Punch-Out!! Wii Little Mac's Story Commercial Transcript & Analysis

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Little Mac once again the best!

When people think about live-action Punch-Out!! commercials for Punch-Out!! Wii, they are thinking of the one that I'm going to dissect for this article, the one that is embedded below. They might not know or think about the other four—but that's what Punch-Out!! Week is for. This is the commercial that features real-life boxer Paulie Malignaggi as Little Mac, and Isiah Whitlock Jr. reprises his role as Doc Louis:

Punch-Out!! Wii Little Mac Commercial Transcript

[Little Mac] It's the worst feeling that can happen to a fighter. [Little Mac practicing punching an aerially suspended speed bag]
You know, you're a world champion— all your dreams you've accomplished them... [Little Mac is jumping over a jump rope and thinks back to the Punch-Out!! NES newspaper article from April 1, 1987 declaring him the new champion of the W.V.B.A. World Circuit]
...and then it's suddenly like this, they just take it away from you. [Little Mac snaps his fingers, as the screen cuts to LITTLE MAC VS. KING HIPPO, dated 1989, featuring King Hippo knocking out Mac with an overhead chop]
That punch cost me the W.V.B.A. title. [Referee Mario in NES graphics declares Little Mac knocked out by KO! without counting to 10]
After 15 years, it's going to be good to get back in the ring.
I don't think anybody works harder than me, so I'm a very hardworking fighter, I'm probably one of the hardest working fighters of this generation. [Little Mac is using an exercise bike, observing a guy next to him biking harder than he is, then he speeds up himself.]
I can't afford to sleep. I'll sleep when I'm dead, man, right now it's time to work. [Mac is pummeling the speed bag again.]
Little Mac once again the best! [Little Mac talking in front of a mirror in a locker room.]
'sup man? [Little Mac is asking someone who entered the locker room as he was hyping himself up.]
How long have I been with Doc? Pft, a long time.
[Doc Louis] King Hippo here, baby! Come on, jab! Stick-and-move! Jab to the body of King Hippo! Come on! [Doc Louis is holding up a giant King Hippo-shaped punching bag for Little Mac to punch]
[Little Mac] I trust Doc.
[Doc Louis] Get King Hippo!
[Doc Louis] That's it, come on baby, come on, come on. [Scene changes to Little Mac punching a bust of Great Tiger]
Dance like a fly, bite like a mosquito.
[Little Mac] I... I don't know what that means, Doc.
[Doc Louis] You don't know what that means? Come over here, I'll tell you. [Doc Louis motions Little Mac to walk over to his corner, which he does, and then Doc smacks Mac's head with some paper, and then motions for him to get back to training.]
Let's go!
What do I think of Little Mac's chances against Piston Hondo? [Scene cuts to Doc Louis eating a chocolate bar outside on a bench.]
We going to be saying to sayonara to him... [takes a loud bite of the chocolate bar]
That's Japanese for goodbye.
Great Tiger ain't nothing but a little kitty cat.
[Doc Louis, cut to Mac punching the Great Tiger bust] He ain't got no hard right, gon' hit you back!
King Hippo going to be the king of... lose?
THERE YOU GO, THERE YOU GO. HIT 'EM BABY, HIT IT!
They say a comeback is like a yo-yo...
You going to go down but you coming right back up. ...And then may end up walking the dog.
[Doc Louis] Gonna go work it! Work it! Ohohoh!
[Little Mac] It's been 15 years since I stepped into the ring, but now it's hippo season, and I just got my hunting license. [Little Mac is running after Doc Louis in a pink sweatshirt while Doc Louis is riding a bicycle with a chocolate bar]
[Narrator] They're coming back! 12 classic characters plus new ones in the all-new Punch-Out!! for Wii! [Game footage of Little Mac beating up King Hippo, Von Kaiser, Disco Kid, and then Glass Joe. 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 Little Mac Commercial Analysis

There is a lot to cover here, since this commercial sets in motion the actual storyline of all four live-action commercials besides Doc Louis's. Doc Louis's didn't have story (and his commercial probably isn't canon because it portrays Little Mac's story as a videogame and not real life—the NES clips in the commercials are portrayals of how video-recording quality was like back in the 1980s and early 1990s, not as a game), just controls and game advice—but it's in Little Mac's and the opposing boxers’ commercials that we must try to piece what happened to Little Mac. This also has implications that go into the storyline for Punch-Out!! Wii, particularly the Title Defense mode.

