Locking Goat Horns – Boxing and The Greatest Capricorn Fighters of the 20th Century
by:
Brad Kronen
The Three Fighting Goat Boys – Joe Frazier (left), born January 12th, George Foreman (center), born January 10th, and Muhammad Ali (right), born January 17th.
Street Fighting versus the Art of Boxing
The former deals primarily with Luck. The latter deals almost entirely on skill.
The opponent who ends up as the winner in the former usually does so by taking advantage of an opportunity with lightning fast speed within a match that lasts for no standardized length of time.
The winner of the latter is determined by a variety of ways; with whomever is left standing at the end of a match which lasts for 15 rounds, or if the referee decides an opponent should no longer continue fighting, or most importantly should both opponents remain willing and able to compete at the end of a match ,the fight’s victor is determined by 10 point scores given by three judges. Each score is based on the following technical criteria:
- Clean punching (as compared to the number of punches thrown).
- Effective aggressiveness shown by each opponent.
- General Behavior displayed by each opponent while in the ring.
- Level of defense displayed by each opponent
Boxing is described as being an art form due to the opponent being able to successfully display the discipline of well-thought strategizing that’s brought about by masterful exhibits of accuracy and technique along with having pristine physical conditioning which endows a boxer with extreme endurance, adroit speed, and of course sheer strength.
With all of that said, it should be no surprise some of the world’s greatest professional and Olympic medal winning boxers have been born beneath the astrological sign that learns most effectively through the repeated use of skilled discipline whose progress and growth become apparent only after the passage of Time – Capricorn the Goat. In fact, three of the greatest boxing champions of the latter half of the 20th century not only were Capricorns, they were all born within a week of each other: George Foreman, “Smoking” Joe Frazier, and the man who called himself “the greatest” Muhammad Ali.
All three men not only brought the sport to new standards of excellence by each winning Olympic Gold Medals and whether through their active participation or merely by association, each boxer forced American society.to take a stand on many of the most relevant racial and political issues happening at that time.
This article will mainly focus on one of the most controversial boxing matches of its kind which bore repercussions for fans that extended far beyond the world of Boxing. So much so, the match was dubbed “the Fight of the century”- the 1971 Madison Square Garden boxing match between two heavyweight champions who at that time were undefeated – Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali.
The boxing match dubbed “the Fight of the century” was the first time in history two undefeated heavyweight boxers fought each other for the championship title. The match bears a unique distinction in that its appeal extended well beyond boxing , or even sports for that matter. Either directly or indirectly, each contender represented a specific strata of American society at that fluctuating time in our country’s history.
Muhammad Ali & The Disenfranchised Left
Technically, Louisville Kentucky native Muhammad Ali was the reigning Heavyweight World Champion at that time after defeating Sonny Liston for the title in 1964. along with winning a gold medal in Boxing for the United States in the 1960 Rome Olympics. However. In 1967 the man formerly known as Cassius Clay had both his boxing license and championship title stripped from him by the WBA (World Boxing Association) after refusing to be inducted into the American military, effectively avoiding the Vietnam War draft. By 1971, Ali had become the face of protest both against America’s armed forces as well as the most controversially explosive spokesperson for America’s Civil Rights Movement. At that time, Muhammad Ali had come to represent the face of Left Wing liberal politics to most of American society.
A sold out crowd of 20,000 watch “the fight of the century” at NYC’s Madison Square Garden, March 8th, 1971.(courtesy CNN.com)
Joe Frazier: Caught By Default Into America’s Conservative Right
Muhammad Ali wasn’t the only Olympic medal winning boxer who was present that historic night. Joe Frazier had won the Gold in Boxing for the United States just three years earlier at the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo. Ali was kmown for verbally sparring with his competitors before a match and the relentless taunting of his opponents was practically a guarantee to garner a violent reaction from them at the very least. However, when it came to taunting Joe Frasier, Muhammad Ali not only let things get hyper- personal, he steered public opinion against Frazier by providing a consciously unjust viewpoint about his competitor.
Muhammad Ali’s War of Words
Above is Muhammad Ali’s natal chart. The typical Capricorn is usually known for their inherent sense of humility that tends to be reflected most especially through their demure style of speech and humble words. This sounds as antithetical as possible when applying these personality traits to the man who seemed to always be in a near constant state of self-aggrandisment. Plus, two other factors exist in Ali’s birth chart which testify his words proved to not only be his greatest weapons but also were his greatest Life lessons as well:: his 29 degree Neptune and his natal Jupiter conjunct the asteroid Orcus in the sign of Gemini.
