Punch-Out!!/WMG

Little Mac is dead

 * He got knocked out by Glass Joe because the guy is only 2 inches tall and Glass Joe's fist is bigger than his head. When he connected a punch back in the original arcade title, he broke his skull and Mac dreamed the rest of the series up.
 * Jossed, it's the VIDEO boxing tournament. Which means not only could Little Mac not be dead, he and anyone else who entered couldn't really feel any injuries.

The soda/vodka Soda Popinski/Vodka Drunkinski drinks contains steroids.

 * Practically made obvious during the TD match in Punch-Out Wii.
 * Worse...he's drinking Vodka and Red Bull.
 * Well, Steroids wouldn't act that quickly. More likely it's laced with some Adrenalin or some similar super-stimulant.
 * Or just a hell of a lot of caffeine.

Dragon Chan was with his family, having adventures with his niece and uncle during the Wii version of Punch Out.

 * That, or he had jumped to the moon.

The Developers of the Wii game are going to do a Donkey Kong game next

 * Why do I say this? Well, because of the cameo as the final Mystery boxer, and the fact that poor old DK hasn't really had a proper adventure since DK 64, so it's high time they give him a new one.
 * Nope, turns out Retro Studios is handling the next Donkey Kong game.
 * There was Jungle Climber on DS...

Bear Hugger is related to Squirrel Girl somehow.

 * They both have pet squirrels.

Doc Louis and Mr. Sandman are brothers

 * They both have the same voice actor, and were both Heavyweight boxers. Maybe Doc was even his trainer at one point, until Mr. Sandman shrugged him off. It would add a new depth to the game, for sure.

Heike Kagero is Leeron with a kabuki wig and different makeup.

 * Just look  two and come up with a conclusion.

Glass Joe is paid to be a Jobber.
"Soda Popinski: {in russian} Hahaha! That puny little man couldn't hurt a fly. We were all acting. Even "Glass Joe" was talking shit behind Little Mac's back. Fact is, Nintendo paid us all a hell of a lot to take those falls. And I bought myself some fine Russian vodka with all of that money! Ah ha ha! Ah ha ha! Ah ha ha ha!"
 * One has to wonder why a guy of his (lack of) skill has stuck with boxing for so long. He doesn't even look like he wants to be in the ring. Chances are he's paid to be there so he can take beatings for the amusement of others.
 * It's been implied that his only win was against Nick Bruiser. THE Nick-fucking-BRUISER! If that's true, I think he still fights because something in his psyche says that if he can beat him he can do anything he damn well pleases.
 * I believe Cracked said it best: "This guy is clearly here against his will. Look at him! It's as if he thinks there's some guy in the audience with a sniper rifle trained on him."
 * What about the other boxers except Little Mac?

Doc Louis is Mr. Sandman from the future.

 * We know that Doc Louis used to be a heavyweight champion. We also know that Mr. Sandman and Doc have the same voice actor. Thus it would only make sense that they are connected somehow. Here's the idea: Mr. Sandman was defeated by an underdog challenger (Little Mac) and lost his title. This caused him to realize how much of a jerk he was when he had the title because all of the power went to his head. Thus, he retired and became a personal trainer for up-and-coming boxers. One day, he looked in the mirror and realized that the man who trained Little Mac well enough to dethrone Mr. Sandman was himself. Armed with this newfound knowledge, he traveled back in time to train Mac.
 * Boosting this theory, Mr. Sandman and Doc are the only two characters in the game that refer to Mac as 'Mac Baby'.
 * Only one flaw. People knew Doc Louis was a champion before he met Little Mac, so Mr. Sandman would have to go back in time, become a heavyweight champion again, lose, and then meet up with mac years later.
 * Maybe Mr. Sandman got tired of being the best in his time, so he went back in time in order to challenge the boxers of the past. Then he lost, and so on and so forth.

