Malcolm Gladwell came up with this concept that 10 000 hours of deliberate practice at something is needed to make someone into an expert. Once one has that level of experience, initial talent counts for very little.
I would put your anecdotal evidence down to a simple case of both players being largely inexperienced. Real life =/= Karate Kid where someone can go for 6 weeks and train really hard and then suddenly become a world master. It takes years of working at it.
I would bet that most, if not all, of the raiders in the top world guilds have spent thousands of hours working at their game to get to the level that they are, and I would be most surprised if they were all considered "wow-geniuses" at the start.
Talent is important yes. As a starting point. Obviously not everyone has an aptitude for some things, and the time it would take to give them the necessary skill is ridiculous.
As an example, straight out of school, only about 5% of people might have the aptitude to start training as an engineer. That is not to say that the other 95% could not be trained, with sufficient time. It's generally simply not worth it.
Best in the world people are exceptional. They have a special talent, and combined with enough effort are unbeatable. But there is very little stopping any ordinary person from becoming almost as good (better than 99% of other people), provided they have enough drive to put in the required effort for a sustained period of many years.