If you are of a certain generation, there’s a very good chance that you grew up playing the iconic ‘Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!’ video game from Nintendo, which first released on the NES all the way back in 1987.
Whilst Nintendo would go on to generate more than $1.7 billion from the video game, considered by many to be one of the best of the NES era, Mike Tyson himself would only make around $1.2 million from the deal – less than 1% of its total revenue.
Nintendo first approached Mike Tyson for ‘Punch-Out!’ video game in 1987
According to an archive on the N-Sider website, a platform that once discussed everything NES, Nintendo President Minoru Arakawa first got the idea to include Mike Tyson in the NES port of ‘Punch-Out!’ after watching him knock out Tyrell Biggs in October 1987.
Arakawa was reportedly so impressed with Tyson’s “power and skill” in the boxing ring that he approached the heavyweight to add his name and likeness to the video game that was set to release just a few months later.
Nintendo hoped that having ‘Iron’ attached to the project and changing its title to ‘Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!’ could increase sales in North America; and they were certainly right, with more than two million copies sold in the US/Canada alone.
Unfortunately, that deal would quickly sour after Tyson was “dragged out into the spotlight for his divorce with Robyn Givens,” with evidence showing that Tyson had been physically abusive towards the actress.
When the licensing agreement ran out just three years later, Nintendo would make a controversial U-turn on the video game and completely remove Tyson from the franchise – a decision that Tyson still laments to this day.
Mike Tyson laments his payday from Nintendo’s ‘Punch-Out!’ video game
Whilst ‘Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!’, later renamed back to just ‘Punch-Out!’, sold more than two million copies in North America, the legendary boxer himself would only get a small piece of the total $1.7 billion revenue.
There had been rumors that Tyson earned just $50,000 from the deal and even though he disputed that claim during an interview on Vlad TV some years ago, remained adamant that he got the short end of the stick.
“Hey, that was a bad deal, but I don’t think it was 50 G’s… I think it was $1.2 million or something in that range but it was just a really bad deal.
“I didn’t know nothing about business, what the hell,” lamented Tyson, later revealing that there had been talk of a sequel with a separate publisher before the licensing agreement ran out.
“It broke all the records… We anticipate them doing a new one too. They were discussing taking me out of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!, and it was a hailstorm of negative reviews for that… And so we’re contemplating doing it with someone else, and no one can be angry, and then we can go our separate ways happy.”
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In 2019, Tyson would send one final tweet Nintendo’s way, claiming that he’d heard that they were planning on “doing the new “Punch Out” without even contacting me.
“It won’t be the same. My knockouts made the game. That’s whack.”
Mike Tyson returns to the ring later this week to face Jake Paul, live on Netflix.