29 degree Virgoan Neptune
At first glance, nearly every one of Muhammad Ali’s personal planets which includes the “chart ruler” of his Capricorn Sun, his Aquarian Moon as well as the planet which oversees Thought and more importantly, Communication, Mercury,along with the asteroid Ceres are positioned in a huge stellium of five heavenly bodies in the sign of Aquarius in the 6th House of Daily Chores and Karmic Service. The sign of Aquarius is known for its quirky sense of brilliance and intellectual originality, and not necessarily for its caustic sense of subversiveness and rebellion, as most would assume. Bragging was a great outlet for Ali’s genius to express itself and the most effective way for his razor sharp intellect to best be remembered. Being the last of the Air signs, anything placed in the sign of Aquarius demands that a near constant state of Honesty be applied, regardless of how brutally painful the Truth may seem. Muhammad Ali’s biggest point of contention was his penchant to exaggerate by bending the Truth of his words.
Just as nearly all of his personal planets were positioned in the House attributed to the sign of Virgo,the 6th, Ali’s natal Neptune was placed at the last ,or highly karmic 29th degree in the communication based sign of the Virgin that best deals with details. Each sign of the Zodiac consists of 30 degrees, with 0 being the first degree and 29 being the last. When a planet is placed at the very last, or 29th degree, it is described as being highly karmic When applied to Neptune,the planet of UN-reality, imagination, and deception placed in the final degree of the communication- based sign of Virgo, a person must contend with varying shades of predominantly one thing – Truth.
Added to that, the planet of idealism, Blessings, and Opportunity, better known as Jupiter, was natally placed in the Communications oriented sign of Gemini and positioned just one degree away from the heavenly body named after the ancient Roman god whose sole earthly concern was the lawful taking of oaths – Horkos, better known as Orcus. When a person is born with their Jupiter closely conjunct Orcus, the truthfulness of their words is tantamount. This was woefully not the case in Muhammad Ali’s public treatment of Joe Frazier.
Joe Frazier’s Humble Words
Like his boxing contemporaries, Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, Joe Frazier was also born while the Sun was in the diligently hard working sign of Capricorn. Quite unlike his competitor during the notorious “Fight of the Century”, however, Frazier was born with not just with the Sun placed in the sign of the Goat, , the heavyweight contender was also born with the planet of Thought and Communication otherwise known as Mercury placed in the same demure and plainly direct sign as well. Whereas Muhammad Ali’s Mercury was positioned in the sign whose quirky sense of oddness sought the attention of others, Frazier’s natal Mercury found satisfaction by communicating with the most simple words imaginable, where one’s actions should sufficiently say more than enough about one’s overall character and intentions. Being a sharecropper’s 12th and youngest child who grew up on his family’s farm in rural South Carolina, Honesty was always the best policy whenever dealing with others. Sensing Frazier didn’t have the ability to lie nor exaggerate well, the man who incessantly bragged about himself being ‘the greatest” took full advantage over convincing the public that not only was Joe Frazier undeserving of the heavyweight title because of his unworldly sense of backwardness and naivete, Ali dared to state that Joe Frazier was a traitor to his people by embodying the white man’s ideal of being a person they could order around and who would do exactly as told. Accusing Frazier of being “a dumb tool of the white establishment” Ali went so far as calling his competitor an “Uncle Tom” and that the only people rooting for Joe Frazier were “white men in suits and members of the Ku Klux Klan”. Ali even offensively referred to Joe Frazier as “the gorilla”, carrying a mini stuffed gorilla on his person.
Mild mannered Frazier didn’t say a word about Ali’s overtly racist slurs, he responded by referring to Ali by his former surname “Clay”, which in turn enraged his competitor. The “Fight of the Century” had taken on a political tone of its own that within it possessed a defined socio-economic spin. In the time leading up to the match, it became understood; those who rooted for Muhammad Ali supported left wing politics and were anti-establishment and those who backed Joe Frazier were conservative and inherently pro-war.
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The Fight of the Century
The day the big fight arrived, it was being broadcast by closed circuit to 50 countries in 12 languages via ringside reporters to a listening audience estimated at 300 million, a record viewership for a television event at that time. Ringside seats were $150 (equivalent to $959 in 2020) and both fighters were guaranteed $2.5 million. In addition to the millions who watched on closed-circuit broadcast screens globally, the venue of Madison Square Garden was sold out to capacity with a record crowd of 20,455. The boxing match drew every major pop culture celebrity of the day such as Frank Sinatra, Woody Allen, Barbra Streisand, and Diana Ross, along with the fact fans attending the main event wore the most outrageous outfits that night. Scores of policemen in New York City were dispatched to control the massive influx of raucous crowds to the midtown Manhattan area.
