The World Remembers Muhammad Ali, 'The Greatest'

Muhammad Ali, the legendary heavyweight boxer remembered not only for his razor sharp reflexes and speed but also as a man of principle, died late Friday night at a Phoenix hospital. He was 74.

Tributes and stories shared following his death highlighted his sense of humor, his beliefs and his humility.

Statement from President Barack Obama

Muhammad Ali was The Greatest. Period. If you just asked him, he’d tell you. He’d tell you he was the double greatest; that he’d “handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder into jail.”

But what made The Champ the greatest – what truly separated him from everyone else – is that everyone else would tell you pretty much the same thing.

Like everyone else on the planet, Michelle and I mourn his passing. But we’re also grateful to God for how fortunate we are to have known him, if just for a while; for how fortunate we all are that The Greatest chose to grace our time.

In my private study, just off the Oval Office, I keep a pair of his gloves on display, just under that iconic photograph of him – the young champ, just 22 years old, roaring like a lion over a fallen Sonny Liston. I was too young when it was taken to understand who he was – still Cassius Clay, already an Olympic Gold Medal winner, yet to set out on a spiritual journey that would lead him to his Muslim faith, exile him at the peak of his power, and set the stage for his return to greatness with a name as familiar to the downtrodden in the slums of Southeast Asia and the villages of Africa as it was to cheering crowds in Madison Square Garden.

“I am America,” he once declared. “I am the part you won’t recognize. But get used to me – black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own. Get used to me.”

That’s the Ali I came to know as I came of age – not just as skilled a poet on the mic as he was a fighter in the ring, but a man who fought for what was right. A man who fought for us. He stood with King and Mandela; stood up when it was hard; spoke out when others wouldn’t. His fight outside the ring would cost him his title and his public standing. It would earn him enemies on the left and the right, make him reviled, and nearly send him to jail. But Ali stood his ground. And his victory helped us get used to the America we recognize today.

He wasn’t perfect, of course. For all his magic in the ring, he could be careless with his words, and full of contradictions as his faith evolved. But his wonderful, infectious, even innocent spirit ultimately won him more fans than foes – maybe because in him, we hoped to see something of ourselves. Later, as his physical powers ebbed, he became an even more powerful force for peace and reconciliation around the world. We saw a man who said he was so mean he’d make medicine sick reveal a soft spot, visiting children with illness and disability around the world, telling them they, too, could become the greatest. We watched a hero light a torch, and fight his greatest fight of all on the world stage once again; a battle against the disease that ravaged his body, but couldn’t take the spark from his eyes.

Muhammad Ali shook up the world. And the world is better for it. We are all better for it. Michelle and I send our deepest condolences to his family, and we pray that the greatest fighter of them all finally rests in peace.

Muhammad Ali Saved a Man's Life in 1980

Many remembered how Ali, after losing a 1980 matchup with Larry Holmes in Los Angeles, stopped a man from jumping to his death from the ninth floor of a building. According to an AP article from the time, Ali talked to the man from a ninth-floor window and then from a partially enclosed stairwell.

Ali led the man to safety after about 30 minutes, witnesses said.

From the AP:

"I hate to see anybody take his life," a tired Ali said afterward from his Hancock Park home. "Saving a life is more important to me than winning a world championship."

A police spokesman at the time told the AP there was no doubt about it that Ali saved that man's life.

How did he manage to talk the man out of jumping? He promised to help him.

"You're my brother," Ali told the man. "I love you and I wouldn't lie to you. You got to listen. I want you to come home with me, meet some friends of mine."

SEE ALSO:

• Muhammad Ali, 'The Greatest,' Dead At 74
• Six of the Biggest Fights of Muhammad Ali's Career

What Will You Do Once You Retire?

A child once asked Ali what he would do once he retired. His long and thoughtful answer wasn't what the crowd expected.

He first pretends to fall asleep, eliciting laughs from the crowd. He then detailed to the crowd how short life actually is and said the best thing he can do once he retires is to prepare to meet God.

Watch the full exchange below.

Congo Remembers 'Rumble in the Jungle'

Ali faced George Foreman in a fight that would be known as "The Rumble in the Jungle” in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Ali perfected his "rope-a-dope" strategy in the eighth round of the fight and was crowned heavyweight champion.

"This is someone who helped make our country visible in the 1970s," government spokesman Lambert Mende told ABC News via phone on Saturday.

"This is someone who built a bridge between African-Americans and Africans," Mende said. "He will always have an important place in the hearts of the Congolese."

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Asked once how he wanted to be remembered, the BBC notes Ali simply said, "As a man who never sold out his people. But if that's too much, then just a good boxer.

"I won't even mind if you don't mention how pretty I was."

And pretty he was.

Ali's doctor, Ferdie Pacheco, described him as the most perfect human being he had ever seen—ideally proportioned, handsome and with lightning reflexes.

Tributes from Family, Friends and More

Image via Wikimedia Commons

Marc Torrence contributed to this report