"Believe in the power of one." Evan Tanner 1971-2008

civ_eng_girl wrote:

hmmm... this sounds an awful lot like something a good friend of mine once told me....

they had the right idea, eh?

Sep-10-2008
Evan Tanner’s Greatest UFC Moments
By Thomas Gerbasi

Evan Tanner’s tragic death on Monday stunned the mixed martial arts world, and fans have been paying tribute to the former middleweight champion ever since the news of his passing broke. And while Tanner’s life outside of the Octagon made an incredible impact on everyone who knew him, there is no question that his competitive life as a fighter played an equally important role in his story.

So there is no better time to remember seven of Tanner’s greatest UFC moments.

Darrel Gholar – January 8, 1999 – UFC 18
Result – Tanner Wsub1
Facing a two-time Greco-Roman national wrestling champ, Tanner apparently had no business beating Darrel Gholar in his UFC debut, despite a 16-1 record and experience in Japan as well as in the US. And when Gholar got Tanner to the mat and began to work his ground and pound attack, it appeared to be trouble for the 27-year old from Amarillo. But Tanner showed his trademark cool under fire, worked for submissions from the bottom, and eventually got back to his feet, where he attacked Gholar with leg kicks and knees before submitting him at the 7:57 mark. Right then you got the impression Tanner was definitely going to be heard from again.


Homer Moore – November 2, 2001 – UFC 34
Result – Tanner Wsub2


Following the win over Gholar, Tanner would defeat Valeri Ignatov and Lance Gibson, earning him a shot at Tito Ortiz’ title at UFC 30 in February of 2001. The bout was over almost as soon as it started as an Ortiz slam knocked Tanner out in 32 seconds. Less than nine months later, Tanner returned to the Octagon to take on 11-0 prospect Homer Moore, who was getting some significant buzz from the MMA media at the time. Tanner took his time in the first round, getting his legs back in a real fight, and by round two he was ready to attack and he did, easily submitting Moore with an armbar. Tanner was back, and ready to make another run at a title. And he would get there the hard way.


Phil Baroni – November 21, 2003 – UFC 45
Result – Tanner TKO1


After three wins and a loss to UFC newcomer Rich Franklin, Tanner dropped to the 185 pound weight class, and who did he find waiting for him but the ‘New York Bad Ass’ himself, Phil Baroni. And despite Baroni’s two losses to Matt Lindland, many saw him as too fast and powerful for Tanner. But the bout’s four minutes and 42 seconds of compelling action sent a message to the other middleweights that Tanner was a force to be reckoned with, despite a controversial ending.

Using his aforementioned hand speed and power, Baroni stunned Tanner with a right hand seconds into the scheduled three rounder, and follow-up bombs by the New Yorker had Tanner stumbling, cut, and in deep trouble. As it turns out, the cut under Tanner’s left eye may have been his saving grace. With a halt to the action called by referee Larry Landless in order for the ringside doctor to check Tanner’s cut, he gained enough time to recover his senses and get back into the fight.

After he ate another Baroni right hand, Tanner used some effective knees in the clinch and finally took the Long Island native to the mat. As the seconds ticked away on the first round, Tanner gained a full mount position and rained elbows on his foe. Landless leaned in and repeatedly asked Baroni if he wanted the fight stopped. Baroni, thinking that the referee was asking if he was fit to continue, answered ‘yes’. The bout was halted at 4:42 of the first, and though Baroni wasn’t too happy with the finish, Tanner was glad to get the win.

“That guy hits hard,” said Tanner afterwards. “That hurt.”


Robbie Lawler – October 22, 2004 – UFC 50
Result – Tanner Wsub1


After Tanner defeated Baroni via decision in their UFC 48 rematch, another young gun was placed in front of him in hard-hitting Robbie Lawler. Again, Tanner was expected by many to be the sacrificial lamb for the up and comer, but again, he stunned the world with a little veteran magic.

Surprisingly the action was subdued in the first two minutes, with neither man fully committing to the attack. But at the three-minute mark, Lawler made his move, taking Tanner down to the canvas. Unfortunately for the Iowan, Tanner locked in a triangle choke, producing the tap out at 2:22. And with three straight middleweight wins, there would be no denying Tanner of his second world title shot.


David Terrell – February 5, 2005 – UFC 51
Result – Tanner TKO 1 (Wins UFC Middleweight Championship)


David Terrell was the middleweight division’s hot shot after his 24-second KO of Matt Lindland (notice a theme here?) and his crowning as champion seemed to be almost an afterthought. But Tanner would not be denied.

Terrell tried to repeat his early KO of Lindland with a whipping kick to the head seconds after the opening bell, but Tanner blocked the shot. Terrell was able to take Tanner down moments later, and even though the veteran quickly got to his feet, the Santa Rosa, California native was firmly on the offensive as he chased his foe around the Octagon.

