Mike Tyson Fights Himself For Jimmy Fallon: Watch Him Play ‘Punch-Out’
Mike Tyson beat himself on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, but not the way he expected to. Technically “Iron Mike” did expect it, but only because he had a vague idea what he was getting into.
Back in the early days of the Nintendo Entertainment System, Tyson was the star and end boss of the best boxing game we had seen. The player used a generic fighter known as Little Mac and fought through the ranks to reach the real-life boxing champion in the ultimate show-down.
This was all before Tyson was convicted of rape and sent to prison for three years. The controversy over this shocking story caused such a stir that Nintendo officially took him out of the game and replaced him with Mr. Dream, basically the same thing but made to look different.
Jimmy Fallon started out the segment by revealing he actually owns a copy of the classic NES title, telling his guest that back then Mike Tyson‘s Punch-Out was a bestseller, but not telling him about the way Nintendo changed it. He asked Tyson if he ever played it and the boxer laughed it off, saying he’d get pounded.
Watch Mike Tyson fight himself in the 1987 game Punch-Out for the NES http://t.co/tlG2QvQrdi pic.twitter.com/zQE1vgX9Lj
— The Verge (@verge) October 29, 2014
Tyson expanded by telling Fallon that he’d actually met a 10-year-old kid who said he’d beaten the game, but Tyson had never played it himself.
Fallon then walked him over to the stage where the game had already been set up with the final fight waiting. He explained to the retired heavyweight boxing champion what he was seeing on the massive screen, and on Fallon’s prompting, he started the fight.
Tyson appeared to be doing well for having never played the game before, but as he predicted, the game had him beaten from the start. Mike Tyson simply couldn’t fight himself, though Fallon told him the situation was “win win” and he couldn’t lose.
The digital version of Tyson won the match, even though the real boxer was at the controller.
[Image via Strange Kids Club]
