Disgraced former Wests Tigers star Tim Simona suffered a thunderous defeat in his professional boxing debut but the exiled centre is still dreaming of a return to the NRL.
Fighting at cruiserweight on the undercard of Andrew Moloney's return to action, Simona's bout with Aaron Cocco was stopped in the third round after he offered little resistance to a barrage of punches.
Simona looked solid enough in the first round, but quickly felt the pinch and ran out of gas under Cocco's onslaught.
"Great work by the doctor, that's what it was. It's a great job because the referee should've stopped it and the corner should've stopped it," said Jeff Fenech on commentary.
"I'm not gonna pull any punches here — to me, that's not a good look.
"Of course, the fight should've been stopped. The referee's standing there watching this guy get hit without coming back.
"In the first round it was Simona that opened up landing 10 or 12 punches … it looked like Cocco was gonna do what Simona did.
"I think he [Simona] learned it's a little bit harder than playing football. But he put up a great show, the first round I thought this might be a huge win for him, but the doctor's done the right thing and I take my hat off to him."
In the lead up to the fight, Simona said he still dreamed of returning to first grade almost five years after his last appearance.
Simona has been banned from the NRL since 2017 after he was found guilty of betting on matches in which he was playing.
He played club rugby for Eastwood in 2020 before linking with Blacktown Workers Sea Eagles, Manly's feeder club, this season.
The 30-year old played 79 matches for the Tigers between 2011 and 2016.
Later, Moloney returned to form with a dominant decision victory over Froilan Saludar.
Moloney looked in great form as he kept his hopes of winning the world super flyweight title alive.
