that you're impressed by Corbett's "skills" tells me all I need to know about your knowledge of boxing mechanics. Watching old fights is like watching Yale play Princeton in football in 1910, there is nothing to learn.
Why would I call it an "unimpressive 'combination'"? Well, it's hard to see clearly but from what I can tell: He throws the first right while lifting his right foot; he throws throws the uppercut while basically standing straight up; and the lefts appear to have nothing on them. The combination didn't seem especially fast or fluid, or the punches well-thrown. It got the job done but as several of us have already written, there really isn't anything special there. I'm glad you agree that the second series of punches wasn't impressive. Maybe there's a misunderstanding, but I don't think anybody in this forum doubts that fighters in Corbett's era sometimes threw series of punches in continuous succession.
the reason you called it an "unimpressive combination" is because it was. Corbett had no idea how to shift his weight, he had no footwork to get his body behind the punches, he didn't know how to keep his punches short, it was just a man flailing his arms like any untrained person would do when throwing a series of punches AND while holding his chin high. He looked like he was untrained, and compared to modern fighters, he was. Who was around to train people in his time? There was no video, little training available, and the competition was unimpressive. Corbett was an unskilled boxer. One could spend a year putting together a highlight video of the best skills exhibited by all of these old timers and find one or two decent techniques from each one, or one could watch any video of a skilled fighter like Evander Holyfield, SRL, or Usyk and see the same "highlight" skills demonstrated time after time and done much better. What works in the ring has been kept, refined, and perfected, what didn't has been discarded. The ones who want to believe that Corbett was the same as a modern fighter can enjoy their fantasy, as long as they don't learn anything about boxing technique.
Ali style was unorthodox. He relied upon fast reflexes and quick feet, similar to Corbett. When reviewing past champions, Ali had a lot of praise for Tunney.
Fair enough, thanks for explaination. I'm not sure I agree with everything you said but some of your criticism has bases and I'm certain that you know more about boxing than me. I still think that your standards are a bit too high, because you very rarely praise fighters (especially older ones but even more recent). Would you say that Corbett showed anything impressive in the footage we have? Also, what do you think about Fitzsimmons? I did very short film about some Fitz punches from Corbett fight, but I have too short fight video to make something impressive. Anyway, here it is: https://streamable.com/r487t
I may agree with some of your points, but I know that you bash pretty much all pre-60s fighters and you have clear agenda. You also don't keep in mind how different boxing rules and equipment are in 1900s. You had to fight for over 20 rounds with much smaller gloves (high guard is useless) and clinching and rough inside tactics were much more acceptable. Do you think that someone fighting in modern style would be successful with that circumstances?
Didn't know Ali said that, makes sense though. I know he said he was more impressed with Charles and Walcott on film then Dempsey.
I didn't, I just showed that he used combinations more often than given credit. Besides, I think that we don't understand each other. "Unimpressive combination" is said with very negative approach, that's why I asked why it is so. I didn't imply that these two clips show ATG combination punching and you should be in awe of them. I just think they were normal, KD combo was quite good in my opinion and the second one is fast but not devastating and I wouldn't call it impressive. I saw similar combos thrown by modern fighters though, maybe I could even find something similar from Tyson Fury. Nobody says it's an impressive combo for someone like Fury, but nobody calls him bar brawler either. Corbett isn't regarded as an ATG puncher in his era, so it's not his most impressive part of the game.
Really doesn't matter what you think. If you cant see it right there on film then theres no helping you.