*cracks knuckles*
roy jones known opponents in his prime
bernard hopkins, james toney, virgil hill, mike mccallum - these are the HOF'ers he did fight, 3 of them were technically better than roy but he soundly beat them
now the tier of fighters who were good and notable who he did beat
jorge castro, merqui sosa, jorge vaca, montell griffin, thomas tate, vinnie paz, reggie johnson, eric lucas eric harding, julio cesar gonzalez - - some like tate and johnson were notorious for giving top fighters problems and roy just beat them down
roy does have some of the garbagemen on his record and some of his hbo fights with them that i watched in the late 90s-early 00s from had me like
..but make no mistake roy was a special talent in his prime and he did beat several great/good/notable fighters..the only fighter he shou light middleweight ld've faced but didnt was darius michalzewski..that stemmed from roy not wanting to fight overseas because of the olympic robbery..so to say his record is only 2 fights better than mikkel kessler is asinine..roy is going down as a great regardless on how his career ended
now the light heavyweight division..first 175 is the one of the oldest divisions in boxing and most notable...now if you said super middle or cruiser for unpopular weight classes then you would have been on the money..and where you got the notion that 175 fighters want to move to those divisions more is beyond me...fighters like bob foster, michael spinks, and virgil hill would be and/or are on any top p4p list...and there were other great fighters like dwight muhammad qawi, eddie mustafa muhammad, matthew saad muhammad, mike mccallum, etc etc..why you mentioned sugar ray leonard ill never know...he won a version of the title and didn't do shyt in that division..the 175 is far from a wasteland...in the 70s, 80s, and early to mid 90s was a marquee division...even outside the championship fights..my 2 and 3 favorite fights of all time after corrales-castillo were a pair of brutal 175 fights - prince charles williams (a notable long time 175 champ) vs merqui sosa 1 and 2.
i believe this is the great rebuttal you were waiting for and like black mamba said "you dont know shyt about boxing"