BUT for a moment of genius, Paul Craig would be sitting in his home in Coatbridge as a retired UFC fighter right now.

The 30-year-old was in the last fight of his Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) deal at UFC London last month and having lost his previous two match-ups, his jacket was on a very shoogly peg.

However, a stunning comeback secured Craig a last-minute win against Magomed Ankalaev in London and his reward was a new UFC deal. The new contract was something that he had coveted for so long and was, admits Craig, both a thrilling development and a huge relief and ensures he will remain a UFC fighter for the foreseeable future.

“On the Monday morning after the fight, I was offered a new UFC contract - I’d have given up everything I owned to get a new contract so it was fantastic,” he said.

“All I’ve ever wanted to do is fight in the UFC and I believe that I’ve still got some life left in me.

“If I hadn’t got that UFC contract, I’d have given up the sport. Why would I have done anything else? My dream was to fight in the UFC so now I’ve done that, anything else would be a cop-out.”

In the lead-up to UFC London, Craig was occupying a headspace in which he’d never been before. His two consecutive losses were the first time he’s ever experienced that - in fact, it was the first time he’d ever in either his amateur career or professional career tasted defeat.

And with belief such a crucial component of a UFC fighter’s armoury, Craig knew that a victory last month was vital.

“I was coming off two losses and so I was going into UFC London with my back against the wall,” he said.

“Confidence is such a huge thing in this sport. Going into a fight, you always doubt your own abilities, especially for me coming off two losses. I’d never experienced a loss until I went to Vegas (last March). So to have been up that high to then lose, it was tough and it took me a long time to rectify that.

“I got offered the UFC Glasgow fight (last July) and I probably shouldn’t have taken it but it was in my home city and it was hard to turn down. I was up against an elite level striker and it wasn’t my night and so suffered my second loss. But to then go to London and show the MMA community and the public what I can do, it was fantastic.”

There a number of significant positives for Craig to have secured this new UFC contract, which is likely to run for four fights. The security it provides means that instead of rushing back into the octagon, Craig can take the summer to get his body in the best possible shape rather than rush into another fight before he’s ready.

“The UFC like to give you enough time to recover so it’s looking like it’ll be after the summer that I’ll be fighting again,” he revealed.

“I went back-to-back for four fights and that takes a lot out of you. So I’m going to use the summer to train which is great because I’ll be able to train to learn rather than train for a fight.

“When you’re training for a fight, it’s so hard and you lose the love you have for the sport because you’re getting up at 6am, not getting back in your house until after 9pm and there’s three hard sessions in between that. Your body is sore and it’s totally full-on. So sometimes it’s better to take your time and work on things rather than being fully focused on a fight.”

But the Scot admits that being able to take a six months to work on both his skills and his physical attributes is a luxury that he has never before experienced.

“Having time to work on things is pretty alien to me,” he said.

“To get to UFC, I had to fight just about every other month and so I was constantly battered and bruised. And then once I got to UFC, I was always going to take every fight they offered me.

It’s really exciting to think I have the time to put this work in. And when you’re a UFC fighter, you have access to one of the top facilities in the world, the UFC performance centre in Las Vegas so I’m going to go out there and do all the tests. The UFC want the best fighters and they want them in the best shape possible because if they’re able to hit harder, go longer, grapple harder and lift more then you’re going to get a more exciting fight. So UFC are investing back into fighters and that’s so exciting to be a part of it.

“To do this sport, you need to be a bit out there and you need to give it everything you’ve got. When I’m in, I’m in and when I’m out, I’m out. You either get all of me or you get none of me.”