Muhammad Ali Passes Away

[pineappleheadindc]

Impossible is just big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.

Goodnight champ. You were, and will always be, "The Greatest".

[Kanyewest]

Man, sad news.

[80sballboy]

There will never be another athlete like Ali.

He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.
The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.

[WallToWall]

And there goes the last time heavyweight boxing was actually something to behold.

He did so much, and meant so much. The world will certainly miss him.

[payitforward]

I was born and grew up in Chicago. Muhammad was a presence like no other from the moment he burst into view.

The word "hero" gets a meaning because Muhammad Ali lived. He was my ideal. I find it unbearable that he is no longer in the world.

[McFilthy]

RIP great one. He had his way in the ring and a way with words. If you want to find out more about why Muhammad Ali was amazing, I highly recommend watching the documentary "When We Were Kings," which is about Ali's 1974 Rumble in the Jungle against George Foreman in the country formerly known as Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo.)

[long suffrin' boulez fan]

Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth-

Muhammad Ali

He was truly the GOAT

[verbal8]

RIP

[McFilthy]

He was a controversial figure. Muhammad Ali was an athlete who took a political stand even when the price for doing so was costly. He has drafted into the army, but wouldn't go due to his opposition to the war. For refusing induction into the Army, he was stripped of his heavyweight boxing title, heavily fined and sentenced to jail in 1967. I don't think he actually served time in prison since his case was pending. After being banned from boxing for three years, Ali simply returned and won the heavyweight title back in 1970.

A few of his quotes:

"We're going to get it on, cause we don't get along"

"Float like a butteryfly, sting like a bee. He can't hit, who he can't see."

"We must whoop Mr. Tooth Decay."

" The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life."

"If they can make penicillin out of mouldy bread, they can sure make something out of you."

"Why Is Jesus white?"

"I'm so mean, I make medicine sick!"

Me? We!"

[FAH1223]

May Allah grant him paradise!

Ali for me was amazing to learn about because of what he stood for outside of the ring and how he was a pioneer in many ways for Muslims in America. He was a great humanitarian and was able to bring many people together.

He's a great example to look to!

[payitforward]

I was lucky enough to meet Muhammad Ali about 15 years ago at an annual charity event in DC called Fight Night.

Waiting to enter the ballroom at the Hilton just up Connecticut Avenue from Dupont Circle, I turned around and he was heading right at me, a pair of strapping young handlers at his sides. His aura about knocked me over, and as he approached I mumbled something inept by way of homage and then "a-salaam-alaykum."

He paused briefly, spoke what was no doubt the standard reply but too softly for me to hear his words, then handed me a slip of paper w/ some lines in Arabic, a prayer I supposed.

The paper was slightly wrinkled and I felt on it the heat of the fingers in which he'd held it. "Mash-a-Allah...", I muttered in his direction as he moved on, "...that I have been allowed to meet you."

Later, when at the end of the evening I was at home again, I looked in all my pockets for the prayer he'd given me but could not find it.

May his memory be for a blessing among the righteous.

[AFM]

The greatest homeless boxer of all time died yesterday. RIP.