Today's pool is worse than it was back then. Pool has been "dumbed down".
In this match, you didn't see either player playing a lot of safes every other shot. You didn't see jump cues. CJ didn't even use another cue to break with...he broke with his playing cue.
The rails and cloth are way too fast today. It is more like bunting the balls around the table than stroking them. I prefer playing on the slower cloth and rails so that I can "hit" the balls. I don't like having to baby them.
The table I play on during my once a week sessions has cloth that is a bit slower than the Simonis 860 and it suits me better.
I also am not a fan of one-foul BIH rules...that has ruined the game of 9-ball, IMHO. Before one-foul BIH, they played two-shot push out, which made for a much better game. There was more excitement because people would "go for" more difficult shots because they weren't scared of making a mistake and getting penalized by the single foul rules.
If you ask any old-school player...CJ, Earl, Keith, etc...they will all say that the way pool was played years ago was better than it is today.