In May 2014, Renzo arrived at the 1 OAK nightclub in New York willing to spend a few pleasant hours with his good friend Mario Mercado, a Puerto Rican wrestler. He had frequented the place for years and had a great relationship with the owners and staff. Outside the nightclub, he noticed that the host had been changed – the man who was now at the door was called Craig M., and Renzo had never seen him before (the previous host was his longtime friend). 
 
The new security guard, who had the power to let people into the club or not, stared at Renzo as he approached. 
 
Noticing the fact, Mercado anticipated and went to talk to Craig: “Hi, my friend, I'm with Renzo Gracie...” 
 
“WHO?”, replied the host. 
 
“Renzo Gracie, he always comes here...” 
 
“I DON'T KNOW ANY RENZO GRACIE! NOBODY KNOWS WHO THIS GUY IS! AND HE WON'T ENTER HERE!”, the security guard replied, yelling, glaring menacingly at Renzo. Then he said to Mario: “You can come in”; and pointed to Renzo: “NOT HE!” 
 
RENZO: I understand it was a power game... There are asshole hosts who do that kind of thing. If you give an idiot power to take care of a bathroom, he won't let anyone else take a shit... (Smiles) I thought about fighting, but I held back. I didn't want to give him the pleasure of thinking he'd offended me. So I stood on the sidewalk for 1 hour, waiting, to see what happened. Mario took my side; it rained and we were there... 
 
In that moment, Renzo was able to observe how the security guard operated: he barred people at random. After some time, another security guard came and approached the person, saying that he would put him inside the club IF he paid a small bribe – between 50 and 100 dollars... 
 
RENZO: He was making an average of $1,000 a night on this scheme. In fact, the guy who later filmed our fight was the one in charge of the approaches. 
 
There was a woman in line who was barred. The bouncer ordered her to leave; she argued that she was with her husband. The host said her husband could come in but she couldn't. "I don't understand... Why?", the woman protested. “BECAUSE YOU'RE FAT!”, shouted the security guard. 
 
It was the last straw: Renzo picked up the phone and called some of his partners. 
 
“I saw 7 security guards, all big guys; to break the whole damn thing, we needed to call some on our team.” 
 
The problem is that, as it was late, Renzo's friends didn't answer. 
 
That was on a Wednesday.
 
(to be continued)