LAS VEGAS -- Former heavyweight champion Michael Dokes cried and said he was sorry. But in the end it wasn't enough to keep him out of prison for beating and sexually assaulting his live-in girlfriend.

Dokes got up to 10 years in prison Monday for an attack that left the victim's face so beaten that an arresting officer said he couldn't recognize her from a driver's license photo.

The victim told the court that it took her a year to recover physically from the attack, and that she still suffers emotionally.

"Is he going to have to kill somebody before you put him away?" she asked.

Dokes, who won the WBA heavyweight title in 1982, pleaded guilty earlier to charges of attempted murder, second-degree kidnapping and battery with intent to commit sexual assault for the August 1998 attack in which the victim was held against her will for six hours in the home they shared.

"I'm remorseful. There's no excuse for my actions," Dokes said. "I love that woman with all my heart. I truly wanted to spend the rest of my life with her as husband and wife."

Dokes, 41, far heavier than the days in which he fought for the heavyweight title, was led away in handcuffs after District Judge John McGroarty imposed a sentence that will keep him in prison for a minimum of four years and two months.

McGroarty said the severity of the crime outweighed the numerous letters and testimonials offered by friends and associates of Dokes, who said he was a kind person who was involved in charitable work.

"With your physical attributes, she could have been killed easily," the judge told Dokes.

The victim took the stand to tell of her relationship with Dokes, which stretched over 10 years.

She said Dokes, who had two prior felony drug convictions, was a good person when he was clean and sober, which he was for several years during their relationship.

But she said drug and alcohol use made Dokes violent, and the violence culminated in the beating and assault when she came home at 5 a.m. from a concert she had attended. She said Dokes punched her in the face and beat her before sexually assaulting her.

The victim said she was held six hours before being allowed to leave. Just before she left, she said, Dokes sexually assaulted her because he wanted to have sex one more time before going to jail.

"I finally begged my way out of there," she said.

Dokes had entered a plea in which he did not admit the charges, but admitted he could be found guilty of them. He had claimed that the woman attacked him with a knife and that he was just trying to defend himself.

"I've been taught all my life to defend myself first," Dokes said. "I guess my reactions were without thought."

Dokes won the heavyweight title at 24 in December 1982, when referee Joey Curtis made a controversial decision to stop his fight with champion Mike Weaver with Weaver taking a beating in the first round.

An admitted problem with cocaine helped him lose the WBA title only nine months later to Gerrie Coetzee, however, and Dokes never held the heavyweight crown again.

Once regarded by many as one of the most promising young fighters in the game, Dokes succumbed to a cocaine habit that cut the promise short.

Having fought back from cocaine addiction to resume his career in 1987 after a layoff nearly three years, Dokes suffered a relapse in 1991. He was arrested in Las Vegas on cocaine charges. It was his third arrest on drug charges, and he received a suspended sentence and placed on five years' probation.

Dokes came back for one last shot at the big time, getting a February 1993 shot at the heavyweight title against Riddick Bowe. He earned $750,000 but didn't last long, getting knocked out in the first round by Bowe at Madison Square Garden.

He last fought in November 1997, when he weighed 280 pounds.