Two possibilities come to my mind:(posted 9273 days ago)1. Sound. On some games (and not neccessarily all MAME versions) you have to turn the sound off to record/playback. Super Punch Out! sound is ok but can't vouch for Punch-Out!
2. Sound samples. You can't use them, it throws off the playback speed. I know the speech emulation is terrible, but we're stuck with it. When I tried using the Punch-Out! samples with DOSMAME (they kind of work with Super too - Dragon Chan's kick is funny) it made the playback score unpredictable.
I haven't used WINMAME much, but record/playback can vary between versions - MAME35rc1 broke Demolition Derby but MAME30 through MAME35b13 work perfectly. If you can find earlier versions of WINMAME it may be worth a try.
Aqua