Little Mac has also appeared three times in the Super Smash Bros. games; as an Assist Trophy in Brawl, and as a playable character in the fourth game and Ultimate. He also cameoed in the Japan-only adventure game Captain Rainbow, where he's gone overweight from years of not boxing and needs help getting back into shape.

King Hippo, meanwhile, appeared as one of the major lackeys to Mother Brain in Captain N: The Game Master, though no other characters from Punch-Out!! ever appeared in the show for some reason^note unless one counts Glass Joe's cameo in "Videolympics". Little Mac and Doc Louis also make a very brief, blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie during the scene where Yoshi roams around Brooklyn.

Games in the series:

• Punch-Out!! (1984)
• Super Punch-Out!! (1984)
• Arm Wrestling (1985)
• Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! (1987)
• Super Punch-Out!! (1994)
• Punch-Out!! (2009)

Examples found throughout the series include:

• Adipose Rex: King Hippo, whose large stomach is his Achilles' Heel. the developers portray him as the king of a tropical island.
• Alliterative Name: Bald Bull and Pizza Pasta
• All-Stereotype Cast: Most of Mac's opponents starting in the second arcade game are national/ethnic stereotypes. These include a cowardly Frenchman, a Canadian lumberjack, the original Vodka Drunkenski (aka Soda Popinski) from Russia, a militaristic German guy whose stage music is Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries, a Bruce Lee Clone from Hong Kong, an old martial arts master from China, an aggressive Irishman, a Flamenco-dancing Spanish ladies' man, and more.
• Angry, Angry Hippos: King Hippo, a real behemoth of a man who has hippopotamus as his Animal Motif. While not the meanest of the bunch, he's still a very tough opponent to fight.
• Animesque: Inverted. Despite the Arcade, NES and SNES games being developed in Japan, they are extremely cartoony with over-the-top cartoon caricatures of international stereotypes. The games also draw heavy influence from many Western boxing films like the Rocky series and Raging Bull. The Wii game averts it on principle for being developed in Canada and still retaining the Western designs for the characters.
• Artistic License – Sports: The game doesn't take itself seriously and plays very fast and loose with the rules of boxing overall. This is a good thing, as by real world rules there's a lot going on that wouldn't be allowed in a real-life boxing setting.
  • The series doesn't care for weight divisions. Little Mac is the wrong height (4'8 in Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, upped to 5'7 in the Wii game), size (107 pounds), and age (17) for boxing, yet is allowed to fight amongst adults who can be over twice his size, such as the 440-pound Bear Hugger and 290-pound Bald Bull. Line up the weights of all the boxers together and you'll see that — depending on the promotion — the only other fighters who would possibly be in the same weight class as Little Mac (107 lbs.) would be Glass Joe (110 lbs.) and Hoy Quarlow (100 lbs.). This isn't necessarily a bad thing, since it neatly shows just how much of a badass Mac is, especially for his size.
  • They also don’t seem to account for a normal rule in boxing, the mandatory eight-count. In a real-life sanctioned bout, the referee will continue the count up to eight once a boxer stands up from a knockdown to judge if he's still in good condition to fight. The WVBA stops the count as soon as a boxer gets back to his feet.
  • Boxing actually has a rather strict dress code that forbids long pants, personalized branding, not having a clear line indicating the waist (indirectly forbidding overalls and leotards), and any form of jewellery or headgear (even something as simple as a headband). Almost all the boxers violate this dress code in some way. The only real exception would be Great Tiger's turban, which would most likely be protected as a religious garment. This dress code also covers hair, both facial and on the head. Boxers need to be clean-shaven or well-groomed, as excessive facial hair would provide cushioning, and long hair could potentially blind the boxer or even cause injury by getting torn out by the roots. Bear Hugger and Heike Kagero are perhaps the worst offenders (the former with his huge beard and the latter with his long hair), but fighters such as Von Kaiser and Bob Charlie would also have to get a trim at least.
  • In addition, the series allows the boxers to get away with things that would result in penalties or worse in real boxing. These range from the mundane (illegal blows such as backhands and headbutts, touching the ropes, general poor sportsmanship) to the unusual (Disco Kid's earphones, Don Flamenco's perfume, Bald Bull using hot towels instead of cold ones, assuming they're not cold and he's just that hot from his burning rage) to the outright criminal (Aran Ryan's horseshoe-loaded gloves and improvised flail weapon, Soda Popinski's lab-made soda that allows him to pull trucks with his teeth, Hoy Quarlow bringing his staff to the ring and using it as a cudgel, etc).
