Photo: Casino/SHOWTIME – By Jim Dower: At Thursday’s weigh-in for SHOWTIME telecast between Andre Dirrell and Darryl Cunningham and Jermain Taylor and Jessie Nicklow, Dirrell weighed in at 169lbs for his scheduled 10 round fight.

His 37-year-old opponent Cunningham, weighed in at 167.5. Jermain Taylor came in at 161lbs while his opponent Jessie Nicklow weighed 159lbs.

Andre Dirrell 169lbs vs. Darryl Cunningham 167.5
Jermain Taylor 161 lbs vs. Jessie Nicklow 159lbs

Venue: Morongo Casino Resort & Spa, Cabazon, California
Television: SHOWTIME

The card involves the comeback fights for both Taylor and Dirrell, who both haven been out of action due to head injuries they sustained in their fights against Arthur Abraham in the Super Six tournament. Both Dirrell and Abraham have had an extensive amount of time off to recover from their head injuries and have passed medical exams in order to be licensed to fight.

Taylor’s problem in the past involving his knockout losses was that he came into training camp as much as 30 pounds overweight. This made it necessary for him to drop a lot of weight in a short period of time. Although he would make weight, he would frequently be weight drained and weak, especially in the later rounds of his fights. This led to KO losses to Kelly Pavlik, Carl Froch and finally Abraham. This time Taylor came into training camp already in shape and near the 160 pound weight limit and he feels a lot better for having done that.

Taylor said “For the first time I did it right. I put in the hours training in the gym. I did my job and worked hard. I don’t have to drop a bunch of weight. I ate pasta the other night, steak and eggs the other morning. I never could do that before.”

This is going to be a first for Taylor and it should be a good performance from him. He’s got a big three inch height advantage over Nicklow and that’s going to make it really easy for Taylor to tee off with his power shots and control the fight with his jab.