The entire thing is a setup by the Make-A-Wish foundation.
A teenage boxing phenom dying of muscular dystrophy asks the organization to make him a boxing champion. So, Make-A-Wish puts on an elaborate charity boxing event, where the undersized kid faces off against amateurs and street performers paid to come at Mac with slow, predictable attacks and easily-identifiable patterns, and ultimately take a dive in a dramatic fashion. Iron Mike comes in to give the proceedings some star power, and legitimately comes at Mac for a contractually-obligated half round before taking the fall for the greater good (and a hell of a lot of much-needed good publicity).
 * It...makes too much sense.

The entire thing is a failed attempt by Mac to train the next generation of boxers.
The state of boxing has fallen into such a state of disrepute and untalented hacks that Mac takes it on himself to train a selection of his most promising students. Unfortunately, they lack so much skill that it's a lost cause. First Mac quickly has to resort to fighting way above his weight class in hopes of leveling the playing field. When that's still too difficult for his fellow boxers, he stands in one place and only uses five punches. When that's still too difficult for he overlooks their blatant cheating, letting boxers use magic and armor without saying a word. When THAT'S not enough of a handicap he arranges a last-ditch attempt to knock some badassery and self-esteem into his colleagues by allowing them to endlessly come after him. And after winning dozens of fights in a row Little Mac is so disgusted by how his opponents refuse to learn anything that he retires from boxing forever.

Each fighter is allowed to do/use one thing that would normally be against the rules.
Thus why the Bear Hug, Super Soda, Teleportation, and lucky horseshoes are allowed in the ring. Mac's "cheat" is the Star Punch. In addition, a fighter has the option to use a second "cheat" when challenging the Champion, which explains most of Title Defense mode.
 * Then why didn't Little Mac choose a second cheat against Mr.Sandman when he was the champion? Or how did Von Kaiser, Disco Kid, King Hippo, Piston Hondo, Don Flamenco, Super Macho Man, and Mr. Sandman cheat before Title Defense...I think they where all fighting clean there...
 * Mac's second cheat could be the headgear; the only reason he doesn't use it unless he gets KO'd 100 times is pretty much the same reason for all of Mac's Last Stand, he wants to be as awesome as possible.
 * But the other boxer?How did they cheat in Contender Mode.
 * Maybe they just didn't feel like it? It didn't say they have to, just that they're allowed.

Disco Kid was supposed to be Kid Quick
The file names of his theme songs on the disc's data are labeled as such. Also, at one point, Doc says "That kid is quick!"
 * Alternately, Disco Kid is Kid Quick, who underwent a drastic change of image after realizing how painfully dull he was.
 * This may not belong here, because it's pretty well-established that He was supposed to be Kid Quick. He was changed because, as stated above, he was boring. And that "Kid is quick" line is a shout-out.

There is a mass conspiracy against Little Mac
In the Title Defense mode, the cheating pretty much goes up to 11 in an attempt to take the belt from Mac. How do you explain body armor, the use of animals, a boxing glove on a rope, and winking?

Vodka Drunkeski changed his name for PR reasons
Think about it, he (or his manager) didn't like his image as a drunken maniac, so he switched from "Vodka" to "Soda" to become more kid friendly.

Glass Joe's one win was against Little Mac in the Wii game's Exhibition mode
It's the only thing even close to resembling canon.
 * Actually, Gabby Jay, the first boxer you fight in Super Punch Out, is Joe's trainer. It was Gabby who lost to Glass Joe, giving him his only win.
 * No,it was a freak accident against Nick Bruiser.
 * Except that Nick has zero losses on his record, so it couldn't be against him, Nintendo Power jokes aside. (And it's the other way around for Gabby - Joe is Gabby's trainer, and Gabby's one win is against Joe)

Doc Louis was a dog in a previous life
And now he can eat as much chocolate as he wants.

Aran Ryan is not really Irish
He uses the whole "Irish" thing to get away with his "antics" in the ring. He's either an Angry Scotsman, or an American who learned to do the accent.

