Tai Tuivasa has quit the Roosters.
http://www.news.com.au/sport/nrl/ca...ld-return-to-nrl/story-fndujljl-1226513339439
TAI Tuivasa had played only a handful of Toyota Cup games this year when he walked out on the Roosters.
He told them he would rather fight.
Since then, this imposing 140kg teenager has won all five cage fights. By knockout. Each in the first round.
Which is why every NRL scout should have a listen to what he says next.
"Would I come back to league? Oh, definitely," Tuivasa said. "Having watched what Sam Kasiano achieved with Canterbury this year, yeah, you start to think maybe you could do it too.
"This season, it was my second with the Roosters but things just weren't working out. I'm a Mount Druitt boy. I was too far from family.
"But maybe if there was a way for me to work through those issues ... "
Now for those NRL scouts not yet scrambling for their mobile phones, know that Tuivasa is a second-generation fighter who, despite taking up the gloves aged four, has been kept from competing by his father Tony.
Instead, young Tai played league - noticed first by Penrith, who whisked him into Harold Matthews a year ahead of time before Roosters recruitment guru Peter O'Sullivan swooped in 2010.
"And I still have no doubt Tai's an NRL player," O'Sullivan said yesterday. "Yes, he has some weight issues but the kid is incredibly athletic, skilful and has a good footy brain.
"He can make it, but he has to want it. We put a lot of work into him here at the Roosters but his heart just wasn't in it."
So instead of starting an NRL pre-season this December,
Tuivasa is instead slated for a mixed martial arts bout against retired NRL bad boy John Hopoate.
But first tonight, at a St Mary's event dubbed Gladiators III, the teenager will concede almost 15 years to take on Sydney mixed martial artist Erik Nosa.
