You don’t have to be a geezer, like me, to gaze wistfully upon an era in which being the heavyweight champion of the world was an accomplishment to be proud of, not an embarrassment to hide from your in-laws.

In fact, it was only 20 years ago this month that a kid out of Catskill named Mike Tyson knocked out Trevor Berbick to become the youngest man to win the title and for the next four years, the most famous athlete in the world.

Now, Berbick is dead and there are a generation of 15-to-20-year-olds wondering why in the world they were named after a brand of chicken.

That is how far boxing has fallen in a relatively short time. Since the professional and personal demise of Mike Tyson, boxing has been wandering aimlessly in search of its next savior.

There are plenty of places to look for him. Tonight, Madison Square Garden will not be one of them.

True enough, there are heavyweights fighting there tonight, and there will be a title, of sorts, at stake, and the scheduled 12-rounder between Wladimir Klitschko and Calvin Brock might turn out to be a pretty fair scrap.

It could even turn out to be compelling, in the way only a good fight between big men in a big, noisy building can be. But that won’t do it.

Boxing, you see, doesn’t need a compelling fight. What it needs is a compelling fighter, preferably 225 pounds or more, to pull the sport up with him, rather than drag it down, as the current crop of heavyweights is surely doing.

It has always been true than when the heavyweight division is sick, boxing dies, but rarely has the division and the sport been as ill as it is right now. There’s nobody to love, and worse, nobody to hate. In fact, there’s just nobody, which is precisely why these two guys are here.

We have all seen Klitschko’s act, of course. In fact, we’ve seen it twice, first in the form of big brother Vitali, currently retired, and now in the person of Wlad, who is the same guy, only an inch shorter. One calls himself “Dr. Steelhammer,” the other “Prof. Ironfist,” but don’t tax your brain trying to figure out which is which since both fight like Mr. Leadboots.

The Klitschkos are remarkable physical and intellectual specimens who have the unfortunate habit of falling to the canvas when they get hit. Since one is 6-7, the other 6-6, it is always a good, hard fall. But since the heavyweight pickings are so slim these days, someone is always there to pick them up, dust them off and push them back in for more.

And Brock, who is the kind of kid you’d like to have for a son, or a son-in-law, is the epitome of everything that is wrong with current heavyweight boxing. He wasn’t very good in 2000, but he was there, so he briefly represented the United States at the Sydney Olympics. He lost his only bout.

Despite his 29-0, 22 KOs record, he’s not much better now. But he’s still here, which makes him as qualified as anyone, including you or me, to fight for the heavyweight title. He calls himself “The Boxing Banker,” a buzzkill of a nickname if ever there was one. Unfortunately, it is also truth in advertising.

By the diminished standards of the era, both are pretty good fighters.

Twenty years ago, everyone in the world knew who the heavyweight champion was.

Now, you could fill a police lineup with all the guys claiming the title, but no one on Earth could pick out one true champion.