Mike Tyson, Little Mac, And Planning Around Getting Punched In The Face

Mike Tyson famously said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

And who can disagree. 

I like to think of this as the Mike Tyson Rule. 

You know what you want to happen, but you also know reality is coming for you, it’s gonna punch you in the face, and your plan – at some point – is going to need a seriously quick and effective update (no matter how badly you just got your bell rung).

So what can we do? We’ll need more than the Mike Tyson Rule. We’ll need the Little Mac Rule. 

Oh, and we’ll also need to know how and when to throw a star punch. 

Little Mac, the hero of the Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out Nintendo game, can take a shot. Not too many, he’s a little dude and all the button-mashing in the world can’t bring him back from just any uppercut or jab, but he knows how to get punched in the face. 

Or rather, you – playing as Little Mac – can learn to get punched in the face, avoid getting punched in the face, and throw some punches to other faces from the safe confines of your living room. 

The Little Mac Rule is as follows:

It’s just a game, and to win you have to learn to play the game to not lose. If you want to punch-out, you have to not get punched-out. Even if you get punched in the face, the goal is still to not lose FIRST. 

And as a bonus, along the way you can pick up special reactionary tricks like how to throw a star punch. 

There are opportunistic gaps when we’ll have special shots we can take. We need to take those. We need to carefully time and throw our star punches too. They’re key on the path to winning by not losing. 

The Mike Tyson Rule is everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. The Little Mac Rule is to plan beyond one punch in the face. Because to win punch-out you have to not get punched-out. 

And the bonus is – learn how to earn, store, and throw a star punch. 

Ps. Here’s Mike Tyson losing to his video game self (which at least makes me feel better about never being able to beat him) + a speed run of the NES game that makes me want to devote part of my life to being able to do this (but I probably won’t, but maybe I will):