The speedrunner Summoning Salt has set a new world record for a blindfolded run of Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!. The NES title, featuring the classic character Little Mac, has maintained a notably strong popularity since its first release in 1987. In recent years, Nintendo has had to removed Tyson’s name and image from the game's re-releases, although Tyson has since expressed a desire to star in a fighting game once more.
Speedrunning is a popular pastime for gamers. Even just watching a run, cheering on the player, can be a great source of entertainment. In the past, this has led to speedrunning becoming the basis for incredibly sucessful charity drives. Summoning Salt himself has no doubt contributed to this popularity, being a well-known name in speedrunning circles himself. His YouTube channel currently boasts over 1 million subscribers, with most of his videos receiving similarly high numbers of views. As one of the best-known speedrunners in gaming, Summoning Salt has continued to push the envelope for beating games quickly.
On March 5th, Summoning Salt’s record-breaking time of 19:41.750 was verified on Speedrun.com for the blindfolded run of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!. Summoning Salt is seen to be using a shopping bag to obstruct his vision whilst playing the game. This achievement means that Summoning Salt currently holds first place on five of the six leaderboards for Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!. In the Reddit comments section, SummoningSalt has also made it clear that he intends to surpass this performance, writing "I'm planning to take this run ~2 minutes lower in the coming days and weeks...a round 1 Tyson at the end is the goal". This drive to improve and set a new record is a feeling shared by speedrunners across many games.
Blindfolded speedruns are undoubtedly one of the most difficult challenges in gaming, requiring extreme dedication. However, they are possible. A speedrunner recently beat Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice in under two hours. Summoning Salt is uniquely well suited to undertaking this challenge for Punch-Out!!. He currently holds multiple records for Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! on speedrun.com, and also serves as one of the moderators for the game’s leaderboards on the site.
To beat the final boss of Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, Mike Tyson himself, in a single round, is obviously an incredibly difficult task and even more so while being unable to see. Failure is certain to be encountered time and time again with a single boss can easily ruin an otherwise perfect speedrun. But should Summoning Salt succeed, it will definitely place his record head and shoulders above those of his fellow speedrunners.
Sources: Speedrun.com, Meester Tweester/Reddit, Summoning Salt/YouTube