  • By contrast, Mr. Sandman, the Final Boss of the original arcade game and the Wii version, is one of the few boxers not to resort to any dirty tricks, which serves to make him all the more badass as he doesn't need such bastardry to be a world champion. Strictly speaking, raising his own hand when he wins and taunting Mac between rounds are both minor rule infractions, but none of his in-match moves are illegal (and you can't even pin the first one against him either, since it's shown that he is so heavy that the ref physically cannot lift his arm by himself).
• Athletically Challenged: In each game, Glass Joe will be your first opponent. A French boxer who has the worst offense and defense of any boxer and has a total record of 1-99 (it's stated that his sole win was from an "accident"). It's said that he has a medical condition that makes him easily knocked out. And as such, for the most part, he's a pushover in the games he appears in. In the SNES version, he is replaced by Gabby Jay, who functions as an older Glass Joe, and is said to be Glass Joe’s pupil.
• Atrocious Alias: The first opponent you face in the first Arcade, NES, and Wii games is called "Glass Joe", which has the combination of referring to how fragile glass is and being a play on "glass jaw", a term in boxing used to refer to vulnerability. Despite this, Joe seems rather proud of the nickname, even shouting it for the whole stadium to hear in the Wii version.
• Attack Its Weak Point:
  • Hitting opponents at certain windows of vulnerability is how you can pull off most One-Hit KO tricks.
  • Bear Hugger is so overweight that hitting him in the stomach doesn't do squat, so he has to be hit on the head. However, in the arcade and SNES Super Punch-Out!!, if the player waits a second, Bear Hugger will taunt the player, making Bear Hugger's belly vulnerable enough to stun him. In Title Defense mode in the Wii game, he wears a hat that makes doing so harder, so Little Mac has to wait for him to take it off to be able to do much damage.
• Badass Normal: While most of the game's boxers tend to rely on gimmicks and occasionally cheating to pose a challenge, Little Mac, the Bruiser brothers, and Mr. Sandman only need to be really, really good boxers to pose a threat or succeed.
• Bald Head of Toughness: The series has its share of hairless heavyweights, but none are more prominent than resident Wake-Up Call Boss Bald Bull, who's just as chrome-domed and ruthless as his moniker implies. In the NES game in particular, he acts as both the champion of the Major Circuit and as a rematch on the World Circuit. Both times, he acts as a massive difficulty spike, having the hard-to-dodge Bull Charge as his signature attack and, in the World Circuit, being immune to knockouts except through either Star Uppercuts or perfectly countering the Bull Charge.
• Banana Republic: The fictional Hippo Island, in the South Pacific Ocean. (Though not so much the republic part, since its resident boxer isn't called President Hippo or Prime Minister Hippo.)
• Big Applesauce: The NES and Wii games take place in NYC as you see Doc Louis train Little Mac with the bike and you see the Manhattan skyline and Statue of Liberty in the background. Little Mac is also listed as being from the Bronx.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: Piston Hondo. His eyebrows even make a "doink doink" sound in the Wii version!
• Black Boxer Stereotype:
  • Despite being one of the highest-ranked boxers as well as one of the strongest, Mr. Sandman doesn't show much of this in the Arcade, NES or SNES games. However, he definitely does in the Wii game, not only retaining his power and having an intimidating entrance scene prior to the fight, but also having an angry attitude at all times plus nicknaming Little Mac "Mac baby" to provoke him.
  • Subverted by Doc Louis. The African-American former heavyweight champion can seem imposing, but he is actually quite friendly and cheerful. Just make sure not to knock away his chocolate while training with him, or else he may end up playing the trope straight...
• Bookends: The original arcade game has Glass Joe as your first opponent and Mr. Sandman as your final opponent, same with the Wii installment. Unless you count the Superboss.
• Boss Game: Each individual boxer is a boss with its own patterns.
• Bowdlerise: Changing the Russian boxer's name and his drink of choice from Vodka Drunkenski to Soda Popinski. Even worse, his between round dialog ("I can't drive, so tonight I'm gonna walk all over you!", etc.) clearly makes references to alcohol as his drink of choice. This carries over into the Wii version, as one of his between-round taunts translates to "I am Soda Popinski! I will run over you!"
