Do I have people to thank? You bet!

-DK28, Heidman, Pokey, Sinister1, adelikat, MilesSMB, and klar for gracing SDA with their various Punch Out runs from across the series. It's a constant inspiration to see these games being run.
-Funkdoc for insisting that I push the run just a bit further to sub 2:55 when I got my sub 3:00. If I had stopped immediately after sub 3, this run would not have happened.
-Everyone who's been watching me stream attempts of this game. This was the first game that I streamed real speedrun attempts on; this experience made me glad I finally started streaming stuff. It made making attempts on this game really fun! You're all the best!

Gabby Jay - Really standard fight.
Bear Hugger - Another standard fight; didn't get the lucky uppercut though.
Piston Hurricane - Very standard fight. I think 5.54 is my most common time on this guy.
Bald Bull - Got the good luck for an 8 second fight.

Bob Charlie - He finally didn't dodge the uppercut in phase 2, which gave me a really nice Bob time for once.
Dragon Chan - Didn't get the good recovery for phase 2, which is one of the largest places for improvement in a future run.
Masked Muscle - Got to land the first 4 face jabs and the first punch in phase 2 without him blocking, which allowed me to get a 7 second strategy. This guy often likes to block randomly, so this is a pretty good fight.
Mr Sandman - Very standard fight

Aran Ryan - I didn't get the luck for the 8 second fight, so I had to go with an alternate strategy to still take him down quickly. Luckily he didn't dodge in phase 3, or else I would've gotten a high 13 second time.
Heike Kagero - Super standard fight here.
Mad Clown - He pointed at his stomach, which wasted a second. Otherwise the fight went fine.
Super Machoman - This is the one fight that almost made me reset. I didn't get the luck for phase 2 so I could get him in 10 seconds, so the fight drug out for 6 more seconds. I couldn't do anything about it, so I just had to eat the time loss.

Narcis Prince - Outrageously stupid lucky pattern and no dodging anywhere. This fight basically made this a run again single handedly.
Hoy Quarlow - Mindblowingly amazing luck for a single segment run. I literally got all the luck possible for this fight. I couldn't believe it... and I still don't
Rick Bruiser - For phase 3 he didn't retaliate until the 3rd hit, which irked me since it ate alot of the time I saved, but at least he retaliated at all.
Nick Bruiser - Dear god. What even happened? I always thought he would never attack quickly at the start of phase 2 if you got a low counter on phase 1; I usually never get this pattern. Thankfully I was proven dead wrong by the game, and what a great time to be proven wrong with a sub 10 second KO on the final fight in the game.

I will probably come back to single segmenting this game eventually. Even though the luck is stupid frustrating, it was a whole lot of fun to run this game single segment; I had a complete blast doing it. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the run!

I really want to thank the many people who left encouraging comments in the SPO IL thread which include: DK28, Heidman (HEIDRAGE), sinister1, PJ, VorpalEdge, Hurblat, Mr. K, Kefkamaydie, and KHANanaphone.

I also want to give a thanks to Pokey. His incredible segmented run was one of the big reasons I decided to revisit the ILs. He also provided a really nice IL for Piston Hurricane that matches the TAS, thanks!

Here are the comments on each fight:

Gabby Jay: This time is pretty simple to get with the punches I throw after he gets dizzy. This allows me to throw my knockdown punch at the correct frame so that he goes down in an optimal time.

Bear Hugger: This is a very involved fight for several reasons. In order to dizzy Bear Hugger with the TAS strat, you need to hit all 4 of his gut punches in a very tight frame window, along with a non negotiable frame perfect delayed hit in order to deal more damage, makes him recoil faster and get more super bar in order to use uppercuts one attack faster than normal. If you don't do either of these fast enough, Bear Hugger will simply not get dizzy. In phase 2, there's an uppercut that you need to land that has about a 15-20% chance of landing, which has killed so many great runs on this guy, but thankfully the game was merciful one of the few times I got a TAS par phase 1 and let me land it for the 12.92.

Bald Bull: Really, really difficult phase 1. The dizzy using the TAS strat is easily the most stubborn one in the game, because even after hitting the delayed hit (which has to be frame perfect), as well as the other attacks in a fast manner, it's very likely that Bull won't get dizzy in time; it's pretty cruel. Not to mention phases 2 and 3 have a luck based event in each one, but both of them are at least somewhat common (50-60% each I'd say).

Dragon Chan: Urgh, I really hate optimized fights with this guy. It is deceptively easy to lose frames throughout the entirety of phase 1, except 2 punches. The delayed hits (punches 3 and 4) are incredibly difficult to time, because they're so close together and there is no simple visual cue for either of them, so I basically had to resort to a rhythm and hoped for the best. The pattern for phase 2 is random, in that he rarely does the quick recovery. Most of the time he kicks at you, or just to rub it in, he'll do a delayed recovery (you absolutely need the fast one to get a good time).

Masked Muscle: This was a pretty annoying fight to optimize, mostly because he can block 4 of your punches at any given time in phase 1. In phase 2, it's deceptively difficult to hit the counter frame perfectly, since he attacks so slow, but this one time I got it.

