Record holder going to fight in independent island state (8)
I believe the answer is:
djibouti
'state' is the definition.
(I know that Djibouti is a African country)
'record holder going to fight in independent island' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'fight' could be 'bout' (as in a bout in boxing) and 'bout' is found in the answer.
'independent' could be 'i' and 'i' is present in the answer.
'island' could be 'i' (geographical abbreviation) and 'i' is found within the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for djibouti that I've seen before include "East African republic" , "part of Africa" , "foreign port" , "Country on the Somali peninsula" , "Gulf capital" .)