It was a cry that started as a chant in the early 1960s and grew in volume over the next two decades, reverberating around the world from London to New York, Manila to Zaire to the accompaniment of flailing leather gloves.

Muhammad Ali won the heavyweight boxing championship an unprecedented three times. He fought monsters and pushovers, once compiling a winning streak of 31 straight fights, yet his greatest victory was scored outside the ring.

He beat Uncle Sam. He reversed public opinion. Down but not out, he struggled back to become one of the most popular and celebrated athletes of his time.

Refusing to take the step for military service when drafted in 1967, during the Vietnam War, he was stripped of his title, indicted by the government and, while never jailed, was forced into professional exile for three years.

Although he became a symbol of resistance for fellow blacks and the oppressed people of the world, much of the American public slapped him with the label "slacker" one of the most reprehensible of terms. After three years, he was vindicated by the Supreme Court.
He returned to reclaim his crown dramatically, lose it, regain it a second time and then a third.

After winning the heavyweight crown, the puckish son of a Kentucky sign painter adopted the Muslim faith, changing his name from Cassius Marcellus Clay as he was christened to Muhammad Ali. It was uncomfortable for the public to accept at first.

"I am 90 percent preacher and 10 percent fighter," he contended in Houston when he rejected the military draft on the grounds upheld later by the highest court that he was a conscientious objector.

The taint of the experience faded, and Ali's popularity soared. He was a superb fighter, a sleek punching machine with quick hands, dancing feet and blows that carried the sting of a sabre thrust. More than that, he was a personality brash and brassy at times, "The Mouth That Roared," they said, cocky almost to the point of arrogance, but rarely offensive.

He intrigued the masses and charmed potentates and kings, who courted his favors. There was no more recognizable personality in the world.

He gave the world some of its greatest ring battles - two knockouts of the fearsome Sonny Liston, his "Rope a Dope" tactics against George Foreman in Zaire and three great slugfests with Smokin' Joe Frazier.
He was always on stage boasting, chiding, philosophizing, spouting kindergarten poetry.

"They all must fall, in the round I call."

He told the veteran Archie Moore: "When you come to the fight, don't block the door. You will go home after round four."

He was indeed a tremendous specimen 6 feet, 3 inches tall and 210 pounds at top fighting trim with a blacksmith's shoulders and arms, but lean legs that moved like fleeting light.

"Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" became his clarion call as he danced about the ring, challenging his foes to land a damaging blow and then moving in with a left jab punctuated by a bone rattling right.

Son of a house painter, the boy known as Cassius dropped out of school early, haunted the playgrounds and boxed in the local gym. He piled up 108 victories as an amateur and battled his way onto the U.S. Olympic team at age 18, winning the light heavyweight gold medal in Rome in 1960.

The Louisville youngster won 19 fights before he was considered ready for a shot at the heavyweight crown, held by an awesome bear of a man named Sonny Liston, who had twice battered Floyd Patterson into insensibility in the first round.

The fight was set for Miami, February 25, 1964. Everybody considered Cassius a sacrificial lamb. When the challenger staged a wild tantrum at the weighin, doctors attributed it to fear and considered calling off the fight.

But the fight went on. A calm, methodical challenger danced and stabbed and made a monkey of the fearsome titleholder, who failed to come out for the seventh round. It was after this fight that Cassius announced his conversion to the Muslim faith and a new name: Muhammad Ali. In his first defense in May of the following year, Ali knocked out Liston with a historic "phantom punch" in the first round at Lewiston, Maine.

Then followed a series of victories, the draft tribulations, the three year banishment from the game and finally vindication.

Wild excitement greeted his comeback October 26, 1970a bout in a 5,000seat Atlanta gym against brawling Jerry Quarry, who lasted only three rounds. But 300 million live and on TV reportedly witnessed the "Battle of the Century'' in New York's Madison Square Garden against Smokin' Joe Frazier, the reigning champion, March 8, 1971.

It was a brutal fight, slugger against scientific boxer, won by the slugger Frazier, but a battle that left both gladiators so battered that they needed medical attention. It was Ali's first defeat after 31 straight victories.

Ali later scored a close decision over Frazier in a nontitle bout, regained his title by stopping big George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire, in October 1974. He kept the crown three years, winning a "rubber" battle over old rival Frazier in the bloody and brutal so called "Thrilla in Manila," before losing lackadaisically to outsider Leon Spinks in 1978.

The great Ali defeated Spinks later in the year to become the only man ever to win the heavy weight title three times, but age and ring punishment had taken their toll. He announced his retirement in 1981 after losses to Larry Holmes and Trevor Berbick.

"I am still the greatest," he bellowed in a tired, almost inaudible voice. The world echoed agreement.