Your video cuts in and out a little bit, so it's a little tricky to say for sure. Definitely check out the article in the wiki about this fight: https://mtpo-speedrunning.fandom.com/wiki/Piston_Honda_1

the 3 opening guts are not misdirected, but after the original guard raise they're buffered. Then for the 2 star punches, the first is buffered, and the 2nd is slightly delayed. You can get suboptimal damage if several things happen. If your opening guts are too slow, you won't get the damage you need. If you don't properly delay your 2nd star punch you also won't get the damage you need.

The game is subtle and it can be hard to know what exactly went wrong, keep it up :)

Thank you! I went through all of the guides and a bunch of tutorial videos I found. I finally found the issue. It did have to do with buffering vs. small delays for some punches. I can't believe how intricate this thing is. Makes it even more impressive for not only the top runners today but the OG runners who ground this out for year to come up with these strats.