Tanner kept his cool though, even after Terrell sunk in a guillotine choke and looked for the submission. “He had me pretty tight, I’m glad I made it through that one,” said Tanner.

Gamely, he pounded his way out of the choke and with Terrell on the mat against the fence, Tanner opened fire with a series of punches and forearms. “I was trying to keep him busy, to keep him from thinking about submissions,” said Tanner.

With no response from Terrell, who appeared bewildered while on the defensive, referee Herb Dean had no choice but to stop the fight with a mere 25 seconds left in the first stanza. And just like that, Evan Tanner was a world champion.

Following a long dry period, the UFC finally has a middleweight champion after veteran Evan Tanner stopped David Terrell in the first round of a scheduled five round title bout.

“It’s awesome,” said the new champion. “I don’t even have the words to describe it.”


Rich Franklin – June 4, 2005 – UFC 53
Result – Franklin TKO4 (doctor’s stoppage)(Tanner loses UFC Middleweight Championship)


Tanner’s reign at the top was short lived, but maybe more than in any victory, his true warrior spirit came out in his loss to Franklin in their rematch.

The fight was fast paced from the start, with Tanner immediately taking the fight to his challenger. Both fighters traded heavy shots with some surprised by Tanner’s willingness to keep the fight standing. Franklin jarred Tanner briefly with a high left kick, and Tanner quickly recovered, only to get rocked by an uppercut seconds later. Franklin’s superior standup skills were evident, but Tanner kept moving forward, looking for an opening – an opening which came with 40 seconds left in the round as he dropped the challenger with a right hand to the jaw. Tanner got Franklin’s back and briefly had an arm for an armbar, but Franklin cleared his head and was back in the fight by the bell.

“I don’t remember that, so apparently I was hurt pretty bad,” said Franklin of the left hand that floored him.

As Tanner went to his corner, he was bleeding from his ear, and things would only get worse as the fight progressed.

Tanner came out confidently in the second, but Franklin easily eluded any danger. The pace dipped a bit
in the second stanza, but Franklin did manage to cut Tanner over the eye, and his fast counters were beating the champion to the punch and leaving their mark on his face.

The pattern continued in the third round, with Franklin now mixing kicks and knees in with his accurate punches. In the second minute, Tanner got nailed and staggered by a left hand but quickly regained his bearings. Another left hurt Tanner a few moments later, and when Franklin got Tanner on the mat, it looked like the end was near, but the courageous Tanner once again fought his way out of danger. Yet when Tanner rose, his face was a mask of blood and bruises.

Despite the fact that the fight was becoming one-sided, Tanner kept coming forward as he refused to give up his title without a fierce struggle, but by the fourth round the outcome was no longer in doubt, and after a series of shots by Franklin with 1:35 to go in the round, referee Herb Dean halted the bout to allow the ringside physicians to check Tanner, and the fight was immediately stopped.

Ironically, the fight took place the same night as the high-profile boxing match between Ricky Hatton and longtime junior welterweight champion Kostya Tszyu. Tszyu retired in his corner before the 12th round, a move for which he was criticized by some. After the bout, in a column for insidefighting.com, I wrote the following:

“After an 11 round streetfight, Tszyu, face and body battered and bruised, thought of his family, thought of his future, and decided he would not be a trophy for the bloodthirsty.

UFC middleweight champion Evan Tanner thought of none of those options. As he faced a young, aggressive, well-conditioned challenger in Rich Franklin, Tanner thought only of defending the title he had worked so hard for and of avenging his loss to this same opponent. He withstood punch after punch as his face swelled and burst open with cuts, and he kept upright, hoping that an opening would show itself where he could turn the fight around and get the victory. And in a sport where there’s no stigma attached to tapping out of a fight, Tanner kept fighting until he wasn’t allowed to fight anymore.”

Less than four months later, I spoke to Tanner before his comeback fight against David Loiseau and asked him what kept him going through that fight as the odds mounted against him.

“I knew that I was taking some damage and it was really unpleasant,” admitted Tanner. “But I was thinking if I can just get him, hit him, get a hold of him, I can make something happen. I just kept believing that I could make something happen, but it didn’t turn out that time.”

That’s what separates champions from everyone else, regardless of whether they still hold a belt or not.


Justin Levens – April 15, 2006 – UFC 59
Result – Tanner Wsub1

Tanner would lose to Loiseau via cuts, his skin betraying him for a second straight night, but six months later he was back in the Octagon against prospect Justin Levens. It was a must-win situation for the former middleweight champion, he knew it, and he acted accordingly, dominating his opponent until the end came via triangle choke at 3:14 of the first round.

