Had never heard this poem before...absolutely brilliant......i look at Muhammad Ali with different eyes and mind, he deserves the greatest respect for these words.........of freedom......

Ali was in fact a boxing philosopher....i loved this man ...even today still in 2023...RIP champ🙏

He was a champion inside and outside the ring

I've been an admirer of the Great Ali since I was 10. My admiration for him will never end...

Remember being allowed to stay up late and watch "the fight" on TV in our house in Belfast in the 70s...My parents and the whole household were rooting for him...in school the next day the teacher asked who was following Ali? All but one boy put his hand up...Wonderful...A voice for the oppressed...a political prisoner...My parents (god rest them) loved him and we love him still...

Not just the greatest boxer of all time but maybe the greatest man of all time definitely one of them

The smile after the poem...."I know I am great thanks for giving me the space to be acknowledged."

This man is, indeed, the Greatest!

I can't believe this. I'm so happy I discovered his poetry. I never really watched boxing. Mike Tyson actually led me here. Mike Tyson his story of abuse and survival led me to like even I handed Holyfield they all have similar stories. So I ended up here and I'm so glad I did.

Muhammad Ali , a fiercely intelligent man who like Pele , Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama who changed the world . Ali not only fought in the ring But he fought to bring awareness and to educate us all to a better way

Outstanding…no cue cards…all from his heart

Unbelievable Poem from the 'deepest' parts of him.

wow. at the end, Ali stands in solidarity with the Irish people.

What a brilliant man! Truly "The Greatest"!!!

LEGEND. I pray to Allah he met his brother Malcolm in heaven. And all muslim fans ofcourse will meet the legends there too inshaallah

Where has this poem been all my life?!

A LEGEND FIREVER ....ALI THE GREATEST OF ALL... HIS DELIVERY SHAKE UR SOUL ... A GENIOUS AND A CHAMPION.

And, that's a badass poem!

What a legend, he really is the greatest

It was never the speed,or the skills as much as it was his staggering intelligence and divine intervention.He was God's favorite champion because he stood for so much.Freedom, justice, equality... Giving of himself always... Raising monies for kids in hospitals, and helping the downtrodden and oppressed. When Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were murdered it was Ali who put so many black people on his back and carried them through their darkest hours.He was the greatest hero that ever lived.He would rather have died in the ring than lose.He paid the ultimate price sure but he also got the most love, admiration, and respect.To see the crowds he used to draw it was like seeing a king or God coming down to earth.He was supposed to be a muscle bound hulking ferocious monster with no brains and be all brawn but he won his fights with wit,humor,and intelligence.He taught people that love and giving were what a true champion should be promoting.Not malice and rage.Thats why others were heavyweight champions but Ali will be the world heavyweight champion of life forever.To hell with boxing.Far too small of a compartment to put him in.You don't beat God, and you don't beat Ali.Case closed.Period.And if you don't know you gotta lotta damn reading to catch up on kiddies

Watched 'ATTICA' on Showtime. Saw it 3 x's. I'm an upper middle class White Woman who was 22 yrs. old at the time & TOTALLY APPALLED by the 'Ruthless' Prison in America. Appalled by Rockafeller's lack of humanity. Man's inhumanity to Man. Sickening... Did they 'DIE' in Vain? Were changes made in the Prison System in 50 years? Man's inhumanity to man. Sickening.

Ali wrote many short poems that were funny and composed in ways that he knew would delight us. He had a lot in common with the humorous poet, Ogden Nash, in that way. But, Ali was also a serious poet - a real poet - who composed this one among others of profound poetic depth and importance. When I heard this one for the first time many years ago, I realized without a doubt that Ali was not just a good poet, he was a great one. Here's what happened at Attica. It illustrates the lies about how the inmates had supposedly killed the hostages. They hadn't. The hostages were killed by police bullets. This lie was ultimately exposed and the outrage that followed was intense and widespread among reasonable people everywhere. www.history.com/this-day-in-history/riot-at-attica-prison

God Bless this man! The legend...

Lol, and you hear people comparing Ali to Mayweather! There is Ali with this kind of humanity in his mind and then there is Mayweather with gold chains and gold rings and dollars in his mind. Unbelievable! Get a grip people!

Not only is Ali the greatest sportsman who ever lived, he is also probably the greatest American since Lincoln.

Ali's the man!!

Absolute genius and courage - The GREATEST in every way.

"Making Peace, just to live a lie". So relevant in today's time

Wow ...wonder if there is compilation of his poems!

