If Burns got himself above 200lbs, using modern nutritional help, he would be oval! As I understand it, you can fight at heavyweight today, if you are above 193. I could see Corbett being an Adamek type contender today. He wouldn't get to the top, but he might make a splash.
Corbett was a highly intelligent man. He might well have decided that he could do better as a lawyer today!
I think Burns was better than Corbett. Burns might make a decent fighter in the welter or middle range today. Corbett must have been fit and tough but his record and available footage never impressed me. His claim to fame is mostly a completely shot Sullivan and an injured aging Jackson. His record is something like 11-4-3
For most of gloved boxing history, he would not have been considered worthy to carry Corbett's spit bucket.
In a top 25 all time Heavyweight list, I think Corbett should be on it, regardless of seemingly poor showings on poor quality films. I've been revising my all time list lately. I currently have Corbett at #22. I'm sure most of Corbett's fight record is not available to us today. He definitely had more fights than what shows on BoxRec, in Ring Record Books, or on Wikipedia.
R Really, because from what I have read he was an ignorant hateful man who paraded around in a thong, Why do you say he was an intellect? genuinely curios.
When a fighter and his managers end up in court, you would expect the fighter to shut up and let the manager do most of the talking. In Corbett's case the opposite happened after the Sharkey debacle.