The way Ali won the crown and dominated boxing is he changed the rules. Nobody jabbed back in the day and everyone said it wasn’t really boxing racking up points with the jab and not doing real damage.
What they didn’t get was the jab set up the hook and the rest is history. Trump has a great jab.
Just the opposite. The fighters back in the day were much better technically. They used the jab more than today's fighters. The heavier weight classes were certainly dominated by the those who had the knockout punch. They put fannies in the seats. But Floyd Patterson, Jimmy Ellis, and Larry Holmes used the jab a lot.