Later in 1995, there was another in-house tournament at Combate Real. This time, Fábio was a blue belt and had more experience competing. Once again, Fábio and Ronaldo Furacão reached the finals just like they had in the State and North-Northeastern Championships. The difference this time is that since it was an in-house tournament, they had to fight.
Like previously mentioned, Ronaldo Furacão was Fábio’s role model at the gym. When Fábio first started training, Ronaldo was already a blue belt. Fábio ended up winning the match. Since Ronaldo had already been in conflict with Rodrigo Wanderley (the Professor at Combate Real), this loss ended up being the last straw before he inevitably left Combate Real.
After Ronaldo left the school, Combate Real wound up leaving the Federation, and splitting with another school that until then, they had had a good relationship with. This school was founded at approximately the same time as Combate Real and there had always been a training exchange between both schools.
The main reason for the split was that Rodrigo found out that both schools were being treated differently by the president of the Federation. Since Combate Real was considered a middle-class school, the competition registration fee was 25 reais for members of Combate and 10 reais for members of the other school, claiming that the majority of their students were not financially comfortable.
Members of Combate weren’t asked for their opinions on the matter. The decision was taken hastily and in addition to other conflicting interests, it was decided that Combate Real would leave the Federation.
Through gossip, the president of the Federation at the time started pitting both schools against each other. This caused the beginning of a dark period with a lot of negativity, which lasted approximately three years. Between 1996 and 1999, there was a huge rivalry between both schools. This happened off the mats, causing many fights on the streets. Both schools stopped competing against each other because they were no longer part of the same Federation and that`s when the rivalry became personal.
The first proof of the rivalry occurred during a barbecue on the south coast of the state. Fábio attended the barbecue, along with Flávio Xingu, Paulo da Praça (In Memoriam), André (Paulo`s brother) and Michel Alvarenga. Fábio ended up falling asleep, so he didn`t go to the party at Circo da Folia at night, but the rest of the group went.
Since there had been a lot of gossip, Paulo da Praça got in a fight with one of the instructors from the other school. It so happens that everybody knew Paulo and were familiar with his dad`s reputation as a strict Captain of the Military Police Force. Due to his reputation, the instructor didn`t want to confront Paulo, instead, he would simply take him down and repeat that he didn`t want to fight. Paulo got back up each time and kept going after him again and again. When Paulo got taken down, he hit his face on the ground a few times and got hurt pretty badly.
Upon arriving home, Paulo`s dad wasn`t happy with the state of his son`s face and asked who had done this to him. Paulo told him the name of the instructor. His dad was furious but they went to sleep. When he woke up, Paulo, knowing that it was him who had initiated the fight and not the other school`s instructor, went to tell his dad the truth. His dad didn`t want to believe him because he thought that Paulo was scared of what he would do to the instructor. However, after a lot of insisting, his dad said that he would have to go to Natal to solve an urgent issue.
He then urges Fábio and Xingu to get in the car and go with him. During the ride to Natal, he interrogates both of them, yelling in order to find out the truth. He tells them that he had already sent someone to do the deed to the instructor and that now, they had to get there in time in order avoid a tragedy. They were successful in avoiding the incident and the next day, the instructor who lived near Fábio`s home, went there to say that he really didn`t want a conflict with Paulo and that Paulo was the one who had initiated the fight. Little did he know that he had nearly escaped taking his last breath, based solely on the testimony of two students from the rival school.