By Jake Donovan

Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam and David Lemieux are all set for their vacant middleweight title fight Saturday evening at Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec City, Canada.

Both fighters made weight in advance of Saturday’s headliner. N’Dam (31-1, 18KOs) weighed in at a fighting ready 158.6 lbs., even taking a swig of water before stepping on the scale. Lemieux (33-2, 31KOs) checked in right at the 160 lb. middleweight limit, though having to weigh in twice due to confusion and minor chaos on the stage during his first weigh-in attempt.

The title at stake became vacant when Jermain Taylor was jailed in January prior to his eventually canceled voluntary defense versus Sergio Mora.

N’Dam was forced to wait out three opponents as the IBF went down its list of challengers before Lemieux agreed to terms for the fight, not a difficult proposition when the fight landed in his hometown.

The bout—which airs live on Fox Sports 2 and Fox Deportes—marks N’Dam’s second bid at a major title. The Cameroon boxer—who now lives in France—held separate interim titles but his first crack at the full version led to his lone career loss, when he was dropped six times but still offered a competitive performance in a 12-round defeat to Peter Quillin in Oct. ’12.

N’Dam has since won four straight, including a 12-round win over Curtis Stevens in a title eliminator last October.

Lemieux enters his first career title fight. The wildly popular knockout artist from Montreal comes in riding an eight-fight win streak. including a 10th round stoppage of Gabriel Rosado last December. The bout was his first stateside appearance—taking place at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York—as well as his debut performance on HBO.

In the televised opener, Dierry Jean attempts to continue his run towards lightweight title contention as he faces veteran Jerry Belmontes in a 10-round regional title fight.

Jean (28-1, 20KOs) tipped the scales at a shredded 135 lbs.; Belmontes (19-6, 5KOs) was slightly lighter at 134.4 lbs.

The bout marks Jean’s fourth straight as a lightweight following a failed 140 lb. title bid versus Lamont Peterson last January. He has since won three straight—all by knockout since dropping down to the lightweight division.

Belmontes’ career has gone in the opposite direction. All six of his career losses have come in his last eight fights, including three straight defeats heading into Saturday’s chief support.

All weigh-in results come courtesy of Golden Boy Promotions' live feed via Periscope.TV

 Jake Donovan is the Managing Editor of BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox