John H. Stracey had represented Great Britain at the 1968 Olympics as an amateur and moved through the welterweight ranks as a professional, notably claiming British and European titles before being installed as the WBC mandatory challenger.

However, the man he would be facing for the title, Jose Napoles (81-6, 54 KOs), was a living legend. The Cuban-born Mexican transplant was dubbed "Mantequilla" due to his slickness, 10 years his senior at 35 and would be taking part in his 18th world title fight.

The British challenge (42-3-1, 34 KOs) was given around three months' notice before facing Napoles for The Ring and WBC welterweight titles.

"I trained six, seven weeks in the UK and was in Mexico City for a month because of the altitude to acclimatize," Stracey told The Ring.

"I boxed there in the Olympics, seven years earlier and we were there for three weeks before competing because it's 7,200 feet above sea level. We had to be there early to acclimatize, so did the same thing when the fight came."

Stracey and his team including promoter Micky Duff, manager Terry Lawless, trainer Frank Black and his father flew from London to Mexico City.

During his stay, the challenger was happy to integrate with the locals.

"We stayed in the hotel, there was a swimming pool upstairs, so after training I could go for a swim," he said. "A little chat with the English guys out there. People in general were OK, but the boxing people were a little bit against me - they wanted their own man to win.

However, naivety almost caught up with him. One day during a walk, he was greeted by what appeared to be a friendly stranger.

"Somebody shook my hand, he gripped my hand so hard, I was screaming," he recalled. "Terry Lawless said, 'If anyone comes up to you to shake your hand, put your hand in your pocket and say, 'Hi.'"

That wasn't the end of the gamesmanship Stracey encountered.

"We had the phone calls, I had to move rooms twice because people kept phoning at four and five o'clock in the morning and waking me up," he added. "You always get it when you go away from home."

The London-born fighter was asked to spar a local but given strict instructions.

"They said, 'Take it steady, he's not too good.' And he came out trying to knock me out. He caught me on my eye, and my eye came open a bit. There was a little bit of blood," he said. "Lawless went mad, he said. 'This is not good.' I said, 'Why's he going like that?'

"Anyway, the next round I absolutely smashed him. We found out he was a very good boxer; I forget his name, and it was all done to test [me.] If you can't speak their language and get a grips with it, you can't do anything.

"I had Montezuma's revenge, I lost half a stone, put it back on and had the fight straight after."

A shared history gave Stracey some idea of what he would face.

"I sparred him three years earlier and being left-handed, although I'm orthodox, I was catching him good with my jab, so that's what I kept to," he said.

"I think when you look at the situation where it's in Mexico, you have three Mexican judges and a Mexican referee. You suddenly think of the old saying, 'You've got to knock 'em out to get a draw.'"

On fight night, when Stracey and his team arrived their dressing room was far from ideally situated.

"[We were next to] where they have the killings of the bulls; it was an absolutely disgusting smell but you couldn't go anywhere else," he recalled. "They make out they can't understand you, so you've just got to stay where you are."

Unperturbed, Stracey made his way to the ring and was greeted by a reported 60,000-strong audience, who were booing and jeering him.

"It was intimidating at first," he said. "Napoles never turned up for about 10-15 minutes, and everyone was looking at me and I was just [gesticulates holding his hand out] Where is he? As if he's frightened to come in and everyone was clapping me.

"When he came into the ring, I went straight over to his corner and clapped him, and I got a huge cheer."

That felt like a small victory to Stracey, but things quickly turned against him in the opening round.

"I was a bit of a slow starter; never one of them who went straight out and would go for it," he said. "I was getting into it, he caught me a good right hand, left hook and I went down.

"When I got back to the corner Micky Duff is saying, 'Oh no, not the first round.' I said, 'Don't worry, he's not going to hurt me again.'"

The challenger repaid the compliment, dropping Napoles in Round 3, before tightening his grip on the contest in the following round.

"I caught him with a good left hook, and his eye came up and saw a bit of blood," he said. "I could see when I was catching him with the jab, his head was going back. I carried on doing that.

"When I got back to the corner at the end of the fifth, Lawless said, 'You've got him now, just go out there and throw as many punches as you can, and you'll stop him. I hit him with about 10, 12 punches and the ref stopped the fight."

Stracey and his team had hoped to celebrate his crowning moment but found that difficult to do.

"We went to a few night clubs to have a dance and laugh but they wouldn't let me in," he said. "I had my sombrero on, but they wouldn't let me in cause I had beat Napoles.

"It was back to the hotel, had something to eat and danced the night away. Got up in the morning all pie-eyed. It was great. I'd achieved everything I'd ever wanted to then."

The new WBC welterweight incumbent went on to share a special bond with the then incoming president Jose Sulaiman, who had begun his new presidental role the day before Stracey's coronation: "He used to come up to me and say, 'My first champion.'"