Boxing Game!

I was playing Punch Out(!) on the Wii the other day, the original NES one. Well original in that its the same port, the same system and whatnot but is missing one big thing: Mike Tyson. I guess that even in the anything-goes-pre-PC era of the late 80's early 90's its not practical to have a convicted rapist prancing around a kids video game.

Now being the political minded person I am what really struck me about that original Punch Out was the significant reliance upon stereotypes in casting the motley crew of boxers. I'm not gonna go through all of these because I'm sure its been done countless times before but just looking at a few fighters:

Soda Popinski who is obviously a merry drunken bolshevik (like all bolsheviks right?), I'm pretty sure that bottle wasnt originally soda.

Glass Joe and Gabby Jay are both Frenchmen, they're both the easiest fighter of their respective games.

The Italian fighter is named Pizza Pasta.

Great Tiger who's from Bombay (now Mumbai) and continuously calls you a pussy.

Don Flamenco, possibly the coolest looking of all the fighters, he just looks so relaxed. Sometimes I wish I were Don Flamenco.

Lets not go any further, I do believe the German fighter is falled Kaiser something, the Mexican fighter is a luchador, theres Super MachoMan, Bald Bull, King Hippo...we could go on. Great game, holds up amazingly well. One day I'll have the SNES version again. One day.