UFC BJJ Welterweight Champion Caught Biting Opponent On Camera — Response: 'That's What You Get For The Oil Check'

Andrew Tackett bit a man on camera, laughed about it, and kept his UFC BJJ welterweight title. That was the whole story. Everything else was context.

On April 2, Tackett defended his welterweight title against Vagner Rocha at UFC BJJ 7 inside the Meta APEX in Las Vegas. Three rounds. Unanimous decision. Tackett controlled the pace, locked in a body triangle in the third to grind out the clock, and walked away with his third consecutive title defense. By any competitive standard, it was a legitimate win. Nobody debated the scorecards.

What people debated was the footage that surfaced five days later — video evidence showing Tackett biting Rocha during the match. Not an incidental mouth-on-skin moment during a scramble. Biting. The kind of thing that gets you disqualified from every sanctioned combat sport on the planet, including the one Tackett held a title in.

UFC BJJ's own rulebook listed "intentional scratching, pinching, or biting" as an illegal action. Referees could deduct points, reset positions, or disqualify. Biting was one of only two fouls that had been banned since the very first UFC event in 1993, alongside eye gouging. It was, quite literally, the floor. The absolute minimum standard of human behavior in a combat sport. Don't gouge eyes. Don't bite people.

Tackett's response, when the video went wide, was to post a clip set to Ice Spice's "Munch (Feelin' U)" with the caption: "That's what you get for the oil check, Vagner." Followed by "Keep it clean kids." Then a second post: "I don't encourage biting. I shouldn't have done it, but it is still funny."

Read that again. The welterweight champion of the sport's biggest grappling promotion had committed an explicitly banned foul during a title fight, acknowledged it publicly, and his position was that it was comedic. Not an accident. Not a heat-of-the-moment lapse he regretted. Funny.

His justification — that Rocha oil-checked him — was worth examining for about three seconds. An oil check, for the uninitiated (lucky you), was when a grappler applied pressure to an opponent's, shall we say, back door. It was unpleasant. It was widely considered dirty. It was also not banned under UFC BJJ rules. It was technically legal in wrestling. It was gross and unsportsmanlike and nobody wanted it done to them, but it was not on the list of prohibited actions.

Biting was.

So Tackett's argument boiled down to: he had committed an explicitly banned foul as retaliation for something that wasn't a foul. And he was framing that as proportional. Like bringing a knife to a thumb-wrestling contest and saying the other guy started it by using his pinky.

Now let's talk about what happened next. Which was nothing.

UFC BJJ issued zero official statements. No fine. No suspension. No investigation. No vaguely worded "we take these matters seriously" press release. Nothing. The promotion that paid this man to represent their welterweight division watched their champion get caught biting a 43-year-old ADCC silver medalist on camera, watched him publicly admit to it and laugh about it, and decided that silence was the play.

For context on who Tackett bit: Vagner Rocha had accepted that title shot on short notice. He was already at the facility coaching his daughter when the opportunity came up. The man was 43 years old. He had been hospitalized with heart failure in January 2025. He was openly on TRT. He took the fight because that's who he was — a guy who said yes. And he had made Tackett work for three full rounds. Rocha didn't get finished. He lost a decision. He competed like a professional.

Then he got bitten.

The timing of the broader discourse made this even more absurd. In the same week the biting footage surfaced, the BJJ community was flooded with "cut your nails" posts — the perennial hygiene discourse that cycled through every few months. Trim your nails. Wash your gi. Wear deodorant. Basic civilization stuff. Meanwhile, the welterweight champion of the biggest grappling promotion on Earth was out there literally biting people. People were arguing about fingernail length while the champ was using his teeth.

And right in the middle of all this, BJJEE had published a profile calling Tackett "the most dangerous man in grappling right now." The headline aged like milk left on a Las Vegas sidewalk. Although, to be fair, if your champion was willing to bite people during title fights, "dangerous" wasn't technically wrong. Just not the way they meant it.

Look — Tackett was 22 years old. He was absurdly talented. His UFC BJJ record was 5-0. Three of his four previous wins were first-round submissions — rear naked choke, D'Arce choke, heel hook. The kid could actually grapple. That was what made this so stupid. He didn't need to bite anyone. He had won the fight. He was winning the fight when he bit the guy. This wasn't desperation. This was a choice.

And that was what separated this from a normal foul. Grabbing a handful of shorts in a scramble was instinct. An illegal reap during a fast transition was a mistake. Biting someone because you're annoyed about an oil check was a decision. A decision that the champion of your promotion had made on camera, confessed to publicly, and faced zero consequences for.

The question wasn't whether Tackett could grapple. He obviously could. The question was what kind of sport UFC BJJ wanted to be. Because right then, the answer was: one where your champion could commit the most fundamental foul in combat sports, post about it with a soundtrack, and keep his belt.

Every other sport on Earth would have done something by then. The NBA fined players for looking at referees wrong. The NFL suspended guys for uniform violations. MMA commissions would have had that fighter sitting in front of a panel explaining himself before the bite marks healed. But grappling? Grappling just moved on. Pretended it didn't happen. Waited for the next news cycle to bury it.

That was the real story. Not that Tackett bit Rocha — athletes did dumb, impulsive things in competition. The real story was that nobody with authority cared enough to do anything about it. The promotion's silence was louder than anything Tackett had posted.

Cut your nails, wash your gi, and maybe don't bite anyone during a title fight. Apparently that last one was optional.

This post was generated by AI. Sources are linked below. Follow @bjj-problems on YouTube for the weekly video digest.

Sources

• Andrew Tackett Bit Vagner Rocha — And That's Now Bigger Than His UFC BJJ 7 Win
• Andrew Tackett reacts to evidence he bit Vagner Rocha
• UFC BJJ 7: Tackett vs Rocha Results
• Why Andrew Tackett is the most dangerous man in grappling right now
• UFC BJJ Rules And Scoring
• Vagner Rocha To Challenge Andrew Tackett For UFC BJJ Welterweight Title
• 42-Year-Old ADCC Silver Medalist Vagner Rocha Hospitalized After Heart Failure Diagnosis
• Vagner Rocha Confirms Andrew Tackett Match Only Came Together Because He Was in Attendance
• Why Did UFC BJJ Book 43-Year-Old Vagner Rocha With a Failing Heart and TRT Prescription for a Title Match?