Punch-Out!! Wii Great Tiger's Story Commercial Transcript & Analysis

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - How about you with your silly questions? Your tell is you're an idiot.

A confession: Originally, I just wanted to do a genius.com-style song lyrics analysis of just Great Tiger's live-action commercial for Punch-Out!! Wii. But it'd be really weird if that just suddenly happened at some random point of 2025 on KoopaTV. So what if I revived Punch-Out!! Week, a one-time KoopaTV tradition, and at the same time it was in 2013? Since there are five standard days of the week and five commercials, that'd be perfect and the people would love it! So yes, I've been planning this for months, and Great Tiger's commercial is my favourite one:

Punch-Out!! Wii Great Tiger Commercial Transcript

[Great Tiger] Well to be honest, I never really thought that I'd be putting the gloves back on again. [Great Tiger walks into a GYM to begin an interview, where he is labelled “GREAT TIGER Former W.V.B.A. Contender”. The commercial switches to a clip from Punch-Out!! NES, where he punches Little Mac but misses two uppercuts, labelled “GREAT TIGER VS. LITTLE MAC 1994”]
I've just been really into my magic for the last few years... and also my music.
[Great Tiger's rap video] ♪ 'cuz I'm the Magic Man, the great GT, I've got more bling on my head than King Louis! ♪ [The rap video is labelled Great Tiger | “I've Purred Long E'nuff (Now Hear Me Roar)” | U Can Teach An Old Tiger New Tricks | Tiger Punch Records]
[Great Tiger back at the gym] The new record drops in July and we're calling the album, “U Can Teach An Old Tiger New Tricks”.
[Great Tiger's rap video] ♪ Send word to my mother... I'm in jail! ♪ [Great Tiger is grabbing onto a chainlink fence]
[Great Tiger, gym] That's because, well, you know... you know the expression, that expression uh...
that you can't teach an old dog new tricks... right...
See because you wouldn't teach a new tiger old tricks, would you?
That would be ridiculous.
That's why... you can teach an old tiger new tricks. It was... [Great Tiger crosses his arms in front of him with each hand's pointer finger sticking out, and the commercial cuts to a voiceless segment of his rap video where he's dancing]
I performed last week... um... twice... two different dates last week.
[Sunny Meadows Employee] So let's give him a warm Sunny Meadows welcome... to Mr. Tiger! [The employee, a woman, starts clapping for Mr. Tiger. Sunny Meadows is portrayed as a retirement home.]
[Great Tiger at the gym] They're very... they're very... free-willing people, you know, they're very... they're very open.
[Great Tiger rapping at Sunny Meadows] ♪ You're going to get beat down by my one-man crew, but it's not going to be that simple, ♪
♪ it's going to feel like a lot of people ♪. [The employee is looking horrified, while the old folks look on with indifference.]
[Sunny Meadows Employee, after the performance is over] You said you were going to sing the classics.
[Great Tiger] Yes, they are classics. They're going to be classics... in the future.
[Sunny Meadows Employee] That doesn't make any sense to me.
[Interviewer, back to the gym] The match is a month away. How do you feel about going up against Little Mac?
[Great Tiger] Well, I can't wait... um... the last time was in 1994, the Major Circuit Title Bout. [Screen cuts to a LITTLE MAC VS. GREAT TIGER JAN. 2 1994 poster in NES graphics]
[Interviewer] And you lost that fight?
[Great Tiger] I did. [Cut to NES Little Mac hooking Great Tiger and knocking him down (with Great Tiger's Punch-Out!! Wii voice actor making a pained noise), with Referee Mario declaring a KO! without counting to 10]
[Great Tiger] See, somehow he just knew exactly when my Tiger Punch was coming.
[Interviewer] Right, well it's the... the jewel, right? [The jewel on Great Tiger's turban flashes and makes a noise]
[Great Tiger] What are you talking about? [The jewel flashes again]
[Interviewer] The... the jewel in your turban? It's your tell, I mean it flashes right before you punch. [The jewel flashes and makes a noise repeatedly at this point]
[Great Tiger] My tell? How about you? How about you with your silly questions? Your tell is you're an idiot. [After the jewel is flashing uncontrollably, Great Tiger walks off, screams, and starts punching a punching bag. He then returns to the interviewer with duct tape placed over the jewel.]
[Great Tiger] Any further inquiries?
[Narrator] They're coming back! 12 classic characters, plus new ones, in the all new Punch-Out!! for Wii! [Cuts to game footage of Little Mac ducking under Great Tiger's punch after his jewel flashes, punching Von Kaiser, dodging Soda Popinski's hook, Star Punching Disco Kid, gut-punching Piston Hondo, and punching away Glass Joe, and then cutting to the Punch-Out!! Wii logo and then the general Wii logo, with the ii letters making a noise as they bow to the camera]

Punch-Out!! Wii Great Tiger Commercial Analysis

This is such a quality commercial with a lot going on, so there is a lot to get into. First thing's first...