“This is my first victory towards the title,” said Tanner after the fight, but little did anyone know that it would be his last win. Tanner would walk away from the sport for nearly two years, and though his heart and determination never wavered, he would fall short in his final two bouts to Yushin Okami and Kendall Grove. But despite the way his career ended, there is no question that the resume he left behind is one to be proud of, and the history books will always remember him as a champion.

http://www.ufc.com/index.cfm?fa=news.detail&gid=14457

a couple of tribute videos for evan, set to "guaranteed"...

pictures...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFxZoPihZHQ

some video and pictures...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBgap6c5H0A

MMA COMMUNITY REMEMBERS EVAN TANNER
Thursday, September 11, 2008
In Memory of Evan Tanner


Former UFC middleweight champion Evan Tanner was found dead on Monday, Sept. 10 in the mountain area outside of Palo Verde, Calif. He was 37 years old.

Tanner was a veteran of more than a decade in mixed martial arts. Though he hardly settled in one place over the course of his career, Tanner’s friendly nature and nomadic spirit led him to cross paths with many people in the MMA community.

In the spirit of remembering Evan Tanner, following are some of the comments from people who new him… in their own words:


Joe Rogan, UFC commentator:

Evan was a lot more than a “normal” person. He was a fascinating individual – a wandering spirit in search of adventure in the truest sense of the term. I was a regular reader of Evan's blog, and although I had always appreciated him as a fighter and a friendly person to talk to, it was in reading his writings that I came to better understand his spirit.

His blog was a porthole into the window of his soul, and reading his brave, uncensored thoughts gave me an invigorated sense of purpose to do the same.

Evan’s take on life was like that of a character in an adventure novel, and his thirst for experience was actually what led him into fighting in the first place.

I can remember the first time I watched him fight, when I read that he learned his techniques from a video tape and was self trained. I thought that it takes a really unusual person to enter into the toughest sport in the world that way. He took that unusual energy and channeled it to become the UFC middleweight champion of the world.

He was that, and more.

Evan Tanner has left the rest of us trapped in this life and has moved on to the next stage of existence where he will undoubtedly find adventure beyond his wildest imagination. In doing so he has left the world a little less interesting…



Matt Lindland and Team Quest:

We at Team Quest are saddened to hear the news of Evan Tanner. He was and always will be a part of the Team Quest Family. As much as we tried to make Evan feel a part of the pack, he was a lone wolf and tried hard not to fit the mold. He liked to do it his way. – God Bless



Monte Cox, fighter manager and president of Adrenaline MMA:

I'm really saddened by the news... Evan first fought for me in 1998 and was one of the guys I always enjoyed seeing at the shows, whether he was competing or not. He always had a big smile and a handshake waiting whenever we bumped into each other. The MMA community and everybody who was touched by him will miss him greatly."



Randy Couture, UFC heavyweight champion:

We're all going to sorely miss Evan Tanner. He was a tremendous talent in our sport, and in many ways, self-taught in all the skills that he possessed in mixed martial arts. In a lot of ways his passing is metaphorical for his life, because he was one of those people that isolated himself.

I wasn't really familiar with where he had gone. He was in Oregon; he was gone. He was here; he was gone. Nobody could really keep up with him, he just kind of moved at his own pace and in his own time. He never really checked in with anybody, 'hey, I'm moving here' and let you know he was going, he just kind of disappeared. So I had no idea how to get a hold of him or where he was.

He was in Oregon with us for a couple years, through his championship run. He stayed at my house for a while when he first moved from Texas, and he lived in the back of the gym at Team Quest for quite a long time too before Donita moved up and they got there own place up there. Trained with him almost every day when he was getting ready for fights. Then he moved out of Team Quest in Oregon, and went his own way.



Tito Ortiz, former UFC light heavyweight champion:

All my blessing to his family for sure. It's a shock to me still. I remember Evan being a really good guy, and a solid fighter, and it’s kind of heart shaking. I was really taken back from it when it happened, when I heard about it online. I can always be thankful that I had the chance to fight him and just to compete with the guy and be around the guy for competition. He's always been a solid guy."



Kendall Grove, last fighter to face Evan:

I didn't know Evan personally, but personally enough that I fought him. I know that he was a really, really good guy and the sport has lost a good person and a pioneer to the sport. We fought and shared that bond. My heart is out to his family. I'm praying for his family and him. I'm going to miss the guy.



Jason Leigh, a personal friend of Evan’s:

Evan at times could be very stubborn. If you asked him about something he'd answer with firsthand knowledge because if he didn't experience something, he'd tell you he didn't have an opinion on it.

He'd tell you things that you didn't want to hear, but at the same time you knew that if it was coming from Evan, he wasn't just blowing smoke and telling you something that you just wanted to hear. Everything about him was genuine.

He didn't care if people liked him or hated him. He just wanted them to know that what he said is really what he thought.

