Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!/Major Circuit

Don Flamenco

 * Record: 22-3 9 KO
 * Age: 23
 * Weight: 152 lbs
 * From: Madrid, Spain
 * Decision: 10,000 points

Don Flamenco can be difficult if you are not familiar with his pattern. First, he will stand and taunt you. When you try to jab him, he will do his Flamenco Punch, a powerful move that will make this match difficult if you don't dodge it. When he does this move, he will stand up straight and raise his arm, quickly followed by a very swift and broad punch that looks sort of like an uppercut. Dodge as soon as you see him raise his arm (in fact, you can dodge just after he blocks the punch).

After you dodge the punch, hit him with alternating jabs: left, right, left, right, etc. It will not work if you hit the same side twice, or if you are a bit too slow in alternating the jabs (which causes him to be knocked back slightly). He will just stand there letting you hit him with alternating jabs until he falls down! When he gets up, he will immediately do a Flamenco Punch, which you likewise need to immediately dodge, then you repeat the process. If he hasn't hit you by the time you knock him down the second time, you will probably get a KO!

An even easier method, is when he gets up after the first knock down and goes for the Flamenco punch, instead of dodging, just start throwing left jabs to his stomach. He will keep trying for his Flamenco punch and you keep countering with a left jab to the bread basket until he goes down. He will not get up after this.

If you're unlucky and he knocks you down, beware that he will immediately do a Flamenco Punch when you get up. He will also perform the punch when you are stunned, which is dodged just as easily.

King Hippo

 * Record: 18-9 18 KO
 * Age: ??
 * Weight: ???
 * From: Hippo Island, South Pacific
 * Decision: Cannot win by decision

King Hippo is not so tough once you know his secret. He has two telegraphs: if he raises a fist to his mouth, he's about to punch. But it's the other telegraph you're interested in: he quickly vibrates, opens his mouth, and goes for the overhead smash. Give him a jab to his open mouth. If you do, his boxing shorts will drop and expose his bandaged navel. Repeatedly punch that bandage up to eight times until he pulls his pants up. Just repeat this process until you knock him down. He'll fall back against the ropes, and will be unable to get up.

He has one move where he will jump back and start hopping around. After this he jumps to the center and does many open mouthed punches. This is a big chance to do a lot of damage to him. His punches are quite powerful, so beware! It is not possible to earn stars against King Hippo.

Not doing well? Here's a small trick: keep punching him in the stomach until you're tired. Then, once he starts this barrage of open mouth punches (he does it when you're tired, that's the point), dodge them until you regenerate (usually you dodge twice to regenerate). Then, on the next open mouth punch, punch him in the mouth and punch repeatedly in the stomach. Keep doing it AFTER he starts blocking, until you get tired again. Repeat the process until you K.O. him. The reason why it has to be body blows and not uppercuts is because when you uppercut he usually counterattacks.

Great Tiger

 * Record: 24-5 3 KO
 * Age: 29
 * Weight: 132 lbs
 * From: Bombay, India
 * Decision: 10,000 points

Great Tiger starts the first round with a series of jabs. He has a telegraph for his jab that is a little difficult to see. The jewel of his turban will flash, but you have to watch closely because it's small and the color change isn't tremendous. Alternatively, you can throw a high punch which he will block and counter-punch. Dodge his counter-punch and get a high punch in of your own and repeat. You will only be able to get one punch in at a time.

Following the fact that you can jab to make him counter-punch, if you block this counter-punch instead of dodging it, Great Tiger will be stunned, allowing you to get in 5 jabs. You can keep doing this and maybe knock him down quickly.

After 60 seconds of this, he will go into his series of uppercuts. Hit him with a body shot in the direction he ducks down in and repeat with the opposite direction as he switches to the other side. You will get a star for every one of these body shots. Once you have 3 stars built up, let him throw his uppercut, dodge it, and then counter with a high punch then and uppercut. Repeat this process until you run out of stars then get 3 more by hitting him with body shots and do it over again. This way makes Great Tiger one of the easiest fighters to beat in the game (equivalent to Von Kaiser). Done correctly, you will easily have him TKO'd before 2:30 in the first round when he does his first magician routine.

At 2:30 in the first round, he will disappear and do his magician routine. As soon as he disappears, hold to block. You will see shadows of him going about in a circle, pausing when you block his punch. Each time you block his punch, hold to block the next one. After the fifth time you block, he will stand in the middle, dizzy and stunned. Hit him with a jab or uppercut and he will fall down. He will start the magician routine at the beginning of round 2 and 3, as well as at 1:30, and 2:30 in either round.

Bald Bull

 * Record: 34-4 29 KO
 * Age: 36
 * Weight: 298 lbs
 * From: Istanbul, Turkey
 * Decision: Cannot win by decision

Bald Bull telegraphs a jab by circling his fists. He telegraphs a hook by rapidly raising and lowering his guard. Dodge either attack and return jabs as normal. In the beginning, he will do only jabs. Then he will start doing hooks and uppercuts. He will do a jab every once in a while to catch you off-guard.

When opening against Bald Bull, when he circle his fists, try to throw jabs to his face twice. If successful, you will get a star after the 2nd jab. Then you can attempt to alternate between uppercuts and star-earning jabs. If you succeed at this strategy, you will knock him down in 18 seconds so you can TKO him in the first round. You can also earn stars by jabbing him in the face just as he winds up for a right hook, but the timing is difficult.

At times he will jump back and run toward you. This is his Bull Charge. He does this at 2:30 in every round, as well as 2:00 in Round 1, 1:00 in Round 2, and 1:30 in Round 3. After hopping forward at you, he will do a really fast uppercut that will instantly knock you down. However, if you throw a body blow right after he performs the third jump, you will hit him in the stomach and instantly knock him down. If you dodge the Bull Charge, he will just jump back and do it again, and again, until one of you gets knocked down or the clock runs out.

If you are bad at timing the Bull Charge, you're in luck. There's a camera in the lower right corner of the crowd that will flash in the middle of the Bull Charge. If you time it well and punch him around the time the camera flashes, you will knock him out. It will still require timing, but at least you know the Charge has a telegraph. The camera won't flash in the rematch. Watch the bearded man in the bottom left of the crowd, and punch when he nods. This will knock Bald Bull down. In order to make this easier, you can dodge the first Bull Charge, and Bald Bull will only go to about halfway down the ring. The bearded man will still nod, but you have a 13 frame window to punch as opposed to 4 frames. (Nobody knew this secret until 29 years after the release of the game).