Liger isn’t Mike Tyson’s first affair with Bollywood. Watch him promote this Shahid Kapoor movie from 2007

On Monday, producer Karan Johar revealed that former boxing champion Mike Tyson will be part of his upcoming movie, Liger. His association with the movie is being pitched as something seen ‘first time on Indian screens’. While it is true that he has never acted in a Bollywood movie before, Mike has previously promoted one.

In 2007, he was seen in a promotional song in Ahmed Khan’s Fool N Final. The film was a multi-starrer, an adaptation of Hollywood movie Snatched. It starred Shahid Kapoor, Sunny Deol, Vivek Oberoi, Ayesha Takia, Johnny Lever, Paresh Rawal, Vijay Raaz, Arbaaz Khan and others.

In the promotional video, the entire cast dances to upbeat music. Footage of Mike Tyson in the boxing ring, getting out of his car, or punching Sunny Deol’s cardboard cutout is peppered throughout the music video. He doesn’t interact with the actual cast at all.

Speaking about roping in Mike for the video, Ahmed had told Rediff in 2007, “We needed a special appearance from a celebrity to promote the film without him necessarily being part of it. I asked my producer to speak to Mike Tyson. We shot Tyson’s sequences in Las Vegas. If I had taken him in the film, it would have amounted to cheating the audiences, which we never wanted to do. It was fun working with him.”

Mike is among the most famous boxers in the world. H became the youngest ever heavyweight champion in boxing history in 1986 at the age of 20. He was also convicted of raping an 18-year-old in 1992, for which he was sentenced to six years in prison but was allowed out on parole in 1995.

Also read: Vijay Deverakonda on rumours of ₹200 crore offer for Liger OTT release: ‘I’ll do more in the theatres’

Liger isn’t Mike’s first movie role either. He most famously played a fictionalised version of himself in the 2009 Hollywood hit film The Hangover and its 2011 sequel The Hangover Part II. He has also starred in Ip Man 3, the 2015 film in the popular Hong Kong martial arts film series.

Liger stars Vijay Deverakonda and Ananya Panday in lead roles. It will be released theatrically in five languages — Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam. A release date has not been announced yet.