Video: When Muhammad Ali saved a man from suicide

A video recorded in 1981, which shows the recently deceased boxing legend Muhammad Ali saving a man from committing suicide, has gone viral.

The footage shows Ali talking to a man threatening to jump off a ledge on the ninth floor of a Los Angeles high-rise.

Ali was reportedly in the vicinity when he heard about a 21-year-old African-American man threatening to kill himself at the Miracle Mile office building.

The boxer rushed to the scene, sprinted into the building shouted at the disturbed man: " You're my brother. I love you and I wouldn't lie to you. You got to listen. I want you to come with me, meet some friends of mine."

After cops and psychiatrists had failed to do as much, it took Ali some 20 minutes to convince the man to not jump. Ali then escorted him with an arm around the shoulder to his waiting Rolls Royce and dropped him off at the Police station.

'The Greatest' died in Phoenix, Arizona, on Friday, 32 years after he was diagnosed with Parkinson' s disease.