FIVE floors up the Wasserman offices in central London, Mick Conlan whips out his phone in an attempt to ensure that his point is not missed.

“I am someone who is very stubborn,” Conlan says, eyes fixed on the screen, his thumb scrolling at double place. “My goal is to be world champion. It always has been. So I am not giving up until I get there.”

With this, he turns the phone round to show what he has been looking for. “For example,” he says. “I play this game called Royal Match. It says here I am now on level 10,005.

“There are 121 areas in the game and each area has 100 levels. So I’ve only got two levels left, then I’ve completed it entirely and I’ll delete it from my phone.”

It is a novel way to answer the question, but the point is not lost: Mick Conlan is not ready to walk away from boxing until the job is done.

But the 33-year-old came close to retiring in the wake of his last outing, which ended in a crushing seventh round defeat at the hands of Jordan Gill in front of his own fans in Belfast. It was the second inside-distance loss in a row and left him at 18-3 (9) after six and a half years as a pro.

“In the immediate aftermath I said I was going to retire but my Mrs took my phone and said ‘don’t you dare announce anything’. She told me just to leave it for a while and then decide when emotions weren’t so high.

“But to be honest, after my last two defeats I’ve thought to myself ‘is this me done?’ I’ve thought ‘fuck that, I’ve had enough’. But it’s just emotion in the heat of the moment. It’s hard to go through that when you’re fighting in front of the world. You think to yourself ‘I don’t want to have to go through this again’.

“In my career I’ve had great parts and shit parts. I’ve seen the nice side of the business and the scumbag side of the business. I don’t think I can ever love boxing because I know that boxing will never love me back.

“But the fact I’ve picked myself up time and time again to go through it all again means I must have some sort of want in me.”

What that means is that for the third time in his career, Conlan has got up and dusted himself down after a stoppage defeat in order to go again. Now 15 months on from that loss to Gill, Conlan has signed a ‘multi-fight deal’ with Wasserman and gets back on the horse in an eight-rounder against Asad Asif Khan in Brighton on Friday.

But Conlan insists that the next fall from the saddle will be his last. “It’s basically until the end isn’t it?” Conlan says, when asked exactly how long his new deal with the Sauerland brothers, Kalle and Nisse, is exactly.

“I’m 33 now and I’m a featherweight. It’s not like I can go on until I’m 40 like a heavyweight. I’ve got until I’m 35, 36 max but as long as I’m still healthy I’ll be there until I can win a world title. Obviously I need to keep winning because the next one, mate, if I lost again, that would be it done. I wouldn’t even consider coming back if I lose again. That would be enough. I’ll give it one more go. Try it one more time, if it does nothing, it does nothing.”

In the end, it was 900 miles spent alone during marathon training which was enough to convince him to return.

“The Gill fight happened on the 2nd of December and I joined the running club on the 14th,” he says. “I thought to myself ‘I need to do something or I’ll go crazy’. I joined the running club and ended up doing 900 miles between December 14 and the 14 of April. It was crazy.

“To be honest, I was thinking about retirement all the way up until probably March. Only then did I decide for sure that I want to go again. It took me training for a marathon to realise ‘fuck this’. I’m not getting up in the morning to run up and down hills and not even getting paid. I hate the rain and cold and getting up in the morning but I put myself through it.

“ When you’re training for a marathon you’re very alone. You’re by yourself for a long time. But when I joined Road Runners AC in Belfast do you know what I realised? They’re all going through their own shit. Everybody training for a marathon is running away from something and they’ve got a lot of time to think about it.

“You’re out there by yourself and you go to some dark places. It’s 5am and you’re going up and down hills in the pitch black of winter. It was then when I thought ‘I know I’ve got a lot left’. I just need to make sure I do things right.”

What all the running has meant is that Conlan, who lost to Gill up at 130, is now comfortably featherweight and that is where he will campaign once again. He will do so under the tutelage of Grant Smith, who alongside Buddy McGirt and Stephen Smith, was one of three trainers he considered linking up with.

But his decision was made after two trials with Smith. He will train in Sheffield and fight whoever it takes to get back in the world title picture. “If a non-title fight came up that was worth 10 times more money than a shot at the world title, I’d take the world title fight.

“That’s what it is about for me now. It’s not about money. At one stage I was more focused on money than championships. The world title won’t put bread on your table but that’s my one goal.

“And I’m very stubborn.”