"To die fighting to be free, what more fitting end can be" ~Muhammad ali The Vietnamese fought for FREEDOM. The Americans fought for an ideology and the domino theory and were sent home in shame and defeat. The golf of tonkin incident never happened, so 58,000 Americans and probably a million Vietnamese lost their lives over an event that never happened. And Americas status as a worlds greatest fighting force lost. You may have won the battles but you lost the war severely.

I've always admired Ali, but this took it to another level. And his refusal to go to Vietnam. All he had to do was do some exhibition fights overseas and they would have let him defend his title anytime he wanted. He refused to have anything to do with an unjust war, even though he would have been given the celebrity treatment if he accepted the draft, and stood to lose everything if he refused. Sometimes I wonder if I would be as brave and principled as him; to sacrifice my body of work, my ability to earn a living, and possibly my freedom for a principle. I guess you can never know until you're confronted with that choice.

even the mic felt his wrath

What a brilliant and poignant poem from a great athlete, activist, and CHAMPION!!! 🙇‍♂️⁠

I love this Man!

The Irish said "NO!" to Frederick Douglass, so I don't know about that . . . am I wrong or am I lying? I know I'm neither.

The man is awesome!

So underrated

Go find and watch all of PBS's series Eyes on the Prize, whenever & wherever you can. Watch your local (US) PBS for it to air, it should be aired every year. Attica and the Chicago cops raid on the Black Panthers is covered in detail in a later episode. Thank you for posting this.

The People's Champ!

R.I.P. Champ.

What a great man.

Fantastic poem

Still waiting for black-America to produce a personality similar to M.Ali's. The Greatest

Fantastic!

Better far- from all I see- To die fighting to be Free What more fitting end could be? Better surely than in some bed Where in broken health I'm led Lingering until I'm dead Better than with prayers and pleas Or in the clutch of some disease Wasting slowly by degrees Better than a heart attack or some dose of drug I lack Let me die by being Black

rip ali the greatest ever

Ali, bomayé!

Love it from indonesia

Better than a heart attack or some dose of drug I lack Let me die by being Black Better far that I should go Standing here against the foe Is the sweeter death to know Better than the bloody stain on some highway where I’m lain Torn by flying glass and pane Better calling death to come than to die another dumb, muted victim in the slum

Better then of this prison rot if there's any choice I've got kill me here on the spot Better far my fight to wage now while my blood boils with rage less it cool with ancient age Better violent for us to die than to uncle Tom and try making peace just to live a lie Better now that I say my sooth I'm gonna die demanding truth while I'm still akin to youth Better now than later on now that fear of death as gone never mind another dawn.

R.I.P

GOD POWER 2 RIGHTEOUS PEOPLE!!!

Inna lillahi wa Inna illaihi raji’un. The Greatest Of All Time

When was that moment?

dance like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

Greatest person of all-time.

this guy is great

You won't here any Black athletes today talking like that. which is totally sad.

♥️💪

Better far from all I see to die fighting to be free what more fitting end could be Better surely than in some bed where in broken health I'm led lingering until I'm dead Better then with prayers and pleas or in the clutch of some disease wasting slowly by degrees

Can I get the Lyrics

1:09

I believe he's the only black angel in America. Where in America all angles are white

smh @ the ridiculous religious comments... none of these religious zealot comments have anything to do with the poem, or the reason why he wrote the poem.

Interesting his ending comments about solidarity with the Irish people given that he later discovered his great grandfather was an Irishman that married his great grandmother who was a freed slave.

i welcome my death... ... only after theirs.

first rapper some say

The only combination of muscle and brain...

Muhammad Ali and Mayweather are the exact opposites! They only have boxing in common! That's it...there is not two people more different than these two! You can argue who you think has a better style of boxing or something like that but as a human being Ali is a God to half of the population of the world's rich and poorest because of what he has down for humanity. But Mayweather is just one of milions of sports guys who has tarined hard to win a boxing match and be the best at his event, that's all you can say! Don't compare an insect to a lion heart or in some people's eyes a prophet of the modern age!

Hebrews 2:14-15 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself✝️ likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.⛓

Galatians 5:1 Stand fast therefore in the LIBERTY wherewith Chris✝️ hath made us FREE, and BE NOT ENTANGLED AGAIN with the yoke of ⛓bondage.

They don't believe any more fanatically than any other religion, unless you learned about Islam by reading the Daily Mail

@WavinFlag92 They believe rather fanatically in Allah and Paradise.