Vinicius Landeira (professional fighter, teacher and Jiu-Jitsu black belt) talks about Renzo's ability to adapt and improvise during a fight, the product of a deep study of the opponent's characteristics, as well as a broad repertoire of action possibilities.
 
VINICIUS: I believe that Renzo can only improvise because he has a vast technical repertoire, a very solid base. For example: when one of us was about to go to a championship, to face a very tough opponent, we would go to Renzo and ask for advice: “Master, I'm going to face this guy, what do I have to do?” Renzo thought for a while, remembered the opponent’s characteristics (he knows everyone!) and said: “Against this guy you must do this, this and this... You will start the fight like this...” In five minutes he found a solution to defeat that opponent. I saw him doing this many times; from blue belts to black belts they would come to him and say: “Master, I'm having a hard time with this...” Then he sits with you and stays there, thinking; then stands up and practices a series of movements. He has this study thing, of wanting to understand the struggle. An extraordinary ability to understand martial arts. If you ask me what Renzo's main feature is, I'd say it's this thing of studying the game, calculating the possibilities and saying, "This is what you need to do!"

INTERVIEWER: And did it work?
 
VINICIUS: Always! He proves you, because in fights it always worked out. GRACIE BARRA, at the time when Renzo was there, was a three-time world champion, it was a time when nobody beat the fighters there. And he was responsible for it! There is another aspect of Renzo that needs to be praised: the confidence he conveys. He's the kind of guy for whom nothing is difficult, let alone impossible.
 
A relevant observation: the fight against Oleg Taktarov took place in 1996, the year in which Renzo arrived in the US from Brazil and, therefore, a delicate moment in his adaptation to the country. The combat occured in November, a few months after he opened his first gym on 27th Street in New York, amid his grueling daily teaching routine.
 
VINICIUS: So you can imagine: the guy in this process, arriving in another country, with dozens of beginning students, teaching 7 days a week, and still, he faces this fight against one of the toughest athletes of the time... And he pulled that knockout out of the blue, which is typical of Renzo! If you watch him training, you notice that he takes things out of his sleeve... That fight was a classic example of what he is as a fighter: he doesn't get fixed in certain ways, he doesn't get stagnant in a single way of delivering the blows, he doesn’t follow an immutable method. He creates, invents, IMPROVISES.
 
“Rigidity is the path to death.
Fluidity is the way to life.”
Miyamoto Musashi