Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! was available for three years, from 1987-1990, and sold approximately 2 million copies, making it the 11th-most popular NES game in the console’s U.S. history. The game is not only lauded for its gameplay, but has a fascinating backstory.
Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! started out as an arcade game called Punch-Out. Nintendo wanted to bring this game to the NES which was rising in popularity at the time. The problem was that the NES hardware had nowhere near the power of a real arcade game. Nintendo made some adjustments to Punch Out, making the characters shorter so you could see both the player & opponent on screen at the same time. They named the fighter “Little Mac” and added theme music, cut scenes, and a basic plot – all things that weren't in the original. They had the beginnings of a great game but they still needed something extra for the game’s appeal.
In 1986, the founder of Nintendo of America, Minoru Arakawa got to see a young Mike Tyson – not yet the heavyweight champion – fight. Arakawa was blown away by Tyson’s speed & ferocity in the ring. Arakawa thought Tyson’s likeness on the game would give it more legitimacy and further boost its popularity. At the age of 20, Mike Tyson became the face of Punch-Out. The rest was history. Today, IGN and PC Mag both rank Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! as one of the top-10 best NES games ever released.
Graded as a 9.4 with an A+ Seal (No Rev-A) this is one of the rarest copies of one of the most iconic video games of all time.