The Timeline

The commercial shows that there was a Major Circuit Title Bout on January 2, 1994 (a Sunday). Piston Hondo's commercial had Little Mac fighting Piston Hondo in 1990 in the Major Circuit as well. There's two things to get out of this. One, if it has truly “been 15 years since I stepped into the ring” as Little Mac's commercial suggested, then 1994 is probably the last year that he was boxing, which brings us to 2009, when Punch-Out!! Wii and the commercials released. Two, Little Mac might've been stuck in the Major Circuit for five years after losing to King Hippo in 1989 in the World Circuit, fending off challengers like Piston Hondo and Great Tiger in a Title Defense trying to go for his belt, but never making it out of the Major Circuit again. (Or maybe he kept going in and out between the Major Circuit title holder and the bottom World Circuit?) This plateau and the frustration around it may explain why Little Mac would call it quits.

Prior to 2009, Great Tiger has put in at least a few years building up his rap persona, as well as what seems to be his own record label, Tiger Punch Records, which is a reference to his signature boxing attack.

About Sunny Meadows...

There are several senior living / assisted living / retirement communities in the United States called Sunny Meadows. These range from being in Indiana, to Washington state, to Missouri, to Moreno Valley, California (very far from where Piston Hondo is). We don't know where Great Tiger is at, though a highly successful performer like him is surely going everywhere in the country or perhaps the world to show off his music. (And maybe his magic, too.) It's a safe assumption that he only performed at Sunny Meadows once, and the other performance he gave the week before the interview was somewhere else. 'cause, you know, it didn't seem like Sunny Meadows was keen on inviting him back.

Lyrics Analysis

And now for the main part of the article! “I've Purred Long E'nuff (Now Hear Me Roar)”, which appears to be the name of his song that released July 2009, is a reference to his Punch-Out!! NES quote, "I have purred long enough. Now hear me roar!"

♪ 'cuz I'm the Magic Man, the great GT, I've got more bling on my head than King Louis! ♪

This is not a great start for Great Tiger. So, Magic Man is an interesting reference, because that is a stage name for Paulie Malignaggi, who is the boxer that acted as Little Mac in Mac's commercial. So he really isn't the Magic Man. And then we get to “the great GT”, which is like saying “ATM machine”—it's redundant acronym syndrome because GT already stands for Great Tiger. The great Great Tiger. He could've picked something else. As for more bling on his head, he only has one jewel on his turban. Meanwhile, there are nineteen King Louis of just France, and a twentieth guy in the modern era claiming he should be recognised as King Louis XX. (I assume the plural of King Louis is King Louis, like a Pokémon.) Even if Great Tiger uses his magic to clone himself, he still can't have more bling than every King Louis. Or maybe he just means one, but he didn't specify which.

It's a bold claim to make when you clearly only have one piece of bling on your head.

♪ Send word to my mother... I'm in jail! ♪

Well, he didn't sing this line very melodically. Great Tiger references mother's milk in Punch-Out!! Wii, proclaiming that Little Mac should drink his mother's milk and then come back to the fight after. Doc Louis also brought up in the NES version that his father is a great magician back in India. Great Tiger evokes the imagery of a caged tiger with this line, which might make sense in the context of the song.

Maybe he should just turn around and go to whatever is in the background.

♪ You're going to get beat down by my one-man crew, but it's not going to be that simple, ♪
♪ it's going to feel like a lot of people ♪.

This is easily the best lyrics in the commercial, in terms of being clever. I don't have nitpicks against this. It's referencing how Great Tiger is just one man as far as the W.V.B.A. or his tax dependents go, but with his magic talents, he can form a whole crew to beat you down. It's going to feel like a lot of people because his clones can deal damage, just like he can.

Great Tiger's one-man crew, flexing their muscles after they beat you.

I agree with “the great GT” that surely these will be classics in the future. Well, I'm in the future now, and no one talks about his songs, but... maybe with this article, people will do that again.

Does Great Tiger have the heart for boxing?

Unlike Piston Hondo, who clearly misses boxing because his life still revolves around it despite him claiming it doesn't, and unlike King Hippo who you'll read about soon in another article, Great Tiger actually has legitimate talents besides boxing. We never get too much of a sense in the games on why he's boxing to begin with, nor in this commercial. He has his magic and his music, and even if the music doesn't work out, the magic is quite good.

If you look close enough, the smoke coming out of the dome (caused by Great Tiger)
resembles music notes. ♪

Unlike the other contenders, Great Tiger is probably quite sincere when he says that he never thought he'd be putting the boxing gloves back on again. Maybe his reason is just as another promotional method for his magic and music act. He's probably more apt for these other gigs anyway, since it took him, what, 22 years (1987 to 2009) to figure out that the jewel on his turban is a tell for when he's about to throw a punch? The interviewer figured that one out right away.

I do enjoy Great Tiger being adversarial to the interviewer, assuming he's a member of the media, calling him an idiot. He was way ahead of his time in being combative to journalists. And he sure shut him down with the duct tape on his turban. (Which perhaps would've been a useful technique to use against Little Mac as well.)

Even if Great Tiger isn't the best boxer, Doc Louis still seemed to think he was a greater threat than Piston Hondo, given the training dummies present in Doc's Gym. That speaks to the respect—or intimidation—that the man who allegedly has more bling than King Louis wields in the ring.


One more article left in Punch-Out!! Week! What did you think of Great Tiger's commercial? Would you listen to his album? Ludwig would love to! Some of the lines were rough, but the one-man crew bit was great. Ludwig would know, as a renowned musician himself.