A weird one I've thought of, I've seen Jones get praise for his solid textbook boxing style, and arguably beating a close-to-prime Ali. Corbett get jeered for pretty much the opposite reasons fundamentally. Justifiably so. Still though, Corbett's speed and overall arsenal was still highly regarded by the 20s and 30s by notable fighters like Tunney and Loughran. I feel like they would've noticed how obsolete Corbett was by those standards if he was genuinely that crappy. Who do you pick?
Well-schooled Doug Jones had the boxing chops to beat a lot of heavies but he lacked the size to make it to the top. Jones was a tweener, a little too big for LHW and too small for HW. He was aggressive and fast and a pretty good infighter and counterpuncher. He should never have fought Joe Frazier, though. That was above Doug's pay grade. I commend him for having the sense to retire at the right time. Corbett would've been a fair match for him. I think he would perform well. He'd cut off the ring against Gentleman Jim and land some hard shots.
But even if they thought so... out of respect for the old champion, I doubt they would have openly voiced such an opinion!
Respectfully saying that an old legend was good is pretty different to saying that he was even faster than Benny Leonard, in the case of Tunney. Loughran even said that Corbett knew all of his tricks, even when his opponent’s corner had no clue. Hard to judge Corbett.
I wonder, if Tunney and Loughran ever saw any of Corbett's fights... since they were able to comment of how fast he was, and how many tricks he knew?
I don't see how they really could have, Corbett only had a handful of fights and Tunney and Loughran would've been children. Maybe they could've seen Corbett in one of his numerous exhibitions. Regardless, it seems like these interactions occurred when Corbett was older and when Loughean and Tunney entered their primes. I wish I could actually find the Loughran quote's source though, since I saw it from someone on here.
The only thing that I am certain of about Corbett, is that he was a total box of tricks. When we finally got the sped corrected footage, it became apparent that he just feints with every part of his body. He is trying to make you guess what his hands are doing, and guess what his feet are doing at the same time. No he was not technically correct for any era, but he was a total bag of tricks. He basically clowned everybody, except the pressure fighters, and he was sometime clowning them when he got stopped. He was also very effective at selling himself outside he ring, but that is another story.