The most famous fighter from Kalispell was not a boxing fan growing up.

She paid no attention to the champions of her day, of the great rivalries like Hearns-Hagler or the iconic names — Sugar Ray Leonard, Evander Holyfield, Roberto Duran or even a burgeoning Mike Tyson.

But there was one name, even though the man that bore it was well beyond his prime or airing in reruns, which always made her take notice.

It was Muhammad Ali.

“I never followed boxing, ever,” former WIBA Intercontinental champion Shelley Burton said. “But I knew who (Ali) was; how do you not know who he is? When he was fighting you knew, ooh, I want to watch this fight.”

Burton, a graduate of Bigfork High School, was a tremendously gifted high school athlete who made her way into Tough Man competitions and, eventually, the sweet science of boxing. When she got there, a familiar name popped back into her head.

“When I first started boxing my goals were to win a title and fight Ali’s daughter,” Burton said. “When I got into it, (my trainer) goes, ‘I want to know what your goals are,’ and I was like, ‘I want to win a world title and I want to fight Muhammad Ali’s daughter.’

“They all laughed.”

Burton would eventually make her dream come true, stepping in the ring against Laila Ali at the vaunted Madison Square Garden on Nov. 11, 2006. Muhammad Ali, who passed away last week and will be memorialized today in Louisville, was ringside for the fight and watched his daughter stop Burton in the fourth round. The night was memorialized when Laila blew a kiss to her dad at ringside after the win.

Despite the result, the experience was an understandably memorable one for the Montana girl who went from national obscurity to the world’s most famous arena, fighting the most famous name in boxing.

“It was amazing,” Burton said of the experience. “I was like, ‘oh my God, this is really going to happen.’

“I was like ‘this was my last goal’ and I’m going to quit after this.”

True to her word, Burton never fought professionally again after her battle with Ali, retiring with a record of 8-3-1 according to www.boxrec.com. She eventually opened a gym in Kalispell in retirement — Burton Boxing and Fitness — but has since shuttered the facility after what she called a “falling out” and moved to Palm Coast, Florida. There, Burton still occasionally trains young fighters in her spare time.

“I train kids that can’t afford anything but I help them until they eventually find a gym,” she said. “I’m getting them started. I’m teaching them the basics.”

While Burton says she had no interaction with her opponent’s late father at the fight, the now 40-year-old took time earlier this week to compare her own spirit and competitiveness to Ali’s. The former boxer even casually joked about getting another shot at Laila in the ring, a bit of bravado that would have made The Greatest proud.

“The way I looked at it, I’ve become 10 times the boxer and if they called me tomorrow I would start training and go back in the ring with her,” she said. “I’m a go-getter and that’s how Muhammad Ali was. He was a go-getter, he wasn’t afraid of anybody and that’s how you have to be. That’s where he rubbed off on me.”

Andy Viano is a sports reporter, columnist and fair-weather boxing fan. He can be reached at 758-4446 or aviano@dailyinterlake.com.