• Boxing Battler: Though most boxers play the trope straight, others mix up their "boxing" style with moves and techniques that wouldn't be approved in a real-life boxing tournament, such as Dragon Chan landing kicks like in kung fu, Aran Ryan using headbutts, or Great Tiger using teleportation.
• Briefs Boasting: Super Macho Man stands out for his extremely small underwear. It demonstrates his show-off attitude.
• Brooklyn Rage: Little Mac hails from the Bronx, and has the skill to defeat the toughest of boxers. Even Mike Tyson.
• Bruce Lee Clone: Dragon Chan is a reference to Bruce Lee as "The Dragon," and Jackie Chan.
• Bullfight Boss: Bald Bull. Instead of dodging his special technique — the Bull Charge, you have to hit him head-on. In the Wii version, it's possible — and preferable — to do this against almost all special attacks. Von Kaiser, of all people, has one that can't be stopped this way.
• Butt-Monkey: Glass Joe sucks to the point that one of the challenges is letting him win.
• Button Mashing: Discouraged. If you randomly spam punches, the enemy will eventually do nothing but block until you get tired. Once tired, you're very easy to defeat, and chances are, if you try this tactic, you'll have no idea how to counteract tiredness.
• Captain Ersatz: Mac is partially based on Rocky Balboa. His minuscule size is a nod to Sylvester Stallone's below average height. Taken a step further with the Challenger in the arcade games, whose face is clearly based on Sylvester Stallone's.
• Captain Ethnic: It's easier to count how many Punch-Out characters aren't fairly blatant ethnic and/or national stereotypes: Piston Hurricane, Little Mac, King Hippo, and the Bruiser Brothers. Possibly Pizza Pasta, who aside from his ridiculous name, doesn't do anything especially "Italian" and comes from Napoli instead of Rome. The addition of language appropriate voices and mid-match cutscenes in the Wii version only makes it even more obvious. The majority of boxers also tend to come from the capital of their home country. The fact that the publisher (Nintendo) is also making fun of their compatriot, Piston Hondo, is an indication on how no one is spared. Same with Next Level Games and Bear Hugger (on the Wii version).
• Carpet of Virility: As befitting a Canadian logger, Bear Hugger has one in the shape of a pine tree.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: The premise of the game since Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!. You have Mac who is in his late teens and weighs only a little over 100 lbs. go on to fight and defeat Mike friggin' Tyson!
• Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys: Glass Joe both plays this trope straight and inverts it. Played straight because he has a record of one win and 99 losses. Inverted in that despite his record, he refuses to surrender (retire), and he'll gladly go through a fight until his inevitable defeat. This also applies to his student, Gabby Jay, who has the exact same record as him. His only victory was against Glass Joe.
• Chromosome Casting: Every boxer in the series is male. Female characters are extremely rare, and there is only one named female character^note Don Flamenco's girlfriend Carmen. This is at least somewhat justified, seeing as the series focuses on boxing, a male-dominated sport. The spinoff Arm Wrestling features a girl named Alice who is indirectly participating by controlling a robotic monkey called Ape III (the tournament is unisex; what prevents Alice from playing directly is her young age). Princess Peach was initially planned to appear as a secret fighter in the Wii game, but she was replaced by Donkey Kong as the devs felt uncomfortable with the idea of Little Mac beating up a woman.
• Clean Dub Name: Vodka Drunkenski from the Super Punch-Out arcade game became Soda Popinski in future games.
• Combat Pragmatist: Although it is quite subtle, the Macho Spin is resembling a Haymaker Punch which is illegal as an "impure" punch: arm whipped with minimum elbow bend which deals a lot of damage but leaves you vulnerable if you miss
• Comedic Underwear Exposure: This is King Hippo's weakness. In the Wii version, he wears Super Star-print boxers.
• Controllable Helplessness: Depending on how you get knocked down, Mac won't stand up no matter how much you mash the buttons, but the game's "Get Up!" message still flashes as you try. Averted in the Wii game, as no matter how hard Mac gets knocked down, he can always get back up in time (unless it's his third knock-down, in which case he's immediately TKO'd).
• Counter-Attack: The key to victory is to dodge and counterattack. In early fights, the enemies tend to hang open for quite some time; the window rapidly closes as the game goes on. In addition, launching your own attack successfully just before the opponent does theirs deals extra damage and grants you a Star.
