Late last night, it was made official that the body of Evan Tanner had been found in the desert of Southern California. Tanner was champion for the United States Shoot Wrestling Federation, a UFC Middleweight champion, and a one time challenger to the light heavyweight crown in the UFC. He has been on a myriad of adventures over the last few years and has blogged extensively about them. Recently, Evan notified the MMA community at large of his plans to enter the desert, informing all that “any failure of equipment” could prove deadly. Sadly, it is apparent that such has occured.

Our various writers now remember Evan Tanner:

Chris Henderson:

The fact that the news of Evan Tanner’s passing isn’t overwhelmingly shocking doesn’t make it any less sad.  Tanner was an original.  From his learning grappling from instructional videos to his creative approaches to sponsorship later in his life, Tanner was anything but ordinary, which may have been one of the factors that drew Tanner a group of devoted fans, myself included.  I have seen many fights of Evan Tanner and will without hesitation say I have been entertained by the vast majority of them.  For all of his documented problems, I believe that Tanner was a man with a good heart who stumbled astray at times, as most men do.  I can only hope that through his numerous personal battles Evan was able to find a little peace in his final days, weeks, and months.  Rest in peace Evan, you will be missed.

Lee Casebolt:

All right, ugly part first.  If there was a short list of guys in modern MMA who were going to come to an early and bad end, it would have to have included Evan Tanner.  The last few years, it seemed he’d spent more time in the bottle than in the gym, and his increasingly rare forays into the cage showed the difference.  For reasons most of us don’t know and never will, Tanner’s emotional state vacillated sharply.  Problems with alcohol, women, and money stood between Evan Tanner and the life he wanted for himself.  Lofty and worthy goals, in and out of the sport of MMA, never quite made it to fruition.
 
I never knew Evan Tanner.  Never met the man.  The closest I came was walking by him in the Five Seasons Center hallway before a UFC in Cedar Rapids back in the 90s.  So far be it from me and my long-forgotten psychology BS to try and psychoanalyze the man based on Sherdog articles and Myspace posts.  I knew Evan Tanner only through his fights, through what he brought to the cage and the sport of MMA. 
 
To his credit, win or lose, you’d be hard pressed to find a dull Evan Tanner fight.  Win or lose, he fought the same way - an aggressive, straight ahead style predicated on infighting and grappling.  When it worked, it led to impressive wins over highly regarded opponents like Darryl Gholar, Dave Terrell, and Robbie Lawler.  He could cut you up, beat you down, or tap you out.  When it didn’t work, it led to some horrific losses, like the two Rich Franklin handed him.  In either case, he knew what he was.  He didn’t try to go toe to toe with the Phil Baronis and David Loiseaus of MMA.  He fought his fight, every fight, to the best of his ability.  That’s a rare thing in a sport where every wrestler with six months in gloves starts thinking he’s Mike Tyson.  It’s all the more impressive for a man who was largely self-trained and whose MMA roots were in instructional videos rather than a lifetime in another combat sport.  Evan Tanner fought, and sometimes fought brilliantly, but he wasn’t a fighter in the way that some are. Perhaps that distance gave him the perspective to be true to himself.  Or perhaps I’m randomly ascribing virtues to the blank canvas of a stranger in an attempt to make sense of things.
 
Unfortunately for him and for us, Evan Tanner occupied that middle age of MMA, the “Dark Ages” between the legendary beginnings where names like “Gracie” and “Shamrock” became words to conjure with and the modern period where Couture and Liddell and even Kimbo are becoming crossover stars.  For Evan Tanner, there will never be guest starring spots in mediocre action movies and there probably won’t be tell-all biographies.  The movies are no great loss - how many “Scorpion King”s do we really need? - but the biographies are.  Tanner’s image was hard to pigeonhole - he talked like the Marlboro Man, wore his hair like a samurai or Bo Derek (depending on the day), drank like a bad Irish stereotype, blogged like a fourteen year old girl, and fought like a demon.  Was he any of these?  All?  None?  Most of us will never know.  Most of us will never know the real Evan Tanner.
 
And that’s a damn shame. 
 
Rest well, Evan. 

Dave Walsh:

Evan Tanner was, in a lot of ways, exactly what MMA didn’t need. MMA didn’t need a former UFC Champion with a history of substance abuse problems who up and decides to take a dangerous trip out into the desert grossly unprepared. It didn’t need Tanner detailing his fatal trip on a television network blog, even going as far as to say that this trip could easily be fatal if he didn’t play his cards right. Everybody sort of joked, uncomfortably, that Tanner was going out to the desert to die, that we would never hear from him again.

The MMA world, though, in a way needed a lot from Tanner. Tanner was a truly bright, funny and talented guy. Reading of his exploits and troubles, as well as his positive outlook on life was always a highlight. Evan Tanner, for all of his flaws, admitted that he was human, admitted that he was messed up, and admitted that he just wanted to be clean and to fight again, to regain his glory and prove himself to his fans.

However, MMA needed a success story out of Tanner. MMA needed Tanner to return from a 2 year lay-off of drowning in his own sorrows to be re-energized and overcome his demons. Instead we saw Yushin Okami destroy Tanner with a knee. Months later, Tanner had his shot at redemption again, this time against Kendall Grove. Grove simply proved to be too much for Tanner, with a reach, youth and conditioning advantage. Tanner essentially had nothing to offer Grove to challenge him, it was like his flame was being extinguished before our eyes. Evan Tanner was not going to be the success story, he wasn’t going to be the TV movie or the legend with the triumphant return.

I fear what will be uncovered in the coming months, or how much ammo the passing of Evan Tanner will provide for the anti-MMA crowd. I fear what the effect of fighting was on his mind, or what drugs they find in his system. But all of these fears are simply from the perspective of a fan of MMA, and really, in the face of human mortality don’t mean much. My one hope is that Evan Tanner made peace with himself before he went and was able to find whatever he was looking for. That is all we can really ask for.

Alan Conceicao:

A common thread among that which has been said thus far on the internet is that Evan Tanner died doing something he loved. I don’t pretend personally to know whether or not he did, and I’d probably guess that Evan’s last hours were, while not as painful or horrific as many other ways to go, also not what he envisioned himself ultimately doing. He wanted to succeed out there and live with nature, at least for the time being, and sadly his choice in adventure this time was much more than he could have bitten off. For that, I am sad that we saw a man leave this mortal coil before he needed or wanted to.

What I definitively know of Evan Tanner is Evan Tanner the fighter. He’s a guy that I’ve enjoyed watching for numerous years and have excitedly awaited the returns of, even when I had believed that he was once and truly physically finished. You wanted to believe that one day, the old Evan Tanner would show up and start mowing guys down, and after the Okami fight, that dream seemed once and finally dead. He was generally exciting, surprisingly well rounded given his background, and generally very aggressive. He also fought with a tremendous amount of heart: He could have very easily quit against Franklin and no one would have batted an eye. He took his beating like a man. In his last two (unsuccessful) outings, I’m reminded of Mike Tyson’s final bouts. Neither man looked as if they had the proper motivation or physical skills to succeed, but they still tried and when they failed, they refused to simply drop or quit when they had numerous chances to.

I, like everyone else, will miss his grit, determination, and the hope for funny stories about Evan Tanner’s next scheme. I hope that those involved with him are able to give him a proper funeral, befitting of the man.