William Tackett was born on May 14, 2001, in Orange County, California, and relocated with his family to Austin, Texas at age four — a move that placed him at the center of one of the most vibrant no-gi grappling communities in the United States. He began training jiu-jitsu at age eight, an unusually early start that banked years of mat time before most competitors his age even discovered the sport. That foundational exposure shaped the instinctive scrambling ability and positional awareness that would define his early competitive identity.

In 2017, as a teenager, Tackett joined Brazilian Fight Factory in Austin and committed fully to jiu-jitsu during the years when most athletes are still searching for direction. He funded his development entirely through coaching and competing, living with his parents into his early twenties while channeling every dollar earned from the sport back into his career. By keeping overhead low and income focused exclusively on jiu-jitsu, Tackett built a professional foundation that allowed him to pursue high-level competition without compromise. Austin served as the base for nearly a decade of that development — a city whose grappling ecosystem grew around him as he rose through the ranks.

Tackett trains under Rodrigo Cabral, known as Brucutu, at Brazilian Fight Factory. His lineage traces through one of the most distinguished lines in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu history: Carlos Gracie → Hélio Gracie → Rolls Gracie → Romero Cavalcanti → Léo Vieira → Rodrigo Cabral. From purple belt through brown belt, his entire foundational game was built within a single team under a single instructor — a continuity of development increasingly rare in an era of frequent gym-hopping.

His promotion to black belt came on March 27, 2021, and it arrived not as a formality but as a recognition of a body of work already accomplished. By the time Cabral tied that belt around his waist, Tackett had spent years defeating established black belts as a colored belt competitor, making the promotion feel less like an elevation and more like an official acknowledgment of a status he had already earned on the mat. Rapid ascent through the belt ranks was validated at every stage by competitive results against opponents who outranked him on paper.

The trajectory of Tackett's early competitive career followed a consistent pattern: enter as the underdog, leave as the winner. At blue belt, he captured IBJJF No-Gi World Championship gold in 2017 and again in 2018, establishing elite credentials before most competitors his age had left their local tournament circuit. He also won the IBJJF Pan Championship in 2017 at blue belt, adding a premier gi title to what was already becoming an exceptional resume.

By 2019, competing as an older colored belt, Tackett expanded into the submission-only and no-gi spaces that would become his permanent home. He won the Jitz King Grand Prix at 165 lbs, took gold at the Grappling Idiots Invitational, and claimed first place at the Midwest Finishers Only event — a stretch of performances that demonstrated both his competitive hunger and his comfort across varied submission-only formats. That same year, he placed second at the ADCC West Coast Trials, a result that signaled readiness to compete at the highest level of no-gi grappling even before earning his black belt.

In 2020, competing as a brown belt, Tackett won the Fight To Win 185 lbs Brown Belt superfight, defeating black belts and raising his profile substantially in the months leading up to his own promotion. The habit of punching above his weight class — and winning — became the defining characteristic of his colored belt years and set the standard for what his black belt career would deliver.

Tackett's status as a two-time ADCC Trials champion at 88 kg stands as the defining credential of his competitive career and one of the rarest distinctions in no-gi grappling. Winning the ADCC Trials once is a significant achievement; winning it across two separate qualification cycles — against different pools of elite competitors — demonstrates a sustained level of dominance that separates him from the broader field of contenders.

In his documented Trials final, Tackett submitted Jay Rodriguez with a toe hold after controlling the positional exchanges throughout the match — a result that illustrated how far his game had evolved from its scramble-heavy origins. The submission emerged not from chaos but from structured dominance, with the finishing sequence flowing naturally out of positional control rather than desperation. Tackett also competed at the ADCC 2022 World Championships, where he faced Mateusz Szczecinski in the opening round, gaining valuable experience at the sport's most prestigious no-gi event.

By 2024, FloGrappling ranked Tackett among the top ten competitors at 185 lbs, with his Trials dominance serving as a foundational credential in that ranking. Back-to-back qualification cycle victories across different coasts — each with its own competitive pool — underscored a consistency that rankings and recognition naturally followed.

Tackett's competitive ambitions extended well beyond the domestic circuit. He captured the Grapplefest 90 kg title in the United Kingdom, defeating Eoghan O'Flanagan by decision in a high-profile international showcase that demonstrated his ability to travel, compete on unfamiliar ground, and win against elite international opposition. The Grapplefest victory was significant not only for the title itself but for what it represented: a young American competitor willing to seek out marquee matchups abroad and perform under the scrutiny of a global audience.

Across his career, Tackett has competed under EBI overtime, submission-only, and points-based rulesets, accumulating wins in each format and establishing himself as an adaptable competitor rather than a specialist constrained by a single set of rules. His Fight To Win superfight title added another prominent domestic no-gi promotion credential to a resume already stacked with varied formats. Appearances on events including Who's Number One and Polaris reflected a consistent pursuit of high-visibility matchups against marquee opponents — a deliberate strategy to build both ranking credibility and competitive experience against the best available opposition.

Building on a Scrambler's Foundation

Early in his career, Tackett's identity on the mat centered on explosive, unpredictable scrambles and a dangerous guillotine that made him a high-risk proposition for any opponent willing to engage in top position. The chaos was genuine — he thrived in the uncertain, transitional moments that more conservative grapplers tried to avoid, making him exceptionally difficult to control.