He had a genuine love for mankind. I think his ultimate goal was to use his UFC exposure to do his charity work for people that needed help.

He was a lot more than just a fighter. He really cared.

http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templates/dailynews.asp?articleid=7073&zoneid=13

a nice article by big john mccarthy...


Tanner lived life to its fullest
by John McCarthy, FOXSports.com
September 11, 2008


I write this with a sad and heavy heart because as you have probably already heard, Evan Tanner died in the southern California desert earlier this week.

If there is one thing I have had too much of in my life, it is death — of many people who have come into my life in capacities both large and small. While Evan and I really only knew each other from the world of fighting, he was one of those individuals that you liked because of his easygoing nature and the simplicity with which he went through life.

He was also one of the most complex men I knew with some of the demons he struggled through life with. Nobody is perfect and Evan was right there with the rest of us, but he lived his life the way he wanted.

Many people figure that since he was a fighter and was seen on TV, he must have been doing pretty well financially. They figure that he would have a home, a nice car and some money in the bank.

That was not the life that Evan Tanner led. The fact that Evan died alone in the middle of nowhere should not be dismissed as mere coincidence. It is the final chapter of a story that seemed to carry on throughout the life of a man known as a nomadic spirit who was happy being himself no matter what anyone else thought.

When trying to characterize or categorize Evan Tanner you would be hard-pressed to come up with one word to describe such a deeply complex individual. Most people know of Evan because he was a fighter, but when you got to know Evan, you knew a man who was much more than a fighter.

Fighting was something he did. Why? Because it was part of the adventure, something that made life interesting, something that made him feel alive. That is why he was in the middle of the desert out on his own discovering God-knows-what but doing it on his own terms in a manner that made sense to him and made him feel that he was living his life in a way that meant the most to him. It was like an adventure because he was one of the ultimate adventurers, a philosophical renaissance man who lived many lives.

I first met Evan before his first fight in the UFC back at UFC 18. He was matched against Darryl Gholar, a tremendous wrestler who was a three-time national champion in Greco Roman and had been an alternate on the 1988 Olympic team.

Evan was coming into the UFC with some great credentials as a fighter. He had been fighting in the United States Shootfighting Association in Texas and had recently won the Pancrase Neo-Blood Tourney. He was a solid wrestler who threw big knees and elbows and it was said that he learned his submission game from video tapes.

The fight was a good fight with Darryl getting the best of Evan early but not being able to really hurt Evan or crack his defenses. Evan pushed the pace and eventually broke Darryl with a series of knees and elbows that allowed Evan to get a rear naked choke that ended the fight in the first round. It was a great start in the UFC for a young fighter with an unlimited amount of potential.

Through the years, I was inside the cage to witness Evan in good times and bad. Evan's first attempt at a world title came at UFC 30 in New Jersey against the Huntington Beach Bad Boy Tito Ortiz. On that night, I remember Evan coming into the cage with his "Believe in the Power of One" line that he really lived by. The music that was playing was screaming out "Right Here, Right Now" but that was all the theatrics that accompanied Evan Tanner into the cage that night. In contrast, Tito had a fireworks show that was unbelievable and entered to a song written for him claiming "Tito's in the house."

After starting the fight, there was a short feeling-out period when Evan and Tito clinched. I had no idea that it was the beginning of the end for Evan that night. With double underhooks secured, Tito lifted Evan up in a body lock and slammed him to the ground causing Evan to bounce his head off the floor of the Octagon, knocking him unconscious. If you look at the Octagon that is used today, it was constructed and engineered to help absorb the shock of slams because of Evan's fight with Tito back at UFC 30.

Evan obviously went on to bigger and better things in the sport of MMA. In his second shot at a world title he won the UFC middleweight championship when he defeated David Terrell in a fight where the oddsmakers had Evan as a 3-to-1 underdog. He proved every one of them wrong, surviving a deep guillotine attempt at the beginning of the fight and then doing what Evan did best, launching an endless blitz of punches and elbows that drew a referee stoppage for a TKO victory in the first round.

When you stop and think about it, this man was the top fighter in the UFC's middleweight division and he really never fully practiced his trade. Now don't get me wrong, Evan trained and when he trained, he trained hard. But Evan trained only when he had a fight coming up. As he explained it to me, there were just too many things to do in life, too many sights to see, too much life to experience to spend it all training in a gym somewhere.

I am going to miss Evan Tanner. I will miss the shy and quiet, good-hearted, give-you-the-shirt-off-his-back-even-though-it's-the-only-shirt-he-has man that was Evan Tanner.

Evan, everybody dies, but how many of us have really lived? I believe that you really did and hopefully you have found the peace you have been searching for.

God bless Evan.

http://msn.foxsports.com/boxing/story/8547228/Tanner-lived-life-to-its-fullest