zallard1 | Punch Out!! (Wii) - Title Defense Mr. Sandman [0:38.73] (Non-Headgear WR) @zallard1 | Uploaded March 2021 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
EDIT: I've beaten this time with a 34.64 using headgear if you wanna check it out here: youtube.com/watch?v=spMeNqEKjdk

This is a weird case, because I intentionally did an obsolete strategy on this fight, but there's a decent reason for it. The best known strategy for Title Defense Sandman currently requires the use of the 100 loss headgear, which is used to tank a ton of provoked hits since the timer slows down significantly during these hits. You also cannot use the headgear in exhibition, so you *need* to have a separate 100 loss file and be at TD Sandman in career mode to get *one* shot at completing the fight.

That all just seemed like a pain and it feels weird using a tool that's in the game for players who have trouble progressing in the game for a speedrun. Also, my current new file I've started since I've come back to Punch Out Wii has a terrible TD Sandman time and I hate it, so I did the next best strategy that Mysteryman found so the time looks nice in my menu, which is possibly the weakest reason to grind this ever lol.

Given all of that, this strategy was overall really fun to pull off! The challenge is quite high, with a lot of interesting quirks that you need to keep in mind throughout the fight. I gave this strategy literally a single night of learning/attempts to throw down some kind of time on this, and I don't regret a second of it, hahaha.

This fight begins by buffering a hook to make Sandman's first attack come out faster. Then, instead of countering his eye for a star, I punch him in the gut to make him reel to the side. If you do a delayed jab at just the right timing, Sandman will sidestep it and do a hook. If you get him to throw a "MY TURN" hook, this slows down the timer SUBSTANTIALLY! The side that Mac throws his jab will determine what type of hook Sandman throws, and it alternates every punch that Mac throws with a "left right right" order usually.

Anyways, with the first gut punch that intercepts his first wink, a delayed left jab is needed to get the first correct hook out of Sandman. For his second wink, throw another delayed gut punch, followed by a delayed *right* jab this time for the "My Turn" hook. This part here is tricky, and I didn't pull out TAS tools to explore this further, but you need to press "up" in a specific way so that Mac can throw a blocked punch faster than normal after Sandman hits him the 2nd time. My very janky solution to this was to mash up and punch rapidly to get it to work sometimes. Whenever I do the headgear strategy, I'll definitely have a better explanation for this one!

Once that blocked punch is thrown, throw yet another delayed left jab, take the hook to the face, then counter his quick overhead punch (this window is much tighter than the first fight). You'll have to throw a blocked punch to cancel his "Night Night" hook, then throw the star after a slight hesitation to cancel his "Stand still!" attack. This will force him into throwing his quiet hook from the left, which is right before his first Dreamland Express. Counter this for a star, then throw a delayed right hook to force him into one more "My turn" hook, then duck it, throw a punch to make him reel, then throw a star punch late enough to where the timer doesn't speed up, yet still scores an instant knockdown. A 2:43 is pretty tight, but doable here.

For phase 2, you need to counter his eye this time since your heart count is shot. This eye counter is random, with a 50% chance of being in your favor, so just guess which one you get, and commit fully to it being on your side. Once you get the star, throw it asap to skip his 2nd wink, then counter the 3rd wink, which will 100% be on the first side he started with. He'll immediately go into a second Dreamland Express, oddly enough. Once he start to back up, provoke him with a right hook, then duck the final "My turn" hook, throw a punch, and do another delayed star punch to hopefully take him down for the second time. I was really close to a 2:31 here, which is a shame I missed it, but I don't feel like grinding this fight super hard to get it.

For phase 3, there's a glitch you can do to punch Sandman as the cutscene starts, which is frame perfect (EDIT: it appears to actually be 2 frames after Mystery double checked it). It's kind of hilarious and serves no purpose, so it's just funny frame perfect swag. This phase is just countering 2 winks that always start on the left, and buffer the double star for the TKO.

So, I decided to do this fight because I'm taking a detour away from Wii Punch Out for a little bit. I've promised sinister1 that I would grind Mike Tyson for the fabled phase 3 uppercut, which I've never attempted before. This was off of an ill timed bet/promise I made, but is kind of funny how it unfolded. Check out sinister's perfectly executed Tyson PB here, along with the lore that goes along with this silly promise: youtube.com/watch?v=fVeE7SdCjiA

Anyways, thank you for watching!