The climax of this phase took place at a party in the South Zone of Rio, with an incident that, very close, did not prematurely end Renzo's trajectory on Earth. 
 
Renzo and four friends were at a club. They quickly noticed the hostility with which the other guys present, who were the overwhelming majority, were watching them. Renzo's approach to a girl triggered the confrontation: in an instant the ballroom erupted into a general brawl. 
 
His four partners were soon knocked out, one of them after receiving a bottle to the face, which opened a question mark-shaped cut on his forehead... One of the others received a kick to the head, the other two went down with volleys of punches. 
 
Finding himself alone in the face of more than thirty opponents, Renzo adopted Leonidas' strategy at the Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC), in which 300 Spartan warriors faced tens of thousands of Persian soldiers: he retreated to a narrow hallway at the entrance to the bathrooms, through which only two people could pass at the same time. 
 
There he can face the numerous pack that attacked him, knocking out one guy at a time. 
 
The bodies of his opponents were already piling up in the passage when a guy came up from behind, from the men's bathroom. This man was carrying a revolver. 
 
When he shot to kill, Renzo was on the ground, mounted on an opponent. The shot hit his left leg. 
 
Renzo got up and tried to run towards the shooter, to disarm him, but his shot leg “gave up” on the way. 
 
The guy fired 3 more times, without being able to hit him, while Renzo jumped on one foot in the direction of the women's bathroom. 
 
Inside were about twenty girls, who had taken refuge terrified by the fight. Renzo shouted at them: “There's a guy with a gun out there! If he comes in here, HE WILL KILL EVERYONE!” 
 
With the weight of their bodies against the door, the girls prevented the entry of the shooter, who ended up giving up and fleeing the scene. 
 
When the police arrived, Renzo was stopping the bleeding using a makeshift tourniquet from his shirt. 
 
Taken to the emergency department of a hospital, it was found that his femur had been broken by the bullet. The fracture was very serious: the bone remained connected only by a bundle of fibers, the thickness of a hair... After a delicate surgery, he had to be immobilized for more than 1 year for total recovery. 
 
Renzo was 16 years old. 
 
At school, he had just completed the eighth grade and decided that he would not return to formal studies. Upon learning, a teacher sought him out and said, categorically: 
 
“You're making a big mistake, kid... There are only two places the fight can take you: one of them is jail. The other is the cemetery.” 
 
RENZO: When I released my two books (“Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu: Theory and Technique”, co-written with his cousin Royler; and “Mastering Jiu-Jitsu”, in which he shares the authorship with his former student John Danaher), I sent autographed copies to this teacher.