Call of Duty esports veteran and Carolina Royal Ravens player Tyler ‘FeLo’ Johnson detailed on a live stream how he was penalized at the Esports World Cup for teabagging his opponent.
The Call of Duty portion of the Esports World Cup ended with Atlanta FaZe lifting the trophy after three days of high-octane competition. The third-party event was the first tournament in a long time in the space not run by Activision Blizzard and thus featured a slightly different ruleset.
FeLo detailed in a livestream after returning from the event how the different ruleset caused him to earn a penalty mid-match.
The 10-year veteran said after winning a round against the Las Vegas Legion, he beelined for his opponent’s body and teabagged him to rub in the outplay.
“After the map, the ref tapped me on the shoulder.. and he was like ‘I just want to inform you from the higher-ups, you got two strikes for that map.’ And I was like ‘Huh? Two strikes? That’s not good,'” FeLo said.
FeLo did not elaborate on what would have happened if his team reached three strikes. His team went on to win that match, and place in the top eight at the tournament.
Call of Duty esports is known for getting rowdy at times with players trash-talking during and after matches.
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However, the “higher-ups” at the Esports World Cup did not seem to jive with the CDL’s culture of talking trash. The mega-tournament, which features over a dozen popular esports, is run by ESL and funded by the Saudi Arabian government.
Teabagging during competitive esports matches has been a contentious topic in recent years as some players have been banned or warned of incoming penalties for crouching on their enemy’s bodies in live games.
The in-game taunt has been labeled toxic by some developers and organizers, who want to have clean matches with the only drama being the scoreboard.
General professional and community sentiment has leaned toward letting teabagging continue, but at a certain point, it’s not worth a potential fine or match loss.
The Esports World Cup has not commented on the claim made by FeLo at the time of writing.