King Hippo and a number of other fighters were once the World Champion
In Mr. Sandman's intro cutscene, we see him taking down all the other boxers in succession, just like Little Mac. This means that, in order to get a shot at the championship, every boxer must clear the lower rings first. Therefore, any boxer with at least enough skill to beat King Hippo might have once been the champ before being usurped. King Hippo still holds the Minor League Circuit belt (and he gets the nifty crown) as an honor for being the first champ.
 * Couldn't that have been Mr. Sandman rising to the top?
 * He's saying that rising to the top gets one person harder each time there's a champ. Everyone climbed the ladder to where they are now, and everyone had to climb one step higher than the last.

Doc Louis and Mr. Sandman ran for the Title at the same time, and fought each other in the last match
Here's how it goes. Doc and Sandman were brothers who both had a dream to be the champ. Both trained hard to get as far as they could, and both made it through every boxer, but Mr. Sandman made it first. Doc Louis couldn't bring himself to beat his brother in the ring, and so he lost, losing hope for his boxing career and gorging himself on chocolate bars, until he met Little Mac, and placed all his hopes on that one kid.

Punch-Out!! takes place in New Reno.
New Reno's boxing circuit doesn't have any organised committee to investigate any charges of cheating. It's why Bear Hugger/Soda Popinski/Aran Ryan/King Hippo can get away with cheating. Plus, given the Crapsack World of Fallout and New Reno in particular, it's not surprising that the fans would enjoy it.

Glass Joe won when his opponent accidentally ate some bad Escargot and Joe punched the guy's badly cramping stomach
So the guy had to stay down lest the food poisoning make things worse.

Aran Ryan is not a cheater.
In fact, none of the boxers are. What's the one thing that's common for all boxers? They wear boxing gloves! That's the only rule this championship demands its participants abide by.

Little Mac has cheeseburgers in his gloves.
How else is he going to hide them from Doc until after the match?
 * ...Oh my dear god, this explains so much.

When they fought in Title Defense Mode, Mr. Sandman wanted Little Mac to win.
Sure, he puts on a big facade of hating Mac for taking his belt, but consider his only new attack, the Wink Punch. It's hella powerful, and is the only punch in the game that isn't telegraphed by the boxer blinking red just before. Normally it'd make him a shoe-in to regain his title, but because he's tired of all the hassles that come with being the champ, he winks in the direction the player should dodge to avoid it. It could just be an artifact of his "sleeping" gimmick, but it looks to me like he's saying "I'm about to attack here, so make sure to dodge," thus ensuring he looses the match while still putting on a good show.

Doc is an Eldritch Abomination.
His eyes...his eyeeeeessssssss...

Kid Quick and Disco Kid are twin brothers

 * Do I really need to say this? Kid Quick is Black. Disco Kid is, well, not exactly white, but not of any type of African descent that's for sure.

Heike Kagero is straight.
He just uses his effeminateness to psych out the challenger... and the player.
 * In his hometown of Osaka, he's so pretty that the ladies love him... and the guys, too. He knows and enjoys this.

The events of Punch-Out!! are actually a movie
During the post-Mac's Last Stand credits, it shows the names of the boxers, and the name of the Mii used for the profie as Little Mac at the end

Doc Louis wired Mac's bike with a bomb
Nothing pushes a guy harder than the fact that his prized possession AND his best friend will go up in flames if he doesn't catch up to him fast enough. If not this then...

Mac wired the bike with a bomb
its just to teach Doc a lesson about theft should he get too crafty for his own good.

Almost all the boxers have some form of mental illness.
Narcis(sist) Prince is obvious.
 * Von Kaiser and Aran Ryan attest to this theory (Wii version). Mad Clown from Super Punch-Out!! also. Super Macho Man probably qualifies (taking photos of himself), as does Bald Bull (both also Wii).

Narcis Prince took up boxing to dispel rumours that he's an effeminate pussy.
He's not paid to be beaten up, he took on the sport to stop the taunts and bad jokes. There's a reason why he bears his arms but not his chest.

