With a fight against Amir Khan finally looking like it could be made early next year, Kell Brook plays it safe by taking on Michael Zerafa in what could be his last bout before the domestic blockbuster.

'Special K' is a best price of 1/33 to register career win number 38 against the Australian and his hometown fans will be turning up at the Sheffield Arena anticipating more one-sided stuff.

He was a similar price on his return from 10 months out of the ring in March against Sergey Rabchenko and registered a second-round stoppage victory, so can we expect a similar outcome this time?

The younger man at 26, Zerafa boasts a record of 25-2 and arrives on an eight-fight winning streak after halting Jose Agustin Feria in the third round three months ago.

However, it looks ominous that his defeats came on his two sole outings outside of Australia, firstly a lopsided points loss to Arif Magomedov in Russia in 2014 before being stopping in five rounds by Peter Quillin a year later.

Dusting off his passport and stepping back up in class here, it's hard to see the Melbourne native pulling off a 16/1 upset.

That is unless Brook gets old overnight, as they say, but he looked sharp enough in the four or so minutes we saw of him earlier in the year and proved that he carries his power up to light middleweight with that pleasing early stoppage.