Players of Today against Players of the Past

Tal's wild imagination would still be puzzling. he'd deviate from the theory early and the game would still end up in a bizzare supercomplicated position, never seen before. so all that theory - it ain't gonna help =)

Fischer just before he passed away so that the "old" chess is dead. There was too much theory and made the game less enjoyable. This is why Fischer random was created so that people could not just play by rote.

Here is the link to the video:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-S4BU_AYJEs

The point in not knowing a lot of theory is you have no idea when you are entering or deviating from well known lines. Nobody is saying the greats would not win plenty of games but they would lose plenty too when against someone with excellent opening preparation. Lets not forget that the games of many greats have been well studied and their repertoires will be known too :)
No doubt they would adapt given the time but still would struggle for a long while IMO