• Critical Existence Failure: The NES and Wii games offer a slight correlation between Little Mac's ability to keep standing and his ability to fight back — taking or blocking an opponent's hits will reduce both his stamina and his heart count, and running out of hearts means he can't punch or block. Therefore, it's possible to take a few blows and suddenly be unable to retaliate. Dodge a punch or two, though, and Little Mac is ready to strike back, even if one more hit would knock him down.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Glass Joe can be knocked out in one properly-timed hit to the gut, or several to the jaw, all while he fails to retaliate properly. It is quite amusing.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: In NES Punch-Out!! you blocked by holding down, which blocked all attacks besides uppercuts and a couple other certain moves, whereas in Super Punch-Out!! there's a low guard and high guard system which has holding up block attacks aimed at your head while holding no direction blocks blows to your body, with down now only inputting ducking. This will for sure trip up people playing either game for the first time after having extensively played the other game beforehand.
• Death of a Thousand Cuts: This is how Little Mac fights, along with being a Fragile Speedster. While most of the other fighters have moves that deal roughly a fourth of Macs health bar, Mac uses a flurry of jabs and uppercuts to whittle down his opponents health.
• Death or Glory Attack:
  • Most of the fighters have a specialty move that will knock you down if they nail you with it but which will allow you to knock them down if you can either counter it or dodge/block it and hit them afterwards (depending on the opponent).
  • Bald Bull's Bull Charge attack. If it hits you, you're kissing the canvas. But if you can hit him at just the right moment, he goes down. Nick Bruiser has very similar attack that's harder to counter. Averted in his Title Defense match on the Wii version. If you counter his Bull Charge, it seems like he'll go down… only for him to stay up and laugh in your face. It will still deal him quite a bit of damage, but it's no longer an instant knockdown.
• Denser and Wackier: The games get weirder and weirder over time. The first arcade game was basically just a boxing simulator with a slightly cartoony edge, where most of the fighters could be described simply as "is a boxer with a funny name." The second arcade game had a lumberjack and a Bruce Lee Clone on the roster, the NES game gave the boxers often-goofy personalities and featured a few implied supernatural elements, the SNES game featured the return of Super's weirder characters and had a good number of characters that are barely boxers at all, and the Wii version played up the personalities of the existing boxers to make just about all of them over-the-top and wacky in some way, especially in Title Defense.
• Determinator: Glass Joe is still determined to fight after 99 (later 100) defeats, more so in the Wii Version.
• Divergent Character Evolution: There are a fair few characters that have evolved over the years, the most notable being Aran Ryan. In the SNES game, he was a bland palette swap of Piston Hurricane who fought by the rules. In the Wii game, he's a complete lunatic who threatens Mac, the referee and the audience. He breaks just about every rule of boxing, from using his elbows to loading his gloves with horseshoes to tying a rope to one of said horseshoe gloves and using it as a flail.
• Dizzy Spinning Vulnerability:
  • Great Tiger's signature move is the Magic Punch, where he teleports around the ring in circles throwing punches as he passes by Mac. Should Mac block or dodge every punch (or just survive by tanking some hits), he's rewarded with an opening to hit Great Tiger as he's standing dazed and dizzy.
  • Super Macho Man also has a spinning signature move, called the Super Mach Clothesline. In several games, avoiding the attack presents an opportunity to hit him.
• Enemy Roll Call: All games since Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! give the names of all the fighters during the credits. The first two entries out of them also give one last line to each of them.
• Enhanced Punch: With acquired stars during fights, Little Mac can perform a powerful punch that can inflict a large of amount of damage to opponents, even potentially knocking them out.
• Equal-Opportunity Offender: The series has a long list of nationally stereotypical boxers. It also helps that two of said boxers are from the creators' home countries: Canada for Next Level Games, and Japan for Nintendo.
• Extremity Extremist: Not surprisingly, in a boxing game most of the boxers fight with only their fists, but certain boxers subvert this trope by using weapons, items and other body parts to fight with. Hoy Quarlow is the worst at following the trope, as he barely punches at all.
• Fictional Country: King Hippo hails from the fictional Hippo Island, located in the South Pacific. The island is very tropical and King Hippo rules it.