The Match
Nearly four inches separated the two contenders with Joe Frazier standing at 5 feet 11 inches and Muhammad Ali towering above him at 6 feet 3 inches. Even with such a noteworthy disparity of height, a difference of just 10 pounds separated the boxers’ body weight, with Frazier weighing in at 205 pounds and Ali at 215. Both men were in top physical form that evening.
Even for his noted height, Muhammad Ali was known for his speedy dexterity and graceful moves. Frazier, on the other hand, was noted for his near-perfect left hook and for coming out and attacking the body of his competitor quite ferociously. Unforeseen by those who were present, the match went beyond everyone’s expectations by lasting a full 15 rounds that historic evening.
Ali started the match’s pace fast and furiously as Frazier employed a technique which he had recently learned of bobbing and weaving, allowing him to get overall body shots that were both taxing and punishing to his opponent. By the 6th round things had slowed down considerably due to Ali becoming quickly winded. This allowed Frazier chances to deploy his deadly left hook. When it first connected, Ali’s head snapped back as his lower right jaw began to seriously swell. Frazier was able to follow through to the same facial area another three times. By the time the 15th and final round had begun it looked as if Joe Frazier had indeed broken Muhammad Ali’s jaw with Ali hitting the canvas floor, but fully standing back up at the referee’s count of Four.
Muhammad Ali is stopped dead in his tracks by Joe Frazier’s most overt weapon- his left hook during Madison Square Garden’s historic “Fight of the Century”, March 8th, 1971
Although Ali was able to resume fighting once again, the match was all over. After a grueling 15 rounds, Joe Frazier won the first “Fight of the Century” by unanimous decision(7–6–1, 10–4–0, and 8–6–0) with all three judges giving Frazier the lead. Not only had Joe Frazier won the WBA title of Heavyweight Champion, he had given Muhammad Ali the first loss of his professional boxing career.
Joe Frazier would suffer his own devastating loss when he would lose his title by being knocked out in Kingston, Jamaica during the 2nd round of his match against another Capricorn boxer named George Foreman on January 22nd, 1973.
Frazier and Ali would fight again in two major re-matches in 1974 and 1975, both of which Muhammad Ali would end up winning. However, Ali’s unjustified overhyping of the Garden’s “Fight of the Century” would end up karmicly washing out his re-match victories. Impressively, the 32 year old Muhammad Ali as the unfavored underdog would end up defeating the younger and stronger then unbeaten heavyweight champion George Foreman when the two Capricorn boxers would fight against each other on October 30th, 1974 in the former central African country of Zaire , which has been called “the most famous fight of all time.”, dubbed “The Rumble in the Jungle”. In true Capricorn style, with all odds against him, the older Muhammad Ali would regain the Heavyweight title against the younger and stronger George Foreman.
Despite never saying a word about Muhammad Ali trying to turn him against his own people, Joe Frazier held resentment against him. When it was revealed that Ali was fighting Parkinson’s Syndrome, Frazier claimed it was “divine retribution” for his earlier behavior against him.
Muhammad Ali did manage to make an apology to Joe Frazier when he stated the following in a New York Times article:
“In a way, Joe’s right. I said a lot of things in the heat of the moment that I shouldn’t have said. Called him names I shouldn’t have called him. I apologize for that. I’m sorry. It was all meant to promote the fight.”
Joe Frazier and Mohammad Ali would reconcile and then resume their war of words against each other throughout the duration of their lives. After the “Fight of the Century” Joe Frazier would neither directly fight nor defeat Muhammad Ali again, but between these two boxing legends things would end up karmicly balancing themselves out just the same.
Both of Joe Frazier’s children became competitive boxers, his son Marvis and his daughter, Jacqui. In fact, Jacqui Frazier-Lyde became a WIBA world light-Heavyweight champion whose professional boxing career was marked by a record of 13 wins and 1 loss. The 1 loss was to a boxer who may sound familiar, Laila Ali, Muhammad’s daughter.
The promotional poster showing the match between Joe Frazier;s daughter, Jacqui Frazier-Lyde and Muhammad Ali’s daughter Laila Ali. The boxing match was called “Unfinished Business: The Daughters of Destiny”.
Apparently, boxing titles as well as Karma runs in families.
** Brad Kronen as written over 30 books which focus on the role Astrology plays in our daily lives. His most recent work is a series of astrological dating guides tailor made for each sign of the Zodiac called “Love in the Stars”. In honor of the three greatest boxers of the 20th century, the Capricorn edition can be seen below and can be purchased directly at amazon.com. Click on the image below to see all of Brad’s self -published work!
bradkronen.com 