After 22 years, Little Mac is finally coming back, and he has a release date. Yes, Nintendo announced today that Punch Out!! for the Nintendo Wii is set to release on May 18th of this year.

The first Punch Out! game was released in 1987 entitled Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!. The game became an instant favorite, and has been one of the most popular Nintendo Entertainment System classics with Nintendo fans. The game featured a less-than-huge underdog boxer named Little Mac (who can forget his pink hoodie), and he fights some hilarious oversized boxers. The new Punch Out!! for Nintendo Wii will feature the classic NES underdog fighting again, and survey says that some of your favorite oversized boxers including King Hippo, Glass Joe, and Von Kaiser will be back.

Punch Out! will be a Nintendo Wii exclusive, and will obviously use the Wii’s motion controls. That’s good considering a lot of players haven’t had a good boxing workout since the boxing from Wii Sports. Plus this time, we get to beat up King Hippo, and that never gets old. The game was recently rated by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) Everyone 10+, and some screenshots have been released.

But alas, the game still has a few months to be released. It is very sad, I know, but it seems as if we will just have to continue playing Mike Tyson’s Punch Out! on Wii Virtual Console or even on the classic NES. Hurry up Punch Out!!