• Flexible Tourney Rules: It's a boxing federation... that includes "boxers" who use flying kicks (Dragon Chan), a quarterstaff (Hoy Quarlow), throwing weapons (Mad Clown's apples), his own hair (Heike Kagero), and more. Hell, even one of the more mundane fist fighters uses an elbow crush that would get him thrown out of any actual ring. Even some of the more mundane attacks tend to go against most boxing convention and rules. Backhands, overhead punches, double hooks, etc. Even the Bull Charge probably goes against some kind of rule, despite being just a ludicrously powerful uppercut in the end. Amusingly, the Wii version provides a possible explanation for this. Considering how much abuse and humiliation the Referee takes in the World Circuit, he probably couldn't enforce the rules even if he wanted to.
• Fragile Speedster: Mac is definitely one. He's good at dodging and punch way faster than the opponents, but it generally only takes a handful of punches from any given opponent to knock him down. Even Glass Joe can knock down Mac in less than half the punches it takes Mac to knock him down.
• Funny Foreigner: From Glass Joe to Von Kaiser to King Hippo to Bear Hugger to Don Flamenco to Great Tiger to Aran Ryan to Soda Popinski, Punch-Out's boxers span the entire Hollywood Atlas. Outside the US perspective, Super Macho Man is one as well because of his Eagleland attitude.
• Husky Russkie: Vodka Drunkenski, who became the non-alcoholic Soda Popinski.
• Iconic Outfit: Little Mac is well-known for his black and green outfit — especially the iconic, bright green boxing gloves. In the Wii game, it's the attire he wears in the Minor Circuit at the start of the game.
• Jobber: Glass Joe, your first opponent, has a 1-99 record (his one win once being jokingly called a fluke victory in a freak incident over Nick Bruiser, the final boss of Super Punch-Out. Or a fluke win over Von Kaiser; no one knows for sure, though the latter is more likely due to Nick's undefeated record). In Super Punch-Out, Gabby Jay has the same record... and his one win was explicitly against Glass Joe, his trainer. The Wii version returns Glass Joe to his place of "prominence".
• Killer Bear Hug: This is a Signature Move for Canadian boxer Bear Hugger; he will swing his arms out wide and try to bring Little Mac into a crushing grip.
• Lightning Bruiser: Almost every opponent in the World Circuit qualifies in most versions, but Mike Tyson takes the cake, giving you very little time to react to his One-Hit KO move.
• Marathon Boss: King Hippo is a fat, overgrown boxer from Parts Unknown that has an amount of HP so large that it is only required to knock him down once to win. And in the Wii version, when fought in Title Defense mode, he'll tie a manhole cover to his belly so you can't hurt him there without removing it first, which only prolongs further the fight.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Glass Joe (think Glass Jaw), Kid Quick (his attacks are fast).
  • Mr. Sandman will put you to sleep.
  • Soda Popinski drinks a lot of Soda, King Hippo wears a crown and is roughly the size of a Hippo, Super Macho Man embodies the stereotypical strong male celebrities, Bear Hugger's signature move is the Bear Hug, etc.
• Modern Minstrelsy: The various opponent boxers all come from different countries, and each of them is an obvious stereotype of their respective nation. This ranges from Frenchman Glass Joe being a weak fighter, Spaniard Don Flamenco being a dashing bullfighter who knows how to dance, and Russian Soda Popinski who drinks a lot of soft drinks in an E-rated send-up of the vodka-chugging Russian. In the Wii iteration, the characters are, if anything, more stereotypical than in previous installments, though any potential offensiveness is, at least, highly mitigated thanks to each character being voiced in their native language. Also, as it is a Japanese Game, there's also a Japanese character called Piston Hondo who is just as stereotypical as all the others.
• Mystical India: Great Tiger, a "boxer" who fights with attacks like teleporting and illusions. Justified, as Great Tiger is also performs magic for show, and he presumably plays up some of the stereotypes as part of his image.
• National Animal Stereotypes:
  • Bear Hugger the Canadian lumberjack is heavily themed around bears, especially in the Wii game where he has an actual grizzly bear for a sparring partner.
  • The Indian boxer is named Great Tiger, and wears tiger-striped pants. In the NES game, he has a tiger pelt hanging on the post in his corner of the ring.
• National Stereotypes: Among the cast are a cowardly Frenchman, a militaristic German man, a Spanish ladies man, an aggressive Irishman, and several others.
• Once per Episode: Every game in the series features a match against Bald Bull, with the exception of the arcade Super Punch-Out!!, although the developers made up for it by including Bull in Arm Wrestling.
