By Lyle Fitzsimmons

It’s an Olympic year. There’s boxing to be watched.

But this year, as my Olympic rings are mixed with my boxing rings, I’m sad.

I miss Howard Davis Jr.

Perhaps the greatest U.S. Olympic boxer who not every fan is familiar with, Davis was not just a gold medalist during his Summer Games star turn in Montreal 40 years ago, he was a rock star.

Though his teammates included recognizable entities nicknamed “Sugar Ray,” “Neon Leon” and “Spinks Jinx,” among others, it was Davis – the lightweight kingpin – who was deemed the winner of the Val Barker Trophy as the most outstanding boxer.

He died in December, and is missing the Olympic fights for the first time.

We’d chatted several times over the previous several years and I considered he and his wife Karla as valued boxing acquaintances, if not the modern-day sort of friends who seldom meet but stay in touch and work together via digital means.

He never turned me down for an interview, was always gracious with his time and even helped me sketch out a diet – championing the cause of morning workouts followed by buckwheat pancakes – while I briefly pursued a writing project that involved me training for a professional fight.

As it turned out, my opponent balked and never filled out his licensing paperwork.

I’d like to think it was because he knew – courtesy of my alliance with Davis – he was overmatched.

So, not surprisingly, as I watch the Shakur Stevensons, Gary Russells and Claressa Shields of the world go for their golds this time around, I’m remembering many of the Olympics-centric conversations that Davis and I have.

Every four years, he told me, when people once started discussing the latest incarnation of the Games, he was touched by the same combination of nostalgia, satisfaction... and lament.

“There's not a day that goes by in my life when I don't think about Montreal,” he said in 2008. “Sometimes people will see me in a restaurant and recognize me, and every four years I go through the same mixed memories of what happened back then.

“It was a wonderful time for me because of what I was able to accomplish with boxing, but it's also sad to recall that it was when my mom died. It's more than just looking back at a great win for me. It's also a time of remembrance.”

The Glen Cove, N.Y. native went on to a successful pro career over the subsequent two decades -- retiring with a 36-6-1 mark in 1996 -- but never won a world title and never approached the acclaim of the aforementioned power trio.

“Let's say there were no championship belts in boxing. If that's the case, then my career was satisfying to me. But am I totally happy with it? No,” Davis told me. “I'm not hurt and I can still think and I've still got at least some of my looks from back then, so that's good.”

He lived his final years in South Florida and stayed busy by training mixed martial artists in the finer points of boxing, traveling as a motivational speaker and maintain a personal website.

“I made it all the way to the Olympics, so that proves there's nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it,” he said back then. “I try and teach people to always shoot for the stars, because even if you don't make it all the way to the stars, you'll still land on the moon. And that's pretty good.”

Davis began his pro career with 15 straight wins before dropping a 15-round decision to Scotsman Jim Watt for the WBC lightweight title in 1980. He followed up with 13 more triumphs prior to a narrow split-decision loss over 12 rounds to Edwin Rosario for the same WBC belt four years later.

He was quickly stopped by Buddy McGirt in a try for the IBF's crown at 140 pounds in 1988, and -- in the fifth step of a comeback after a six-year post-McGirt hiatus -- he was KO'd by Dana Rosenblatt for the fringe WBU middleweight championship in what turned out to be his last fight.

“I'm not cut up or marked up or anything, and when I see some of my contemporaries or guys who fought after me and how they're struggling, I have to say I'm blessed,” he said, claiming a more lenient sparring regimen over his career helped lessen long-term concussive damage.

“You spar three or four times a week while getting ready for a fight and, whenever you get hit pretty good, you see that white flash, which in reality lingers for about six weeks. And then you go in and fight and see a couple more white flashes, because you're bound to get hit a few times.

“With all that, if you come back and get right back into training just a month after a fight, eventually something is going to happen. I've talked to a lot of doctors, and they pretty much agree that 80 percent of fighters have some level of brain damage, no matter what money they're making.”

Meanwhile, compared to their medal-chasing brethren of 1976, 1984, 1988 and 1992, the U.S. class of 2012 is operating with distinctly less fanfare this time around in Rio de Janeiro, due in large part to the lack of network television exposure both before and during the Games.

Leonard and the rest of the 1976 team were shown extensively during their stints in Montreal, as were the Holyfield/Breland/Whitaker class of 1984 in Los Angeles, Roy Jones Jr. and Riddick Bowe in 1988 in South Korea and Oscar De La Hoya in 1992 in Barcelona.

This year's team was relegated to NBC cable offshoots through the preliminaries, with only medal-round bouts to reach the main network.

Davis, who eventually made his pro debut alongside Leon Spinks in Las Vegas and was on a Ken Norton undercard at Madison Square Garden just four months later, said the tail-off in amateur interest was traced back to Disney's purchase of ABC in the mid-1990s.

“I think the times have changed and the networks have changed and they're just doing things very differently today,” he said in 2008. “They're more family oriented now, and even though boxing was very popular through '50s all the way through to the '90s, the dynamics are different.

“For me, winning the Olympics was a tremendous boost. It's one of the major steps in your career. You get rated faster and the exposure is tremendous. But the guys now have to go new routes. It's all about getting the right team together and having a little luck.”

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This week’s title fight schedule:

SATURDAY
Vacant WBO mini-flyweight title – Sanda, Japan
Riku Kano (No. 1 WBO/No. 32 IWBR) vs. Katsunari Takayama (No. 2 WBO/No. 6 IWBR)
Kano (10-1-1, 5 KO): First title fight; Fifth fight in Japan (4-0, 1 KO)
Takayama (30-8, 12 KO): Fourteenth title fight (7-6); Held IBF and WBO titles at 105 pounds
Fitzbitz says: He’s 33 years old and has failed on the biggest stage as much as he’s succeeded, but it’s the guess here that he’s got plenty left to handle an 18-year-old with a thin resume. Takayama by decision

Last week’s picks: 1-1 (WIN: Klassen; LOSS: Juarez)
2016 picks record: 57-15 (79.1 percent)
Overall picks record: 789-263 (75.0 percent)

NOTE: Fights previewed are only those involving a sanctioning body's full-fledged title-holder – no interim, diamond, silver, etc. Fights for WBA "world championships" are only included if no "super champion" exists in the weight class.

Lyle Fitzsimmons has covered professional boxing since 1995 and written a weekly column for Boxing Scene since 2008. He is a full voting member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Reach him at fitzbitz@msn.com or follow him on Twitter – @fitzbitz.