Every so often, you meet people in life that were not what you expected them to be. Your perception of ‘who they might be’ is silenced by ‘who they actually are’. Evan Tanner was just that. A complex man who’s free spirit made it all look so simple.
Unfortunately, Evan Tanner’s spirit is all we have left to remember a man who loved life and all of its adventures. Tanner was found dead by an Imperial County Sheriff’s Department Deputy on Monday September 08th, 2008, after being reported missing by friends on Friday, September 05th. Tanner’s eventual fate was foreshadowed in his own words and beliefs.
Tanner was on a camping trip, alone, in the Palo Verde region in Southern California. When he first posted on his blog that he was going on this self-expedition, he spoke about the various dangers that he would encounter. ‘I plan on going so deep into the desert, that any failure of my equipment, could cost me my life.’
It was as if Tanner knew it all along yet was unafraid of the fight he was about to face. He was never one to back down from a challenge and was more than ready to face life head on.
It was all about life’s journeys and adventures, the day to day decision to stay or go and the free will to march to his own drum. He believed that when your time came, when it was time for you to go, you better have some good stories to tell. Tanner had more than his fair share to tell.
“When you’re on your death bed, it’s those stories, those little adventures that are going to be the things that you remember. It’s not so much getting there, but how you got there.” And for anyone that has ever met Tanner, believe me, he could spin any conversation into a past experience, a story or a self-awakening epiphany.
Although, Tanner was a former UFC Champion, he never considered himself a fighter. He viewed fighting as just one piece of a multi-faceted life. It was simply something he liked to do; nothing less, nothing more.
He never believed it was his calling in life, but it was the spirit within that made him a fighter. Tanner summed it up in the following quote:
“I believe there are people out there that just have a warrior spirit, whether it’s fighting or something, they’ve got to do it. It’s hard to identify with me; it’s just something I do.”
Years ago, a friend of mine spent some time with Evan Tanner, an Amarillo, Texas native and shared some interesting stories about Tanner’s free spirit. It was during a time when Tanner considered his life a black hole, a void and one filled with vices. I remember asking Tanner about these dark days and he smiled, told me that it was simply another one of life’s experiences that teach you ‘right from wrong, good from bad and to overcome the pain that life can sometimes dish out’.
As time went on, Tanner’s spirit continued to take him places most people would describe as strange for a celebrity; places that had him doing things that people in the public light should not be doing. But he never considered himself a celebrity or a star for that matter. He was just a simple guy on a path of exploration and never caught up in the big lights or the status that made him a recognizable face amongst thousands of MMA fans.
While I have always enjoyed Tanner’s stories and thoughts on life, the one I enjoyed most was a story he told a few years back about being ‘lucky’ to be where he was and to appreciate it all. He believed that there were so many great fighters out there that never get the chance to shine but he was just at the right place at the right time and ran with it.
It was never about the riches or the fame but rather, it was something he could add to his bucket list of life. His bucket list took him all over the world and it is sadden to know he was unable to see so much more.
We will never see Evan Tanner back in the Octagon but he will live through our memories in a variety of lights. The man who taught himself how to fight by watching techniques on video tapes will always shine as the man with the tightly braided hair vs Rich Franklin or perhaps the shaggy haired veteran who defeated David Terrell to become the UFC champ. Who can forget the clean cut Tanner at UFC 82 vs Yushin Okami or the bearded warrior vs Kendall Grove at the TUF 7 Finale.
At age 37, Tanner has left us far too soon. It was always a treat to read an update on one of his various blogs. His outlook on life was refreshing, especially from the mundane, politically correct typical fighter blabber. Tanner saw it all in a different way and was able to express his thoughts, feelings and emotions with the tone of a philospher. For a person who was so complex, he was just as simple. Evan Tanner may be gone, but his free-spirit lives on in so many different ways.