• One-Hit KO: A staple of the series, for both you and opponents. The most well-known character-specific instance across the series is from Bald Bull - if you get hit by his Bull Charge, you're going down. Conversely, if you throw a jab at him just before he throws that punch, he gets knocked down instantly (and in the Wii game, if the uppercut is powered by three stars, it'll be an instant knockout instead). Bear Hugger (only in the second arcade game), Dragon Chan, Von Kaiser (only in the Wii version's Title Defense), Super Macho Man, Mike Tyson/Mr. Dream, and Rick and Nick Bruiser later continue the tradition. Mac himself can pull off OHKOs on almost everyone in the Wii game^note the exception is Title Defense Super Macho Man, whether it's a simple knockdown or a match-finishing knockout (in fact, it's necessary for various otherwise impossible Exhibition challenges).
• Parts Unknown: King Hippo comes from "Hippo Island", where the only thing we know of it is that it's located in the South Pacific.
• Public Domain Soundtrack:
  • "Sakura, Sakura", a traditional Japanese folk song, is used for Piston Hondo's ring entrance.
  • "Ride of the Valkyries" is used as the themes to Von Kaiser^note In Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, also Great Tiger in his second and third rounds, and Super Macho Man in his entrance.
  • Glass Joe's entrance theme is La Marsellaise, the French National Anthem.
  • Don Flamenco's theme is an excerpt from the Georges Bizet's opera Carmen.
  • Soda Popinski's theme is "Song of the Volga Boatman".
• Punny Name: Glass Joe is pronounced similarly to "glass jaw", referencing his fragility. Other examples include Soda Popinski (or Vodka Drunkenski), Bear Hugger (some people do go by the name "Bear"), and Narcis Prince.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Little Mac wears a pink tracksuit when jogging, as seen in the Training Montage in the NES and Wii versions.
• Recycled Title: There are three games with the name "Punch-Out". The latest one was released in 2009 on the Wii. Similarly, there are two games with the name "Super Punch-Out" (the arcade game and the Super Nintendo game).
• Redheads Are Uncool: In the Wii version, Von Kaiser is redheaded, and like Joe, he's seen as a hasbeen and a joke, even getting beaten by a kid!
• Regenerating Health: Released in early 1984 with its first arcade game, this series provides the Ur-Example for the medium. After a boxer gets knocked down and gets up again, the health generates, though never back to full health (with very rare exceptions, such as Bald Bull and Mr. Sandman in the Wii game, when knocked down in their Title Defense rematches). There are also unique instances with certain boxers: Bald Bull in his rematches (he mildly recovers if his health is depleted with a normal punch, only a star-powered uppercut will knock him down properly), Soda Popinski in the Wii game (he drinks soda to recover some health), and Little Mac himself if he's flexing his punches while an opponent is knocked down. Doc Louis can also recover some HP by eating a chocolate in the Doc Louis spinoff.
• Retcon: Various characters would have their origin, weight, and win-loss record change from game to game. Since none of the games are really sequels to each other, it's not really significant like other franchises.
• Rogues Gallery: Several boxers, most notably Glass Joe, Mr. Sandman, Bald Bull and Super Macho Man, have been recurring antagonists from the very early arcade game in the 1980s. In fact, the only one of the arcade boxers that doesn't come back in any way^note If we count Disco Kid as a retooling of Kid Quick is Pizza Pasta.
• Rule of Funny: How else could they get away with such stereotypes? And how else could they let many of the characters get away with fairly blatant cheating?
• Rule of Three: Knocking down an opponent (or getting knocked down yourself) three times in one round results in a TKO. Also, each bout has up to three rounds and in the Wii version Mac can get up to three stars for his star punch.
• The Sandman: Invoked with the Mr. Sandman character, a boxer whose quotes are about to "put to sleep" the opponent.
• Second-Person Attack: The SNES and Wii versions essentially use this perspective, with only a transparent version of the player visible in the foreground.
• Self-Plagiarism: Between the SNES and Wii games, Nintendo made a similar boxing game called Teleroboxer for the Virtual Boy.
• Shoryuken: Little Mac's full-power Star Punch is a rising uppercut that straight up knocks down most of the early opponents outright. The three-stars version in Punch-Out!! Wii is identical to the last hit of Dudley's Rocket Upper Super Art.
• Shout-Out:
  • Dragon Chan is a reference to both Bruce Lee (appearance) and Jackie Chan (name).
