Jermaine Franklin thought he could handle the grief until he stepped through the ropes.

A fortnight before he was scheduled to face Ivan Dychko as part of the undercard for Terence Crawford’s clash with Canelo Alvarez, Franklin's world was rocked by the death of his father. Many fighters would have decided to pull out of the contest, but the 32-year-old heavyweight contender opted to fight.

“In honor of him,” Franklin said at the time, “I’ll push on.”

But by the time he was face-to-face with Dychko, the fearsome 6-foot-9 Kazakh, Franklin’s mind was simply elsewhere. The absence of his dad, who would have been ringside at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, was weighing far heavier than he imagined.

“Up until the fight night, during training camp, I felt like everything was OK, like I could push and persevere,” Franklin told The Ring. “But that actual day, and once I got in the ring, my mind was a wreck. I’m listening, I’m trying to focus, I’m still fighting, but it’s like I’m on autopilot mode.

“It was so much rushing me at one time and I’m thinking about a thousand things in the ring while I’m still trying to think about winning the fight. It was real hard trying to push everything to the back of my mind and continue the fight.”

Even so, “The 989 Assassin” was able to figure things out, claiming a unanimous decision after 10 rounds, with one judge scoring him a 97-92 winner. Given the circumstances, it is put to Franklin (24-2, 15 KOs) that it might just be the best win of his career to date.

“Nah,” he said. “I’m a huge critic of myself, so I would say no because it was sloppy to me. I wanted to perform better and show a little more, but I did what I could and I did enough to put a victory out.”

That victory over Dychko (15-1, 14 KOs), which was Franklin’s first outing for 14 months, has earned the Saginaw, Michigan, native a quick return to the ring, a chance to derail the prodigious Moses Itauma (13-0, 11 KOs) as his reward.

Their fight, scheduled for January 24 at Manchester’s Co-op Live Arena, will come just 19 weeks after his emotionally turbulent clash with Dychko. Franklin is convinced he has had long enough to manage whatever emotions may land on fight night this time around.

“I feel better at this point,” Franklin said. “Grief is something that has no time limit on it and my personal opinion on grief is nobody really gets over it. We just know how to deal with it as we continue to grow in life. So instead of letting those moments feel like they get you down, you just let them make you happy. You think about all the good times and good memories and stuff like that you share.

“I don’t think it ends, but it’s just we learn how to deal with it better and learn how to be in a safer mental space with it. That includes in the ring. It’s not something I’ll battle with again. I’m pretty strongminded. My dad will always be up there, but it’s not something I’ll battle with again.”