Soda Popinski is going through Addiction Displacement
He's a recovering alcoholic, and switched to soda, only to discover that he liked it even more.

Doc retired after he lost his belt to a young Bald Bull
Why else would Bull taunt Doc in the NES version, and Doc to Bull in the Wii version?

Doc is Obfuscating Stupidity
The reason he sometimes gives goofy "hints" to Mac ("Join the Nintendo Fun/Club Nintendo today! Mac.") is to help Mac learn how to defeat the opponent on his own. Of course, this may or may not help the player...

In the Wii version, there is more than one referee
Not only is there one for every ring (Minor, Major, World), there are also substitutes to come in if one dies/becomes critically injured. How else do they survive Super Macho Man, Aran Ryan, and Bald Bull?

Mac's heart is located in his hands
This is why his heart meter goes down if he hits an opponent's gloves. Aran Ryan was right-the cholesterol from eating cheeseburgers is located in Mac's gloves.

Aran Ryan is a conspiracy theorist.
He knows about the cheeseburgers Little Mac keeps in his gloves.

The boxing matches are all staged.
Much like in Professional Wrestling, none of the fights are actually fights. This explains pretty much all the Fridge Logic: The blatant cheating, the abuse of the referee, the various gimmicks, it's all simply part of the show. Great Tiger's "teleportation" is really just smokescreens and/or lasers. Little Mac was set up as a rising star, complete with a Face Heel Turn for Super Macho Man a little while before his debut. The reason boxers with less wins can reach higher circuits is simply that the fans like their persona more.

Doc Louis is an empath.
The endorphin rush he receives when eating a chocolate bar transfers to Mac to give him more fighting spirit, thus effectively increasing his health.

Gaston (Beauty and The Beast) and Super Macho Man are related.
Come on, do I really need to explain?

Glass Joe almost beat Nick Bruiser.
They had both just kicked off their professional boxing careers. It was Joe's second match (He won his first one, obviously), and he was doing fairly well. He was ready to TKO Nick with less than half a minute remaining on the clock. But Nick made a comeback near the end of their match, beating Joe hard enough to traumatize him for the rest of his career.

The other fighters aren't actually showing how they're going to attack.
Mac has trained to the point that he can see minimal movements as blatant, slow-motion hints.

Mac's Last Stand was a way for Mac to quickly retire so he could get back to his personal life
After winning the Champion belt and successfully defending it from his old opponents, suddenly, Mac was faced with large amounts of pressure from his personal life. Maybe it was high school, one of his parents died, or applying for a college. With all of the media exposure and all of the WVBA challenging him continuously, he could not deal with his personal issues. The WVBA regulations probably state that you can only retire after three consecutive losses, so he decided to host a "Last Stand" to live one last moment of glory before returning to his personal life.

The "power juice" in two-player mode is actually steroids.
It makes Little Mac grow really big, strong and muscular. After a while, he goes back to the way he was before.

Soda/vodka is Soda Popinski's literal fuel.
He needs it to live, or maybe he's some kind of machine that uses the soda as fuel. (Alternatively, he has soda in his veins instead of blood.) He drinks it all the time, to the point of oozing fizzy bubbles, with sounds to match when being hit. He has to drink it regularly, and when knocked down, he has to drink more of it to get up. He loses when he realizes he's run out of it. His Title Defense intro starts with scientists attaching a bunch of things to him, and he's not ready to fight again until they're finished and he gets more soda.

Not only Soda Popinski, but half of your opponents are robots

 * Just look at it this way: Glass Joe's a weakling, and he apparently has been taking beatings for a LONG time, yet he's still fighting as if nothing happened. Why is this? Because he's literally Made of Iron! Von Kaiser is the oldest robot in the competiton, thus he has some glitches such as his face tic, his shaking, and his overall mannerisms. Also, he's not a Shell Shocked Veteran, he just acts like that because his brain circuits are damaged. Aran Ryan's incarnation in Punch-Out Wii acts so different from his Super-Punch Out one because his personality chip has been reprogrammed, etc... Doc Louis is aso an old boxing robot reprogrammed to be a trainer, and, much like Soda Popinski, he needs a special kind of fuel, this being chocolate. It also explains the eyes...

