ducking in punchout/super punchout (esp. w Super Macho Man)

Something I have noticed in both titles, on both emulators and the native system, is that when I am trying to do multiple ducks in succession, I end up accidentally dodging left or right instead of ducking. To the best of my knowledge, I am hitting down on the dpad, not left or right. This also can happen when I need to make a single, very quick duck, but I notice it more often with successive ducks.

The most typical case of this is dodging spin punches from Super Macho Man. This definitely happens on both snes and nes versions. Am I just not hitting down on the dpad hard enough? Have you experienced this? I can't count the number of times I duck successfuly, and then try to duck again, only to end up dodging right or left and getting knocked out by a spin punch. Am I doing something wrong? Is there any strategy to prevent this? Any help would be much appreciated!

Solution 1:

In Super Punchout you can duck by just pressing down. Pressing down twice on the old NES Punchout will allow you to duck. However, there isn't a single opponent in the NES version where you must duck. The super machoman spin punches in that version are dodged left or right until he gets dizzy, while the super version you just press down til dizzy. Any punch you want to avoid in the NES you always hit left or right. Punches you want to block, like Tiger's tiger punches, just tap down and take the loss of hearts.