Brian Mitchell would later become known as a road warrior. He had 15 world title fights, and 14 of them took place overseas. However before that, early in his title reign, one title defense stands out above all others.

The South African had won the world title at 25 by stopping Alfredo Layne (TKO 10) at home the previous September. However, when the WBA refused to sanction world title fights in his native South Africa because of apartheid, Mitchell was forced to fight abroad to make a living.

"Growing up, you don't know anything different," Mitchell told The Ring. "Once I became a professional boxer, I realized something was wrong. Why were the guys not fighting in the same tournaments as us?

"I was getting a lot of fights, went into all the townships and fought against all the black guys in the black promoter's tournaments, became friends with the black guys in the early '80s, long before apartheid was even abolished.

"It was terrible. It didn't make sense to my why a country would be like that, why you'd have the apartheid system. I was very happy when it was abolished.”

Mitchell (30-1-2, 16 KOs) had retained his title for the first time when he fought Jose Rivera (D 15) in Puerto Rico. Then two fights later, he agreed to defend against a hard-punching Panamanian in Panama City.

Fernandez, who was ranked No. 2 by the WBA, entered his first world fight with a patchy looking record (24-10-1, 21 KOs), but he had lost only once in his previous 12 outings.

"It came about because [WBA official] Luis Spada and [my manager/trainer] Carlos Jacamo were South American, so they had big connections with the WBA being in Panama and wanted a world title fight in Panama," Mitchell said. "They were probably trying to take the world title away from me.

"The money was good. I think I got about $100,000 dollars, which was a lot of money back in 1987."

Mitchell trained for the Fernandez bout at Jacomo’s gym in Johannesburg before making the arduous journey to Panama two weeks before the scheduled fight date.

He flew economy class with a team of four others, via Europe and America. When he arrived, he was shocked at what he saw.

"In those years there wasn't social media," he said. "When I went there, the place was in a civil war. The problem was that General Noriega was the military leader and was trying to overthrow the government. It was a major crisis, and I didn't know what I was going into."

Nonetheless, Team Mitchell settled into their accommodation in Panama City.

"The hotel wasn't bad, but there was so much drama," he said. "I left the hotel to go to the gym, and there's a car bomb. Some of the days we couldn't even get to the gym, and we were training in the hotel. I used to run up and down the hotel stairs. I used to spar in the hotel room with [two-time welterweight title challenger] Harold Volbrecht. He was there as my training partner.

"I was never scared of any fighter, but I said to Carlos Jacamo, 'Let’s do this another time. Let's get out of this country.' And he said, 'No champ, we can't go anywhere for now; they've withheld our passports.'"

Adding to the already difficult and complex situation, the fight was postponed a week because of the unrest in the country.

At the press conference, Mitchell was introduced to boxing royalty and was reunited with an old adversary.

"I met Roberto Duran. He spoke broken English. It was great to meet everyone's hero," he said. "Alfredo Layne came to say hi, which was quite nice because it was the second defense of the title I had won from him."

The defending champion had no issues with weight, and the weigh-in went without issue.

Mitchell, who had served two years' national service in his teenage years, was accustomed to combat and literally went to war in a war zone.

"It was quite a big crowd, 10[000] to 15,000 people," he estimated. "People were very intimidating, but obviously you're fighting the local guy. Nobody liked me. Plenty of booing, but I put it out of my head. I was never concerned about the crowd. I was always the type of guy that did my own thing. For me, it didn't matter what was outside the ring. It was inside the ring that mattered.

"I remember it being a tough fight. He was a guy that came to fight. For the first six rounds, he did come on very strong, but then I upped my game, and the ref stopped the fight in the 14th round. I personally think with what was going on, if it went the distance, they were going to take the title away from me."

In the end, Mitchell was ahead on all three scorecards: Cesar Ramos 127-123, Luis J Rodriguez 127-123, and Al Wilensky 126-122.

Unsurprisingly, his celebration afterward was low key. "[It was a] relief to just get my passport and go home," he said.

When he returned to South Africa, he was well received by his countrymen.

"There was a crowd there for sure," he said. "It was great because South Africa had no heroes at that time. We weren't competing in sport at all because of apartheid and sanctions, and it was huge. I was a big hero in South Africa."

Mitchell went on to successfully defend his world title in Puerto Rico, France, Italy, Spain, England, and America, and had to battle through various situations – but none quite like this one.

"It doesn't get crazier than that," he said, "going into a civil war when you're defending your world title."