Chris Byrd should be heavyweight champion of the world. He should be making his 15th title defense. He should already be recognized among the greatest pure boxers in the history of the division.

Whenever Byrd fights a top fighter who "only" enjoys a 10-20 pound weight advantage, he wins. David Tua (right before Tua knocked out Fres Oquendo), Evander Holyfield (right after Holyfield stopped Hassim Rahman). Indeed, it is not other heavyweights that are "The Michigan Magician's" problem. It is the super heavyweights who give him fits.

I just love it when boxing people say, "Byrd has problems with the bigger guys." They say the same thing about Evander Holyfield. And they are correct, of course. Holyfield and Byrd do indeed have problems against bigger guys.

So do Shane Mosley and Oscar De La Hoya. And so did Sugar Ray Robinson and Stanley Ketchel and Sam Langford and Roberto Duran and Sugar Ray Leonard.

Those guys did not have as much trouble when they took on larger opponents as did Bob Foster and Kid Gavilan and Mark "Too Sharp" Johnson, but they had trouble nonetheless.

The real point is that everyone has more trouble fighting larger opponents than they do fighting guys who are their own size. Duh.

I would also like to check some revisionist history constructed by the normally astute Larry Merchant during the broadcast of Byrd's virtual shutout of Holyfield last Saturday night. Merchant's contention (and, to be fair, it was a contention the agreeable Byrd concurred with during the post fight interview) was that Byrd is no longer throwing as many "feather-duster punches" as he used to.

In other words, it is not that Byrd was a very good fighter all along, and that many people (including Merchant) underestimated him. No, instead, it is that when people were saying that Byrd would never beat a top heavyweight, they were correct given the fighter Byrd was at the time, but since then Byrd has become a better fighter, and is consequently now able to compete at the top.

Nonsense. The only evolution in Chris Byrd's style has been his post-Ike Ibeabuchi avoidance of the ropes. Previously, Byrd had not avoided the ropes, because he felt comfortable there. Since Ike knocked him out, he has learned his lesson: it is safer in the middle of the ring.

But Byrd has not suddenly begun to throw more hard shots. In terms of his selection of punches, and the force with which he throws them, he is exactly the same fighter who Ibeabuchi KO'd three years ago.

Ike was probably the best heavyweight (or super heavyweight) in the world when he fought Byrd. He outweighed Chris by more than 35 pounds. The fight was fast paced, close and beautiful, and ended with Byrd bravely rising from a devastating knockdown and then making Ike miss most of his follow-ups before the ref stopped the fight with seconds remaining in the fifth.

It was a brilliant display of boxing -- not running and holding, but boxing -- by a badly outsized Byrd. Ike told me after the fight that Byrd would beat almost everyone else in the division and that he is an underrated puncher and even hurt Ike to the body.

Byrd's only other loss came at the hands of the current "heir apparent," Wladimir Klitschko. Klitschko is half a foot taller than Byrd, has almost a foot of reach on him and is a former Olympic super heavyweight gold medalist. Not incidentally, Byrd has complained that he felt there was foul play in the Wladimir fight. The match was held in Germany and promoted by Universum. More than a handful of top American fighters have complained that when they fought a Universum fighter in Germany (off American TV and therefore safe from the scrutiny of an American audience), their eyes swelled early -- and, in their estimations, not from punches -- and then remained irritated for weeks and sometimes even months afterward.

I am not suggesting that Byrd would beat Klitschko in a rematch on American soil -- Klitschko's ridiculous size advantage ain't going nowhere. I am, however, suggesting that in light of the fact that I do not know Byrd to be an excuse maker or a liar, I would be interested in seeing a rematch with Wladimir on American soil.

Then again, I would likely pick the former Olympic super heavyweight to once again beat the former Olympic super middleweight. It is not lost on me that Wladimir won a gold medal in that super heavy division, while Chris only won a silver at super middle. Yet all Byrd's amateur runner-up performance indicates is that for all the criticism of his style, Byrd is a more impressive pro than he was an amateur. That's right -- contrary to popular belief, he has a style suited for the pros. The results bear this out.

Pound-for-pound Byrd is a far, far better fighter than Wladimir, not to mention Lennox Lewis. Can you imagine either one of those guys beating a 6-7, 250-pound version of Holyfield?! The problem is they all compete in the same division when they really shouldn't.

It says here that Chris Byrd would beat any fighter in the world less than 225 pounds. And many who weigh much more. Time was that was enough for a fella to call himself champ. Oughta still be.

Max Kellerman is a studio analyst for ESPN2's Friday Night Fights and the host of the new show Around The Horn.