Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! has been available on the NES for almost 29 years, but its secrets are still being discovered.

The latest one to be unearthed was found by Redditor midwesternhousewives, who noticed that a spectator in the background of the game signals to the player when to throw a punch that one-hit KO's two of the game’s opponents.

Both Piston Honda and Bald Bull (the second time you fight him) can be felled with a single shot if hit at the right time during their special attacks. However, what midwesternhousewives discovered was that a bearded man in the crowd signals the exact time to attack each, by nodding (or perhaps he’s ducking?). He remains completely motionless for all other fights.

The signal was verified by Redditor unvaluablespace, who wrote, “I can personally verify that your video is legit and what you say is true. The interesting thing is the bearded man did not flinch or move a single pixel until I reached the second fights with piston Honda and bald bull. The bearded man seems to not do anything during the first fights with these opponents.”

However, while midwesternhousewives appears to be getting the credit for this find (and indeed it isn’t mentioned in any of the game walkthroughs I looked at), the same tip appeared in a GameFAQs thread eight months ago courtesy of Brandonflakes, who wrote: “When you get to bald bull 2 the bearded in crowd will shake his head. That's when you will want to jab him.”

We hope the history books will recognise the true discoverer of the bearded man nod.