Tanner, According to Those Who Knew Him Best

Feelings on Fighting

Jason Leigh, a friend: He wasn’t a really big fan of the sport. I don’t think he ever watched it, unless he knew somebody that was fighting. I remember he didn’t know who Sakuraba was back when he was a top dog. Evan enjoyed competing. I think in the later part of his career when he started blogging and doing his MySpace, getting to interact and letting fans see him for who he was, just not a guy who went in there and beat people up, I think he really enjoyed that.

Paul Buentello: He didn’t like fighting. He enjoyed that it allowed him to express himself. Talking to Evan when we were all eating dinner one time, and he mentioned that he didn’t watch fights. He was all about wanting to express himself, about being one and believing in himself. I was totally surprised. For him to be a world-class fighter and not be into it kind of made me look at the sport and ask if I loved it too much. He made me realize that I love what I’m doing. I’ll remember him for the way he took a step back and looked at fighting. He never took fighting head-on. He always looked at it from the outside in.

John McCarthy refereed several of Tanner’s UFC bouts: He was a quiet, unassuming guy, very to himself in everything he did, but he was always a gentleman and he was always someone who -- he liked being different. He liked the fact that he was a fighter, but he didn’t want people looking at him like a fighter. He wanted to be more than that.

Evan was always calm, just very business-like. He never looked like he was worried about the fights or anything like that. He never did. He was Evan. He was just a different duck.

Fighting MMA and Fighting Alcoholism

Tanner did not hide his alcoholism. His struggles became more widely known as he wrote about them, but stories have long circulated about Tanner’s drinking during his early days in the UFC and before. At a UFC postfight party, for instance, a drunken Tanner picked up Elaine McCarthy and accidentally dropped her in front of everyone, striking her head. It was an embarrassing incident for a man widely regarded as quiet and polite.

John McCarthy: When the thing with Elaine happened, he bolted. He was gone. And then he was gone from the sport for a while and he was gone from the UFC. When he finally came back, he walked up to Elaine and me and he was very embarrassed about it. He said, “I just want to tell you how sorry I am about what happened. I was drinking at the time and I didn’t know what I was doing.”

John Hayner, Tanner’s agent: We talked about drinking and the main reason he told me that he liked to drink was because he was so shy. If he didn’t have alcohol, he always felt very awkward around people that he didn’t know. So when he had a few beers in him, it was just easier. It just became a party atmosphere all the time.

Matt Lindland trained with Tanner for several years in Oregon at Team Quest: Evan was training by himself when we met, looking for a place to hone his skills, looking for a place to call home. To this day, I don’t know much about his family. He was a great training partner. He was a tough guy with a good work ethic and good skills. His mind was always thinking. He was a pioneer. He taught us as much as we taught him.

His girlfriend got angry one time, and he jumps on his Harley and drives back to Amarillo through the mountains in the middle of winter. When he got back, he said he almost died, that his hands were frozen, that he thought he was going to die a lot of times. He didn’t think about things. He drank too damn much. That was the only problem Evan ever had, and he fought those demons.

Whenever he was focused on training for a fight, he was a completely different guy. He could put down the booze and whatever else was bothering him and focus on the fight. When the fight was over, he would become Mr. Selfish and not really contribute to the team. He tried really hard not to fit in, even though everyone liked him. We all wanted to help him, but he didn’t want the help. The guy was a UFC champion.