Photo: Casino/SHOWTIME – By Scott Gilfoid: Former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Jermain Taylor (28-4-1, 17 KO’s) will be giving boxing a huge shot of excitement when he makes his comeback tonight in a packed card against a quality fighter in Jessie Nicklow (22-2-3, 8 KO’s) at the Morongo Casino Resort & Speak in Cabazon, California. Taylor, 33, will be headlining the card which has Andre Dirrell (19-1, 13 KO’s) as the co-feature in his comeback fight against Darryl Cunningham (24-2, 10 KO’s).

Also on the card unbeaten former Cuban amateur talent Luis Garcia (11-0, 9 KO’s) will be taking on Alexander Johnson (12-0, 5 KO’s) in an eight round bout in light heavyweight action in the opener in the card. Garcia, 24, destroyed former two time WBA Super middleweight champion Byron Mitchell in the 2nd round a year ago in November 2010. Unfortunately, that was the last time that Garcia fought.

Taylor has lost his last two fights by knockout in 2009, but the KOs were more of a product of Taylor fighting out of his weight class, coming into training camp badly overweight and still suffering the lingering effects of a bad knockout loss to Kelly Pavlik in 2007. Taylor now has rested two years from his last KO loss and has passed all the medical exams to make this fight possible. He’s back at middleweight where he belongs and made sure to come into training camp in shape rather than 30 pounds overweight. Taylor’s no dedication to training really shows, as in yesterday’s weigh-in, Taylor looked like he was already rehydrated and appeared ready to step into the ring right away and start fighting. It’s likely that Taylor won’t have gained much weight after rehydrating tonight because he’s just in superb shape.

I can’t remember the last time there were two equally talented fighters like Taylor and Dirrell on the same card. This is a real rarity, as both Taylor and Dirrell have lightning hand speed and are both former U.S Olympians.