Mr. Sandman: This is probably my favorite fight in the table because it has no randomness, yet alot of difficulty to it. The first phase isn't too bad, with only 1 delayed attack that you need to execute, but the magic happens during his dizzy. I waste 6 frames compared to the TAS during this knockdown specifically so he attacks faster in phase 2 such that I only need to hold uppercut in order to floor him. If I were to knock him down at 4"98, I'd have to delay exactly 6 frames at the start of phase 2, which adds another frame perfect action into the equation. Phase 3 is where the fight gets hard though. You need to land 3 frame perfect actions in order to match the TAS time. The first 2 I have audio cues for that work pretty reliably, but the last attack I have no cue for, so it was basically a guess. Luckily, this time I guessed correctly.

Aran Ryan: This is a pretty simple fight overall. You need to hit 2 things frame perfectly in phase 1, and one super in phase 2. The phase 2 super is really tricky to land, but since this is a really short fight, it isn't too bad.

Heike Kagero: This fight could actually use some improving, but I detest the 2nd uppercut in phase 2. It's got a really funky timing that's hard to tell if I'm doing it consistently or not, because he randomly dodges it. It makes me think that I'm timing it wrong, like maybe if it's too early or something he dodges it, but maybe not, I don't know. Hopefully someone improves this to match the TAS time soon; this is definitely doable.

Mad Clown: Oh boy, this guy has a beast of a phase 1 in terms of randomness. He points at his stomach randomly during the fight in various spots, and if he does that during a time I throw a punch at him, he dodges and counters, which ends attempts way too frequently. Phase 1 isn't too bad execution-wise aside from the randomness though, but phase 2 is deceptively easy to lose frames on the first attack. Countering the low punch that he does requires a pretty lengthy wait, which is really awkward compared to most of the other counter timings in other fights, not to mention you need to intercept a back hand with an uppercut, which I often attack too early and miss on. I lost a frame somewhere in phase 2, and would probably try to improve this guy to the TAS time if I ever got back into this.

Super Machoman: This fight has a super, super strict opening... so strict that it's frame perfect. You need to land 2 left jabs (the fastest punch in the game) before he starts his second attack, and you have literally no room to screw that up because he starts it immediately after you land your 2nd punch if the first one was frame perfect. The rest of the fight is pretty simple though, with a couple of tricky counters and some bad luck that you need to deal with from time to time (dancing around, exercise programs, blocking, ect).

Narcis Prince: I HATE THIS FIGHT SO MUCH. Oh man why is this fight so absurdly random?! Why?! This strategy requires you to get like 12 or so random events to line up in your favor before you can complete this strategy (fun fact: it took me a couple thousand attempts in the span of several weeks to finish this IL). He can dance before an attack, during an attack, and after an attack anywhere throughout the fight, as well as block and counter some of your punches, and if he does any of these once, you get to reset. I did not use the current TAS's strat, because it adds a frame perfect punch and ANOTHER random event that needs to go your way in order to save only 2 frames off of the strat I used; no thanks I'll pass. I'm not too thrilled that I couldn't get him at least under 10 frames away from the TAS, so hopefully someone will be brave enough to improve this fight. Somebody please improve this fight... please?

Hoy Quarlow: This guy has some pretty strong luck too, but I can actually finish phase 1 on occasion, unlike some other fight I know of *cough*NARCIS*cough*. There are 6 random things that need to go your way in order for this strategy to succeed, most of which involve him not ducking your attacks or randomly blocking your punches, both of which happen pretty often. One cool thing to note is that his final attack in phase 3 is on a move timer, so you'll notice that my phase 2 is at 7"33 (TAS has 7"30 at this point). Since I was 2 frames late in phase 2, he will attack 2 frames faster in phase 3, which gives me a chance to catch up to the TAS time if I land the last punch frame perfectly, which I thankfully did.

Rick Bruiser: There's a very odd issue with this guy's phase 3 refill that I still don't quite understand. Alot of my attempts that got 1/2/3 frames off of the TAS would give Rick a big refill that made the TAS strat fail, which was getting a bit frustrating because I couldn't improve the time. But this one attempt got the 10"01 phase 2, which is the first time I ever got this, then I landed the final uppercut in phase 3 frame perfectly after manipulating his guard down. This is definitely the most clutch IL in this table that I've done.

Nick Bruiser: There's been a weird series of improvements that I've done for this guy. First I got in the mid 9 second range for him, then low 9's and sub 9 with the same strat but tweaked a bit to use faster punches, then I couldn't improve him for the longest time. His uppercuts in phase 2 were ultra rare to land, and I couldn't figure out why... until the night I decided to do this IL; I noticed his phase 2 also acts on a move timer. For the uppercuts to land, I needed him to start an attack to where my first uppercut directly intercepts his such that his move timer is reset. Once I realized this, I immediately switched to the TAS strat and got this IL within an hour. This makes phase 2 trivially simple, but still kind of rare. As for phase 1, the right counter to the face needs to be frame perfect to where he recoils fast (similar to hugger and bull), then you need to do a delayed hit that gets him out of his stun, then land 2 face punches which he sometimes blocks.

This is my IL for Piston Hurricane. It matches the TAS time but was very difficult to achieve. I actually achieved the time twice, but the first time I accidentally paused and retired because I thought I had failed.

Bob Charlie        00:05.50 Heidrage - 2/14/2011
TAS time is 5.50. Yup, perfect time. This took a while though as he is rather random and does not stay still. He likes to move around and waist time...