears starting in Round 1.
  • The wind-up for his uppercuts can be countered with a gut-punch, putting Flamenco into an infinite loop if you keep blocking him.

Upon beating Don Flamenco, the game instantly cuts to the training cutscene, before giving you the password for the next circuit. The Major Circuit is a second loop of these four boxers, and the World Circuit is two loops of these four, albeit with the last Don Flamenco fight gone. Upon beating King Hippo for the second time in the World Circuit, the game goes to the newspaper cutscene.

Unused Elements#

Unused Boxers#

Von Kaiser and Great Tiger only exist as animation tests, and are not functional opponents.

Von Kaiser	Great Tiger

Mr. Sandman also only exists as a less complete test. His match intro will play, but once the fight begins, he stands still. You have the ability to dodge and punch him, and punching him will make him flash between two frames. You can "beat" Mr. Sandman by punching him enough to drain his health, but the only thing that will happen upon his health reaching zero are Little Mac backing up and the timer stopping.

Mr. Sandman

You can change the first opponent you face with the following Game Genie codes:

Unused Code#

• Code is stubbed out that checks Player 2's inputs, which will move the opponent boxer around the screen, and change his animation frame with A / flip with B. Re-activate with Game Genie code SZGIXG.
• Code is stubbed out at address A55B that writes various fight-related variables to an unused portion of memory when Select is pressed.

Fighter Statistics#

Glass Joe#

Proto	Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!
Rank is #3. Age is 34 Weight is 99	Rank is #2. Age is 38 Weight is 110

• Much like in the arcade game, Glass Joe has brown hair. Some prerelease screenshots like this one show the in-match sprite with this hair color. This hair color is also used in the early Black-Box-style cover art. The background where he is located is also colored with a darker blue.

Bald Bull#

Proto	Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!
Rank is #2. 47- 6 38KOs. Age is 39 Weight is 325	Champion. 34- 4 29KOs. Age is 36 Weight is 298

• Bald Bull's shading palette is brown instead of dark greenish-yellow, and the background where he is located is colored with a darker blue.

King Hippo#

Proto	Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!
Rank is #1. 15-63 15KOs. From as "Hippo, Hippo" Age is 49 Weight is 209	Rank is #2. 18- 9 18KOs. From as "Hippo Island, South Pacific" Age is ?? Weight is ???

• The background seen behind King Hippo is colored a dark purple here.

Don Flamenco#

Proto	Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!
Champion. 12-84 9KOs. Age is 32 Weight is 115	Rank is #2. 22- 4 9KOs. Age is 23 Weight is 152

Von Kaiser#

Proto	Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!
99-99 99KOs. From as "Bonn" Age is 45 Weight is 151	23-13 10KOs. From as "Berlin" Age is 42 Weight is 144

• His hair and mustache are colored a dark greenish-yellow instead of brown, his coat is colored a lighter purple, and the background is dark purple instead of light blue.

Great Tiger#

Proto	Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!
99-99 99KOs. From as "NewDelhi" Age is 41 Weight is 146	24- 5 3KOs. From as "Bombay" Age is 29 Weight is 132

• His skin is colored a dark greenish-yellow instead of dark brown, his jewelry and boxing gloves are red, and the background is dark blue instead of cyan.

Mr. Sandman#

Proto	Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!
99-99 99KOs. From as "AAAAAAAA, AAAAA" Age is 41 Weight is 146	27- 2 21KOs. From as "Philadelphia, PA" Age is 31 Weight is 284

• His skin is lighter here, and the background is colored dark blue instead of gray.
• There is a typo in his name.