Mayweather against Pacquiao happened. After fans began dreaming up a bout in 2009, after negotiations fell apart in early 2010 and after they dissolved again come 2012, two of the sport’s most successful men finally stepped into the ring at the MGM Grand Garden Arena for the biggest boxing match of our young century. And then, after the incandescent hype, the hand-wringing over Mayweather’s domestic abuse record and Pacquiao’s homophobia, after 36 minutes, the widespread belief set in that we, the public, have been had.
Moments after the fight ended, a YouTube video called “FLOYD MAYWEATHER PUNCH-OUT!!!” began to gain traction. Based on 1987’s Nintendo Entertainment System perennial ( Mike Tyson’s) Punch-Out!!, after entering the code that would unlock a fight with final opponent Tyson, the video depicts Pacquiao in the role of the game’s protagonist Little Mac, having to accept a number of demands before making it to the ring. These demands – the most pertinent being daily blood testing, less money than Mayweather and no rematch – were responsible for 2012’s negotiations spluttering to a halt. Appropriately, upon selecting “NO”, the game over screen appears.
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The original title’s Tyson was a real challenge, with any connecting punches in the first 90 seconds instantly knocking Mac down. Here, Mayweather never deflects or charges, instead moving in for constant holds and allowing “Little Pac” to exude all his energy. In the 12th round, Mayweather moves in on the exhausted Pacquiao and doesn’t so much punch him as pop his glove atop him. Game over.
FLOYD MAYWEATHER PUNCH-OUT!!! (all screens via YouTube)
Uploaded 20 minutes before the boxers’ walkouts, the video was a prediction of how the match would turn out, and is scarily accurate – at one point “Little Pac” says, “This must be really boring to casual fans.” Sure enough, those expecting the Fight of the Century actually got a tedious showcasing of the Mayweather defence, followed by the judges’ verdicts.
“I don’t think anyone was surprised that Mayweather fought the way that he did,” Naya Rodriguez tells me from her home in San Francisco. A former owner of a real estate business, she is one half of Noober Goobers, the YouTube channel responsible for thePunch-Out!! parody. Having sold her business, she now dedicates her time to writing, podcasting and pushing the channel alongside a friend, Goober Guy.
As combat sports aficionados – Rodriguez and Guy also run the weekly combat sport podcast Bushido Talk – the duo were well aware of the fallacy behind the dream match promised to the world. Nevertheless, the success of the video took them by surprise.
“I was thinking that if the match was nothing like how we expected, the video would have been worthless in a day,” shares Guy, who also is behind the online animation Tommy Toe Hold. He prefers to stay anonymous, only sharing that he lives in the Midwest. Part of this comes from the shock of the Punch-Out!! video attracting such great attention. While driving, Guy heard the video he made get name checked on morning radio, a moment he describes as “kinda surreal”.
“I never anticipated it was going to be what it is,” he says, a sense of surprise still evident. Rodriguez describes it as a “fluke”. The video has been viewed over four million times and Noober Goober has only been posting content since the 29th of April.
The idea of a Punch-Out!! parody could barely be considered one in a million, with IGN and ESPN delivering their own takes on the game in the run up to Mayweather-Pacquiao. Noober Goobers’ success comes from not only its savvy timing, but also its makers’ skill at using video game history to break down a topical issue to the everyday viewer. The nostalgic use of an iconic NES game draws parallels between Tyson and Mayweather – the biggest boxers of their respective eras, defined as much by their period of in-ring indestructibility as their abrasive public personas. It also brings to the viewer’s attention how different boxing looks in an era of MMA, in which the biggest stars are defined more by technical prowess than their ability to brawl it out.
Despite being in their infancy, Noober Goobers appear to want their love of video games to say more than the average in-jokey Machinima clip. The Mayweather-Pacquiao skewering works because it uses gaming nostalgia as an opportunity for commentary, acknowledging the world outside consoles and controllers.
“I can remember my cousins owning the game and they would immediately use the code to get to Mike Tyson,” Guy says of the original Punch-Out!!. “They would never fight anybody else – they just wanted to beat Tyson and would get destroyed.” Times have changed, it seems. “Even if you’re not boxing fans, like the many casual fans that watched the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, the satire works because of the parallels between the two boxers.”
Rodriguez echoes her partner’s views. “We don’t want to just make videos about video games, we want to make topical videos, too. You can do that with video games, and I don’t think I’ve seen a lot of channels do that. That’s something unique about us. It’s okay to steer away from just gaming.”
While the success of the Mayweather-Pacquiao video is something the duo acknowledges would be nigh-impossible to replicate, Rodriguez and Guy plan to continue presenting their channel as another way to consider gaming. Their first video, an essay concerning Super Mario Bros.‘s structural and emotional simplicity, showcases these aims.
“Gaming is still a relatively young medium,” Guy professes. “Television and movies have been around for a long time, and you get these love letters to each medium. Gaming doesn’t get a lot of that. If we can keep capturing experiences people have with games they love, they will latch onto those and have an emotional connection. It’s been so important that people know how much you love a game.”
