Top 10 Best Title Defense Bosses in Punch-Out Wii
Debatably THE single greatest fight in the entire franchise as a whole as far as game design goes (while I certainly do respect Nintendo for its celebrity endorsement of Mike Tyson back in the NES days, they went way, way, WAY too far with making that boss as brutally difficult as possible just for the pure sake of it), Mr. Sandman's Title Defense rematch, while ironically not actually the hardest fight in the game (TD Bald Bull EASILY takes that title, with TD Popinski being a pretty close second in my opinion), is a near-perfect example of EXACTLY how to make a rewardingly climactic final boss for a game like this, and is also by far one of the most realistic fights in the series.
Taking the infamous "Scary Black Man" trope that his previous Contender self already embodied right down to the bone marrow (provided that you didn't know about the whole "countering every single one of his attacks with chest jabs" trick) from eleven all the way up to at least ...more
Arguably none of the other Title Defense rematches (besides maybe Bald Bull's and Sandman's) completely encompass what their respective characters, by all rights, SHOULD be more than Great Tiger's does, and believe me, I say this after actually BEATING both of those two's Title Defense counterparts in literally THE most fair-and-square ways possible, and actually pretty soundly in the Bull's case (yes, I will openly admit that I DID, in fact, technically beat TD Sandman by decision, but at least I managed to SURVIVE the fight; believe me, when you see how aggressive Sandman in particular becomes in his Title Defense rematch, you WILL know what I'm talking about here).
Taking his already WAY over-the-top "Indian genie" stereotype persona from Mac's previous matches against him to a WHOLE new level COMPLETELY unheard of in past years, Mr. Tiger now has the ability to make the jewel in his turban flash not one, not two, but FOUR different colors, every single one of which symbolizing ...more
Simply put, this is where Bald Bull went from simply being intimidating to being downright HORRIFYING (see Mr. Sandman up above for yet another quite literally HUGE example), and is probably the single most realistic fight depicted in the series thus far (barring Mike Tyson's and Title Defense Sandman's in terms of how eerily dead-on-accurately both of them emulate the real Tyson's fighting style)...which, granted, is hardly saying much of anything for a franchise like Punch-Out, but is still well worth mentioning regardless.
Right off the bat, he's developed impossibly clever fighting tactics for someone who comes across as being barely even intelligent enough to speak, the imposing-ness of which is only compounded upon by how MASSIVELY stronger he's become since his previous bout against Mac.
Not only is his chest now completely immune to damage (except for when and more importantly IF Mac successfully counters his now-nearly-impossible-TO-counter Bull Charge), but in ...more
The backstory behind this fight is admittedly pretty similar to Macho Man's, but the main difference here is that Don's reason for being so aggressive in his rematch, while basically the exact same thing as Macho Man's, comes across as being far less childish and petty if you read into the whole "Carmen situation".
Basically, on TOP of having literally all of his former fame and glory stolen from him in the blink of an eye by Little Mac, Flamenco ALSO had his dearly beloved girlfriend (Carmen) torn clean away from him in record time after his already deeply humiliating Contender loss against Mac.
At first glance, him going straight-up emo and dressing up in literally ALL-black over it (right down to his decorative ROSE, no less, although it somehow magically changes its color back to red upon his victory, presumably to symbolize Don's redemption for his previous failure to satisfy the former love of his life) might seem a bit laughable and effeminate to say the least, but ...more
Realistically, you would hopefully expect a world-famous Japanese boxing ninja who not only is built like Bruce Lee on steroids but also has presumably been downright obsessively training and meditating for QUITE some time to actually put up a more-than-negligible threat in hand-to-hand combat, ESPECIALLY against...well, Little Mac, but alas (as with mostly all of the other boxers listed here), the Punch-Out series unfortunately never actually dared to make that the case...at least, not until Title Defense became a thing, that is.
To put things into perspective on how much training Honda puts himself through between his initial Contender match and his Title Defense rematch (and also how much of a borderline-self-deprecating Japanese caricature he really, REALLY is), he blocks a straight-up steel katana that is being swung straight at him with his bare hands, eats EASILY upwards of his entire weight in gourmet sushi (while STILL managing to stay PERFECTLY in shape all the while, no ...more
Yet another Title Defense rematch that unfortunately doesn't actually put any real effort into actually CHANGING the fight itself beyond making the challenger (admittedly rather cheaply) more difficult to defeat (ironically, he's still a complete joke when compared to the Soda Popinski and ESPECIALLY Bald Bull rematches right before his, probably as PART of a much greater-scope joke about him not being even NEARLY as good of a boxer as his ridiculously over-inflated ego makes him think he is), but once again, the sheer hilarity of the character himself more than makes up for it.
Probably the second most justified of the Title Defense rematches besides Flamenco's if you think about it, good old Super Randy Savage's plays wonderfully to the classic storytelling trope of a man who was once considered one of the world's greatest and most beloved celebrities being reduced into literally NOTHING by a monumentally more talented underdog's brutally honest putting of him into his ...more
Although, like most of them, the moveset for this particular rematch is still pretty bland and repetitive in retrospect, practically everything about this fight wonderfully cements Von Kaiser as a top-of-the-assembly-line German caricature in every way. Finally deciding once and for all to get over his idiotic "beaten up by children" PTSD from his Contender fight, Kaiser FINALLY starts living up to how freakishly manly his mustache is and attacks Mac at full, unbridled military force, and with a perfectly fitting military "buzz" haircut to (COMBAT) boot.
Apart from becoming a first-rank "manly man", obsessively shining his shoes for no apparent reason in-between matches, and most importantly learning how to fake his hook punches in a FAR more effective manner than that of Glass Joe, Kaiser also pushes both his hilariously over-the-top German accent and his mental derangement to the absolute limit in this fight, culminating AT LEAST three times in him dementedly screaming "ATTACK" ...more
The fact that Joe actually managed to get me to unwillingly LOSE to him for once is already easily more than enough to land this particular rematch onto the top ten of this list in and of itself (even though it's mostly because of how utterly god-awful the game's difficulty curve is, as per classic Punch-Out tradition)...
but jokes (and not remembering how to block jabs the first few times I fought him) aside, Joe, when you really stop and think about it, is easily, to say the LEAST, the fighter that improves the most notably between Contender mode and Title Defense mode.
Actually becoming smart (as in realizing that the WVBA has virtually no rules whatsoever) and wearing headgear to protect his literal "glass jaw" for once, Joe is still pathetically easy if you actually DO remember how to block face jabs but has now gained a surprisingly effective knack for hook punches (even learning how to fake Mac out by unexpectedly delaying them, as well as looking shockingly bad-arse ...more
Although I utterly despise this fight in every way (seriously, if you can't TKO this guy in the first round, chances are that you won't be able to beat him PERIOD; despite the fact that he's clearly drunk, his steroid soda makes him attack so LUDICROUSLY fast that trying to manually dodge most of his attacks by reflex is almost like trying to dodge a speeding bullet, and he also heals himself MASSIVELY during the fight as well), the absolutely brilliant homage to Ivan Drago that the fight's backstory is simply cannot go unacknowledged on this list; he basically got turned into the soda-fueled boxing equivalent to Frankenstein's Monster (by a bunch of mad scientists, no less)
Honestly, this is easily the lamest of the Title Defense rematches gameplay-wise, but the character is just so downright hilarious that it easily makes up for it (particularly when he starts trying to whip you with one of his old boxing gloves)