When professional boxer Dale Crowe fights tonight in St. Petersburg, Fla., the man Crowe almost killed - former heavyweight champion Greg Page - will be his corner.

        “I've heard people say I've put the sparkle back in Greg's eye, but I'm the reason he lost that sparkle in the first place,” Crowe said. “It was up to me to restore it. I didn't know it then, but I know it now. There's something at work here bigger than Greg and me. It took getting to know Greg and his family to understand that.”

        On March 9, 2001, Page, then 42, and Crowe, then 24, squared off in the smoky main room of Peel's Palace in Erlanger for the Kentucky heavyweight title. Crowe was on the way up the heavyweight ladder; Page on his way down.

        In the 10th and final round, Crowe caught Page flush on the chin with a left hand, jolting Page's head forward and sending him into a coma. Page has endured brain surgeries and rehabilitation, and remains paralyzed on his left side.

        Yet, with the help of fianci Patricia Love-Page and her three children - Teisha, 21, Sierra, 10 and Ashley 5 - Page was able to to make the 13-hour car ride from Louisville to St. Petersburg for tonight's fight.

        “It's true: Dale has put the sparkle back in Greg's eyes,” Love-Page said. “When they're together, they're like a couple of 15-year-olds. Greg needed that.”

        While Page lay in a coma in a Cincinnati hospital, Crowe tried to talk to somebody close to Page but Page's trainer hung up on him, Crowe said. Crowe, a graduate of Norwood High who lives in Taylor Mill, prayed for Page's recovery but never made another overture once Page had been moved from the Cincinnati hospital to a Louisville rehabilitation center.

        “I just couldn't bring myself to do it,” Crowe said. “I told my doctor, "I'm scared to call the guy. I don't think I can handle it.' I was the guy who almost killed him. I was the guy who ruined his life. I had a tough time dealing with that - depression, medication, visits to a doctor - and I didn't want to hit, or be hit, in the ring anymore. (Crowe had two losses and two draws after the Page fight.) But it was only after talking on the phone to Patricia that I started to come out of it.”

        The phone call to Love-Page was precipitated by a call from trainer Jason Byers, who had asked Crowe if he wanted to fight on a card in St. Petersburg.

        “Dale told me no, that he was thinking about hanging it up,” Byers said. “He used to love boxing, but he had lost his motivation. He was getting beat up. That wasn't Dale. I said he should call Patricia, although I knew how hard that would be because I had almost killed a man in the ring myself.”

        After several failed attempts, Crowe finally got up the nerve to call.

        He has since visited with Page twice in Louisville, including a trip for a benefit walk. Crowe will donate part of tonight's purse to Page, and the Arena Boxing Club will donate part of its take.

        Crowe also will hold a benefit for Page in Covington in mid-November.

        “I felt like the world was lifted off my shoulders after that first conversation with Patricia,” Crowe said. “Greg didn't hate me - he doesn't hate anybody. I told my trainer, "I'm not cured. But I've got my motivation back.' Greg wanted to work with me, because he's been around. He can help me. With him in my corner, how can I go out there and not give I everything I've got?”

        Page's speech is a bit slurred and deteriorates even more when he is tired, so he couldn't talk to the Enquirer for this story. He and his family had just arrived in St. Petersburg at 10 a.m. Friday. After Page went to the Arena Boxing Club to meet trainer Byers, Love-Page took him back to the hotel. He'd slept only an hour in the car on the way down; then slept the rest of the day.

        Page is happy to be back in the ring, albeit it in the corner, where he can dispense advice to Crowe (24-5-2) tonight against Tyrone Muex (14-9), Love-Page said.

        Pro boxing is a violent, often brutal sport, but Page had been boxing since he was 12, and not even being near death could remove that from his system, Love-Page said. She and his handlers and friends insist he had trained hard for the fight with Crowe and was in relatively good shape.

        “Nobody has come forward to help Greg like Dale has,” Patricia said. “Some boxers have donated items for an auction we're having as part of a fund raiser at Churchill Downs on Nov.9. But, for the most part, it's been out of sight, out of mind. We haven't heard from (promoter) Don King at all. Dale told Greg how sad that made him feel. Greg said, "That's just the way boxing is, Dale. I can't make them any money anymore.' But Dale hasn't forgotten Greg, and I know he never will.”

        The long-term prognosis for Page was that he would never walk again.

        But last spring, with the help of a therapist at his paralyzed left side and a four-legged cane in his right hand, Page took a few steps. Because of muscle spasms caused by his paralysis, he hasn't been able to repeat that experience, but Love-Page said he will have medication pumped into his spine in late November, and that might help alleviate the spasms and give him a chance to take steps again.

        Doctors said Page won't get much better than he is now, but Page insists he will walk again.

        Meanwhile, Page is smiling and laughing a lot. He has never lost his faith, never asked “Why me?” Love-Page said.

        One continuous source of laughter between Crowe and Page is recalling a visit in Louisville, when they went out to dinner with Love-Page and the girls. When they got home, Crowe told everybody to forget the wheelchair; he'd carry Page into the house. He hoisted Page onto his shoulders. He walked with him up the sidewalk and most of the eight steps to the porch before one of his flip-flops gave way. He had to ease Page to the floor, and wound up on top of him.

        “I looked back and thought, "Oh my gosh, he dropped him!”' Patricia said. “But Dale picked him back up and carried him to the bed. They fell onto the mattress together, laughing and carrying on like a couple of kids.”

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