ADCC Preparation and Systematic Expansion

Preparation for the ADCC Trials forced a systematic expansion of his game. The ADCC ruleset — where takedowns score and leg locks are fully legal — required Tackett to develop his wrestling and takedown offense as a genuine strength rather than a supplementary tool. Leg-lock defense, a vulnerability the ADCC format exposes relentlessly, also became a focused area of development. The investment paid off: in his Trials final against Jay Rodriguez, the match was decided not by a fortunate scramble but by sustained positional dominance that created the finishing opportunity.

The B-Team Influence

Cross-training with B-Team athletes in Austin contributed substantially to this evolution, particularly in wrestling and positional control. The training environment — populated by some of the most technically advanced no-gi practitioners in the world — accelerated refinements that would have taken years to develop in a less competitive setting. Tackett's style as a mature black belt balances explosive entries into passes and submissions with the strategic patience to accumulate advantages and protect leads when needed. Observers frequently note the poise of a seasoned veteran in an athlete who reached elite black belt competition in his early twenties — a quality attributed directly to the volume of high-level matches he logged throughout his teenage years.

Following the dissolution of the Danaher Death Squad's original configuration, Austin, Texas emerged as an unexpected center of gravity for elite no-gi grappling — and Tackett was positioned at the heart of that transition. Maintaining his primary affiliation with Brazilian Fight Factory under Rodrigo Cabral, he simultaneously cross-trained with B-Team athletes, integrating into a training ecosystem that offered elite sparring without requiring a change of primary allegiance.

The Austin environment provided something difficult to replicate elsewhere: consistent access to world-class training partners within a competitive but collaborative culture. That culture, shaped significantly by the B-Team's approach to professionalism and personal branding in jiu-jitsu, influenced how Tackett thought about his career beyond competitive results. The business of grappling — how to build a brand, how to evaluate organizational opportunities, how to treat athletic prime as a finite professional resource — became as important to his development as the technical refinements happening on the mat. His presence and results also elevated Austin's profile on the international stage, making him both a product of that environment and a contributor to its reputation.

Choosing the Craig Jones Invitational

Tackett's approach to competitive decision-making has been defined by a willingness to prioritize long-term professional stability over short-term prestige — a posture that set him apart from peers who defaulted to chasing rankings above all else. In 2024, Tackett and his brother Andrew made the deliberate choice to compete in the Craig Jones Invitational rather than pursue ADCC qualification, citing the event's $1 million prize pool as the decisive factor. Tackett was direct about the difficulty of the decision — he believed he had a legitimate chance to win ADCC — but ultimately chose the opportunity that best positioned his family and his future. The choice framed him as an entrepreneurial competitor willing to break competitive norms in pursuit of financial security, treating his athletic prime as a professional window to be managed strategically rather than an invitation to collect trophies.

Signing with UFC BJJ

In 2025, Tackett and Andrew shifted again, choosing to compete under UFC BJJ rather than entering the Craig Jones Invitational 2 — a decision that reflected continued prioritization of organizational infrastructure and earning potential over any single event's competitive prestige. By October 20, 2025, Tackett had signed an exclusive employee contract with UFC BJJ, receiving a monthly salary and full access to the UFC Performance Institute's resources, including nutrition support, strength and conditioning, physical therapy, facilities, and meals. The arrangement represented a structural commitment from a major organization to a grappling competitor — a development that validated his years of treating jiu-jitsu as a profession.

The contract came with a geographic relocation: Tackett moved to Las Vegas to train at the UFC Performance Institute, ending nearly a decade of Austin as his primary base. As of late 2025, he was preparing for a middleweight title match under the UFC BJJ banner. Every dollar he had earned to that point came from jiu-jitsu — coaching and competing — making the arc from teenage Austin competitor to salaried UFC BJJ athlete a direct validation of the approach he maintained from the beginning.

Faith as Foundation

Tackett's public identity extends well beyond his competitive results, shaped by a visible commitment to faith and a deliberate stance against performance-enhancing drug use in grappling. A devout Christian, he incorporates his faith openly into his public presence — including a cross displayed alongside his name on social media — and has spoken about how it provides grounding in both victory and defeat, keeping him humble when results go his way and resilient when they do not.

Advocating for Clean Competition

Alongside that foundation, Tackett built a personal brand centered on natural, drug-free athleticism. He has been vocal against steroid use in BJJ, participating in B-Team's "natty or not" content — including body composition testing — using humor and transparency to reinforce a point he takes seriously. The approach transformed what could have been a simple public statement into an engaging, verifiable demonstration of his commitment. His sponsor relationships reflect the same alignment: Level Black (LXB) and Kingz Kimonos are both associated with the clean-athlete ethos within the grappling community, and both partnerships reinforce a consistent message across his competitive and commercial identity.

An Integrated Brand Identity

What distinguishes Tackett's brand is the integration of these values with his career decisions. His willingness to discuss financial priorities openly, explain the reasoning behind choosing one event over another, and frame those choices in terms of family and long-term wellbeing rather than competitive ego has cultivated a fanbase that views him as principled and trustworthy beyond his performance on the mat. The combination of elite no-gi results, transparent character, and coherent personal values has made him one of the more distinctly branded competitors in the contemporary grappling landscape.