The small, simple elements of life make this otherwise insignificant journey worthwhile.

The smell of freshly cut grass, the roar of a curling ocean wave, a closed fist crashing violently into the noggin of a fat man named Hippo.

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Little Mac was a fighter from the Bronx. Considering Mac was roughly three feet tall and 107 pounds, not much was going in Mac’s favor. Especially when his opponents out-dwarfed, out-stereotyped and outperformed Mac on a 5-to-1 ratio.

In the magical world of Nintendo boxing, “weight class” was just a figurative term for “anyone, any size.” Usually, they tended to be the weirdest brutes this side of the Nintendo Kingdom.

Weird meaning stereotypical. Trent Lott has a better chance for political revival than this game does at facing a modern market. The Jesse Jackson clown bandwagon would be playing the race card, its only card, faster than a 60-year-old Jack Nicholson can bed a 20-year-old female. Check these out:

Piston Honda, in between mean scowls and “Banzais,” was a Japanese man named after auto parts. Don Flamenco was a Spanish boxer/flamenco dancer. King Hippo monsterizes fat, whoops, horizontally-challenged people, and Great Tiger, oh … he was from a different universe. Bombay, India, to be exact. Great Tiger dressed in a turban, and boxed in a turban, which might be illegal in the politically correct world, but is OK in the boxing world.

Asians named after auto parts, Indians with turbans – none of these homeboys have squat on Mike Tyson. Tyson, if you don’t know much about him already, is an inflated cartoon of himself. Whenever Tyson speaks, something stupid crawls out. His voice is high, too, like Minnie Mouse, and he speaks with a lisp. But Tyson, in his prime, killed.

Tyson became such a problem that Nintendo had to re-do Mike Tyson’s “Punch Out” after Tyson was convicted of rape (heh, sticking and moving) in the early ’90s. Mike Tyson’s “punch out” became Punch-Out, and a black Mike Tyson became a white Mr. Dream.

At the end of the game, an extremely powerful Tyson awaited Mac, and one Tyson punch could knock Little Mac into next week.

With enough time and patience, a player could whoop Tyson. That is a definite Nintendo lesson: Even the smallest man can beat the crap out of every single person from every part of the world in a matter of weeks. It’s a Nintendo fairy tale.

Ahhh … the simple things in life.