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The old boxer's eyes are a little sleepier now, the mental mechanics a little slower, fighting off the early stages of dementia. But Tony Doyle still remembers a highlight of his life — stepping into the ring with Muhammad Ali more than a hundred times.

Ali had punched him, punched him with bad intentions, in the stomach, in the face, on his chin, imagining him as a future foe.

But when the three-time heavyweight champion died on Friday, the 71-year-old Doyle, a lifelong Utahn who was born in Draper, went to Jordan High School, and now lives in Sandy, said it was like a full-on blow to the most susceptible body part of all — the heart: "It felt terrible. It will take me a long time to get over that he's passed. He was just a great guy, a decent, likable, intelligent, caring man. He was outgoing and giving. He treated me like a brother."

Treated him like a brother before and after their wicked sparring sessions, controlled bursts and brawls that spanned the better part of four years, all of them meant to prepare the champ for whatever fool was up next.

Doyle, who had a professional record of 40-15, fighting notables like Joe Frazier and Jerry Quarry, saw it as his job as Ali's sparring partner, for which he was paid well, to challenge his boss by putting up uncomfortably stiff resistance in the ring.

"I always wanted to work him," Doyle said. "I wanted to work him hard. I did that and felt good about it. I'd bang him to make him better. He had an active body. He was a natural. He was determined and his abilities came from deep inside. I wanted to make sure to challenge him, to get him ready. And he kept asking me back."

Even after an incident that, according to Kent Birrell, one of Doyle's friends and a boxing aficionado, might have weakened Ali, not strengthened him, to the point where he suffered his second professional loss — to Ken Norton in 1973.

Said Birrell: "Before that fight with Norton, Ali, who had sparred with a few other white guys, joked with Tony, saying: 'You white guys can't fight like us black guys.' Tony got so mad, he hit Ali in the jaw with a hook, and hurt him. Then, in the Norton fight, Ali's jaw was completely broken. That's the story I got. That was the talk in the camp."

For his part, Doyle said he never really damaged Ali or knocked him down.

He paused.

"Well, there was one time, but [Ali] fell down on purpose. He was just putting on a show in front of a crowd."

Doyle appreciated the bombastic public persona for which Ali was famous. "I never saw any fighter as colorful as him," he said. But there was another, more serious, deliberate side that fewer people saw. "I thought a lot of times, people didn't really know him, didn't know how giving he was."

And that, more than anything that ever transpired in the ring or in the public eye, be it physical or political or, at that time, radical, is what Doyle remembered about Muhammad Ali. He reflected on the intimate conversations the fighters shared outside the ropes:

"We talked a lot. We talked about all kinds of things — family, our kids, home life, beliefs, everything. We talked about what was important to him and what was important to me. … He was very committed to what he believed. He laid it all out on the line. In private, Muhammad didn't dilly-dally around. He did what he did in good will. He did good things for people, even people he didn't know. He just had a way about him. He'd talk with people. He was the kind of person a plain, normal guy would be proud to be with. He was honest and forthright, a good friend, a good man."

The memories have faded a bit now, the specifics have blurred.

But Doyle, who after retiring from boxing painted houses and commercial buildings around Salt Lake City as a means of supporting himself and his family, remembered enough about his connection with the greatest of all time to feel the pain, to hurt, when he heard the news of Ali's worsening condition and, ultimately, on Friday, his death.

"It was great just knowing the guy," he said. "I'll miss him. I feel bad that he's gone."

GORDON MONSON hosts "The Big Show" with Spence Checketts weekdays from 3-7 p.m. on 97.5 FM and 1280 AM The Zone. Twitter: @GordonMonson.