10 Video Game Moments You'll Never See Again
2. Mike Tyson - Punch-Out!! And WWE
When Nintendo brought Punch-Out!! from the arcade to the NES they had the stroke of genius to include heavy weight champion Mike Tyson. Not only would the name sell the title in the West but making players work their way to the end of the game to fight Tyson was a great way to sell the cartridge rather than lose out to rentals.
Of course, contracts like this don’t last forever and Tyson’s time was eventually up. In later releases he was replaced with the ultimately generic Mr Dream and this second edition effectively replaced Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!!.
What makes this weirder is that it happened again, for a totally different series.
WWE13’s career mode went nostalgia heavy as it ran through the greatest hits of the Attitude Era. One of these was replaying the WrestleMania Stone Cold vs Shawn Michaels match where Tyson had famously appeared as guest enforcer. A contract for Tyson’s likeness allowed THQ to add the champ to the game as DLC.
However, when 2K did a Stone Cold showcase mode for WWE2k16 Tyson was nowhere to be seen. Instead, he was replaced by a generic white dude called “Special Enforcer” who himself might as well have been a retired Mr Dream.
Maybe Tyson only likes to do something once or perhaps he has high demands for extending contracts but his obvious absences from both feel very final.