Glass Joe will be the protagonist in the next Punch Out!!

 * Picture it: Little Mac has retired. Doc Louis will look for a new apprentice. Glass Joe will decide that he's sick of being the Butt Monkey of the WVBA, and will turn to the man who trained one of the greatest boxers of all time. It could happen!

Doc's full name is "Iron" Griffith Louis

 * The Mondegreen for his Star Punch is more accurate than we thought.

The original Aran Ryan was murdered by an impersonator.

 * This is the only possible way to explain in-universe why the Wii Aran Ryan is drastically different from the SNES one. Because the Wii Aran Ryan has been bold enough to resort to numerous illegal actions in order to defeat Little Mac, he must then have been able to do something against the relatively more sane Aran Ryan we knew from Super Punch Out!!; either he killed him, or at least abducted him and left him trapped inside a closet or something.

Aran Ryan has Medium Awareness

 * He knows that girls play the Wii game as much as boys, and he takes advantage of it in some ways. For example, his comment "You're pretty like my sister" isn't directed at Little Mac; it's directed at any female players he would've found pretty had he met them in reality.

Von Kaiser comes from a proud family line and is trying to keep up with his ancestors

 * To quote Youtube user Baron Grackle: "Von Kaiser comes from a proud line. His father punched down the Berlin Wall with his bare fists. His grandfather secretly resisted Nazism by punching trains off railroad tracks, behind German lines. In World War I, his great grandfather forced Tsarist Russia into retirement with a well-placed uppercut. His great great grandfather﻿ K Oed Emperor Napoleon III in two rounds."

The reason why fights Mac...
is that

Soda Popinski is a coward when sober.
Soda, when sober, utterly lacks confidence. He got into boxing very reluctantly, and ended up hitting the bottle just to work up the courage to get into the match. It worked amazingly well, and he becomes a skilled, confident boxer when drunk. The specialized drink the scientists work on in Title Defense is a mild hallucinogenic that replicates the confidence boost and painkilling properties of vodka while sharply reducing the negative effects.

Little Mac is related to Apollo Justice.
When his opponents turn red before they attack, that's just Little Mac using his Perceive power to anticipate their next move.

Soda Popinski's bottles do indeed contain "coke"
The Russians found a method of effectively liquifying cocaine and bottle it in order to give their national champion Popinski a little "boost" as it were, hence his near-abnormal performance and reaction to just the tiniest drop.

Mac retired from the WVBA because...
When he first started out (Minor Circuit), he was single, and was doing the whole boxing thing partially as a way to get the ladies. Around the Major or World Circuit, he meets an ill female intern reporter who goes to his school/college, and it's Love At First Sight. She starts coming to all his matches, cheers him on... then, the day he's defended his title against Mr. Sandman, they learn she's had major cancer for most of her life, and she only has a few weeks to live. Mac decides he wants to stay by her side for her final days, but the WVBA informs him of all the challenges he's had to take, and that's when Mac decides to perform his Last Stand. Out of respect for his opponents, he doesn't half-ass the fights, and they genuinely win against him all 3 times. The night he loses for the 3rd time, Mac rushes to his girlfriend's room in the hospital she's staying at... only to find that it's too late. She's already dead. Mac is so heartbroken that he's Driven to Suicide, and the WVBA decides to honor him with a memorial in their Hall of Fame. Hence the sad music in the ending cutscene.

The next game will include the women's division of the WVBA.
It's been noted that the creators considered making Princess Peach a secret fighter in the Wii game, but decided that it wouldn't be a good idea for Mac to be fighting women. The logical solution? Include a female player character in the next game, along with a group of female opponents.