Michael Zerafa will be his opponent in Sheffield.
2018 will not go down as an eventful year in the career of former welterweight titleholder Kell Brook (37-2, 26 KOs). The Sheffield man has been trying to set up a fight with Amir Khan for years now, but it still won’t come to pass by the end of the year even with both British stars signed under Matchroom banners. Apparently the deal was close with Brook even agreeing to make the difficult weight cut to return to welterweight. A rehydration clause preventing Brook from gaining too much weight after the weigh in reportedly did the deal in for now though, unfortunately.
Instead Kell Brook will stay active against Michael Zerafa (25-2, 14 KOs) of Australia. Zerafa cut down to junior welterweight three fights ago and is on a seven fight winning streak, but he has been beaten soundly in his two step ups against Peter Quillin and Arif Magomedov. Neither Quillin nor Magomedov has been as high of quality as Kell Brook has been either. Those were also the Australians only two fights outside his homeland. This figures to be another early finish for the former titleholder.
In March “Special K” made his junior middleweight debut against former contender Sergey Rabchenko and bashed out the faded man in two rounds. That was his first time back from his late round stoppage loss to Errol Spence Jr in May of 2017, a defeat in which Brook suffered a literal broken face for the second fight in a row. Gennady Golovkin previously broke his opposite orbital bone in 2016 in what proved to be an ill advised step up to middleweight. Michael Zerafa, on the other hand, is unlikely to damage either surgically repaired side of Kell Brook’s face. December 8th should bring another easy win for the local star in Sheffield.