  • Super Macho Man was likely named after "Super"star Billy Graham and "Macho Man" Randy Savage.
• Signature Move: Bald Bull's Bull Charge, which he will repeat until he hits Little Mac or Mac successfully counters it.
• Songs in the Key of Panic: The games have a dire "GET UP!" music play if you're knocked down. You only have 10 seconds to get up from the mat or you will be considered KO'd and lose.
• Southpaw Advantage: Much of the reason Soda Popinski (formerly known as Vodka Drunkenski) can be a challenging opponent to face is the fact that he fights southpaw, meaning his patterns are flipped from the standard, and as such, he's trickier to react to.
• Spectacular Spinning: Super Macho Man's Signature Move is the Super Macho Man Combo, a series of spinning backhands which are technically illegal in real life. In nearly all appearances of the character, these punches are instant-knockout moves (the exception is in the Wii game's Contender Mode, as they only deal high damage; the instant-knockdown effect only applies in Title Defense).
• Stage Names: Almost all of the boxers use stage names, though some such as Glass Joe reference their real names while others like Bob Charlie seem to literally be their names.
• Stamina Burn: An important mechanic in the series. You start each match with a number of stamina points that vary between each opponent. Getting hit, hitting the enemy while he's defending or blocking too much reduces stamina and losing all of it prevents you from attacking or defending. You get some back each time you dodge.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Piston Honda/Hondo from the NES and Wii Punch-Out!! is one for Piston Hurricane, who appears in the arcade Punch-Out!! and the SNES Super Punch-Out!!
• Tactical Suicide Boss: Everybody would have a better chance against Little Mac if they didn't have tells, stop to taunt, etc. Of course, they do recognize this in time for Title Defense mode, shoring up some of their vulnerable spots (and sometimes opening up whole new cans of this).
• Timed Mission: You are given a few minutes in a round, with three rounds in the NES and Wii incarnations. If time runs out, you lose unless you score enough points in the case of said NES and Wii incarnations. A strange thing to note about the timer is they all run down extremely fast. 3 minutes of game time can be just a minute and a half real time. The clock does slow down or stop at times when certain actions happen in the fight.
• Toros y Flamenco: Don Flamenco. Besides his name, this fighter likes to comment about everyone's hair, thinks he's very beautiful, dances flamenco (some dance the game designers thought looks like flamenco, anyway) with a rose between his teeth and has a girlfriend named Carmen. And the entrance music is from Bizet's opera — specifically, "The Toreador Song". The Wii game not only retains these characteristics, but adds to them by showing him in a bullfight during his intro cutscene, adding a rose print to his trunks, having him swear his love to Carmen nonstop during his fight, and gives him dialogue in actual Spanish (a trait shared with all other boxers from non-English speaking countries).
• Tranquilization Taunt: Mr. Sandman does this as part of his schtick as sending his opponent to dreamland.
• Unblockable Attack: While most regular punches from the rival opponents can be blocked, uppercuts and overhead punches must be dodged instead. Attacks that inflict an instant knockdown have to be dodged as well (though Bald Bull's charge attack can also be countered with a well-timed hook).
• Vodka Drunkenski: Soda Popinski is the Trope Namer. His stereotype is that of Russians drinking a lot. He was even called Vodka Drunkenski in the arcade version of Super Punch-Out!!, until he was renamed in the console games.
• The Von Trope Family: Von Kaiser. He's a stereotypical World War I-era German aristocrat and apparently a military academy boxing instructor. This still doesn't change the fact that after years of fighting, he has only made it to or has just dropped down to the number two place in the WVBA Minor Circuit. With a record of 23-13. One suspects he's 23-1 against Glass Joe and 0-12 against anyone else.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Almost the whole cast. The only boxers that don't are Narcis Prince, Hoy Quarlow, Mad Clown, Disco Kid (in Title Defense), and Little Mac himself.
• Warm-Up Boss: Glass Joe in the first arcade, NES and Wii games, and his successor Gabby Jay in Super Punch-Out on SNES. They're both rather frail boxers who take a while to mount any offense; their special punch merely consists of them taunting you, and leaving themselves wide open to an easy knockdown.
• Wild Samoan: King Hippo's official bio lists him as hailing from Hippo Island, which is somewhere in the South Pacific. And although he isn't a hippo, he's called that because he looks and sounds like one.