Specifically, a free update to the game (Mike Tyson’s Main Event [iTunes link]) features the ability to fight Mr. Chow (played in The Hangover Part II by Ken Jeong) in Bangkok (where the film is set), watch the full trailer within the app and buy tickets.

For those unfamiliar with the Hangover series, the update is especially fitting since Tyson, playing himself, was the breakout star of the first movie and makes a return appearance in the sequel.

So far, the update seems to have ignited more interest in Main Event, which was downloaded more than one million times in its release week back in March. The creators of the game, RockLive, tell Mashable that they saw more than 120,000 active users of a new “city leaderboard” feature on Thursday, which allows users to see the top scorers in their area based on geolocation.

The game, which is very much modeled after the classic NES title Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out, has also added more virtual items, such as a “Power Balance wristbrand” that helps users beat more challenging opponents in their quest to get to Mike Tyson. It’s those virtual items — along with promos like the one for Hangover II — that RockLive hopes will help the monetize the free game.

Below, an interview I shot with Tyson back at SXSW before the release of the game:

http://mashable.com/2011/05/28/mike-tyson-hangover-ii/

Mike Tyson on Jimmy Kimmel Live PART 2

Mike Tyson on Jimmy Kimmel Live PART 3

RockLive updated its Mike Tyson boxing app to coincide with the release of “The Hangover Part II.”

The app was so well received that it helped the brothers start a company called RockLive, based in Irvine, Calif., that specializes in iPhone applications, many of which are built for professional athletes.

One of RockLive’s first big sports clients was Chad Ochocinco, the Cincinnati Bengals football player. “Chad wanted us to do an entire social media campaign for him, so we helped get him set up on Twitter and Facebook,” said John Shadhidi, RockLive’s chief executive. “We quickly realized that the mobile space was perfect for Chad, so we built an iPhone application and eventually integrated a game into it too.”

After the success of Mr. Ochocinco’s mobile app, RockLive signed a deal with Mike Tyson, the former heavyweight boxing champion, to build an iPhone game along with a social media platform that would allow Mr. Tyson to communicate with his fans.

The free game, which RockLive says has been downloaded nearly one million times, is called Mike Tyson Main Event. It allows people to box a number of opponents with the eventual goal of beating Mr. Tyson.

A new version of the game was released on Thursday to coincide with the release of the movie “The Hangover Part II,” which Mr. Tyson appears in.

Mr. Tyson explained in a recent telephone interview that the updated version has a new leaderboard that allows opponents to compare scores with other people in the same area. There will also be new opponents to fight, including Mr. Chow, a comical character from the movie.

Although Mr. Tyson said the Shahidi brothers were “the masterminds” of the iPhone app, he said he played a major role in the game’s development and listened to feature requests from fans through Twitter and Facebook.

“I’m not a geeky guy and I’m not a brainiac, but I give as much input as is needed on the game,” he said.

RockLive, which has grown to 22 employees, now plans to expand the types of clients it works with, going after new audiences in the iPhone app market.

“Next on our list is the music industry, and then stay-at-home moms,” John Shahidi said. “We’re talking to some celebrity chefs that would be perfect for this audience, and we’re also talking to some hip-hop artists and pop stars too.”

As for Mike Tyson’s Main Event, the company said it would begin promoting it globally soon, hoping to pick up more users in China and South America.

“I never hung around geeks much,” Mike Tyson tells Fast Company. But when Tyson met John and Sam Shahidi, founders of RockLive, and they flew him out to South By Southwest in Austin, Texas, to meet a herd of techies, many of whom grew up playing Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!, the champ was smitten. “Afterward, when I dropped him off at the airport, he was literally teary eyed,” John Shahidi says. The heavyweight champion of the world had just been surrounded by enthusiastic gamers, programmers, and nerds. “He looked at me and said, ‘John, I’ve never done anything like this in my life.’”

Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/

The gold caps on his teeth are gone, as are the frenzied trappings of celebrity: the nonstop partying, the cars, the jewelry, the pet tiger, the liters of Cristal. Mike Tyson — who was once addicted, by his own account, “to everything” — now lives in what might be described as a controlled environment of his own making, a clean, well-lighted but very clearly demarcated place. The 44-year-old ex-heavyweight champion is in bed by 8 and often up as early as 2 in the morning, at which point he takes a solitary walk around the gated compound in the Las Vegas suburb where he lives while listening to R&B on his iPod. Tyson then occupies himself with reading (he’s an avid student of history, philosophy and psychology), watching karate movies or taking care of his homing pigeons, who live in a coop in the garage, until 6, when his wife, Lakiha (known as Kiki), gets up. The two of them go to a spa nearby where they work out and often get a massage before settling into the daily routine of caring for a 2-year-old daughter, Milan, and a newborn son, Morocco; they also run Tyrannic, a production company they own. It is a willfully low-key life, one in which Tyson’s wilder impulses are held in check by his inner solid citizen.