The Timeline

On April 1, 1987, Little Mac became the new champion of the W.V.B.A. World Circuit. This is directly from Punch-Out!! on the NES, which released in October 1987 as Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! (the Mr. Dream version would release in 1990, by the way).

Some time in 1989, King Hippo challenged Little Mac to his title as W.V.B.A. world champion. King Hippo won.

Little Mac then says “after 15 years, it's good to get back in the ring.” But 15 years from when? 1989? Does this take place in 2004? And does that mean Little Mac is in his 30s? Well, we'll get more dates in later commercials, but with regards to Little Mac's age, Paul Malignaggi himself was ~28 when the commercial was produced.

Note that in Punch-Out!! Wii, Little Mac is 17 years old, just like he was on the NES game, so the events of the commercial are not canon to the events of the games. However, Captain Rainbow may be canon to the commercial, as an explanation for what happened to Little Mac in-between 1987 and the 2000s.

So what kind of person is Little Mac?

He is the hardest working fighter of the generation, obviously. But he was hardly working in those 15 years he had “retired” according to Captain Rainbow—he left the ring and became fat, and also estranged from Doc Louis. Little Mac's commercial is all we have to go on for Little Mac's and Doc Louis's backstories here. Mac has been with Doc for a long time, and Mac trusts him, but they weren't together that whole time, if Mac's statement about “but now it's hippo season, and I just got my hunting license.” (emphasis mine) is true. It was Mac's decision to return to the ring, as we learn in the other commercials. His own timing. So what changed his mind? We'll... never really know, I guess—perhaps he got to the age where he had a midlife crisis, realised he peaked in high school, and wanted to do something with his life. Either way, Doc Louis has faith in Mac after all of this time.

He's one of the hardest working fighters and can't afford to sleep after being out of the ring.

Little Mac's ethnic background

No one has ever asked me this directly, but even still, you may be wondering... why did I believe that Little Mac is “half white half hispanic”? Just... you know... it was my interpretation of him being ambiguously brown in Punch-Out!! Wii. That's not mere Mediterranean olive, that's brown. But maybe he's just very Sicilian or had a huge sunburn before Punch-Out!! Wii began? Paul Malignaggi isn't brown like this. He went from white chocolate to milk chocolate.

Maybe Little Mac isn't Hispanic and there are other brown-skinned possibilities than that.
But something massive happened to his skin between iterations.
I had my interpretation and you're free to have yours (yours might be more accurate).

Little Mac is also, like, the only guy who doesn't act like a stereotype in the Punch-Out!! series, so that's another point of ambiguity with him! Compare to, say, that red-hatted plumber in his cartoons where all he can do is talk about pasta or how meatballs feel.

Referencing Other Boxers and Quotes

All of the references to the other boxers come from Doc Louis, not from Little Mac (besides the hippo season). You'll hopefully notice that the Punch-Out!! Week order is in the order that Doc Louis mentions them. Piston Hondo's sayonara, Great Tiger the little kitty cat, and King Hippo to be the king of lose. Doc Louis also set up training equipment themed around King Hippo (Little Mac's main enemy in this portrayal), as well as Great Tiger. Maybe Piston Hondo isn't much of a threat? I don't know why they chose those three, but it may or may not be a coincidence that Piston Hondo, Great Tiger, and King Hippo are probably the three least popular opponent boxers in Punch-Out!! week, going by this All Opponents Animations & Quotes playlist's view counts. (Great Tiger is the least popular, then Piston Hondo, then King Hippo, and then... Donkey Kong.)

Left: King Hippo-shaped punching bag. Right: Punchable Great Tiger bust.
Note the DOC'S GYM sign in the background.

Just like his own commercial and the games, Doc Louis mentions stick-and-move. He also gives his classic dance like a fly, bite like a mosquito quote. There'll be more of these NES references in coming commercials, too! Doc Louis also wishes sayonara to Piston Hondo in Punch-Out!! Wii, too. And Doc has a bunch of really cool quotes in this in general, like how a comeback is like a yo-yo. It might be a shame that Mac almost stops talking in the second half of the commercial, since Doc Louis is the guy who talks the most in the game itself, and he got his own commercial, too!


This was the most famous of the commercials, but was it Ludwig's favourite? You'll find out if you keep reading the rest of this series published across the rest of the week!