OK,
I understand Tanner to a lot of people.. is now a national treasure to the MMA Community.
Before his passing he already was to the select few that seemed to get him.
I talked to Evan a lot, but hadn't in about a year...especially talked to him a lot before I moved from Texas to California and he was really going through some rough stuff and he had just got back to his house in Oregon from Vegas where the weeds were all 4ft around his house and he was pretty much at the bottom of a beer can.
He sent/emailed me a picture of his house with the weeds all grown up and I remember he had no furniture and was sleeping on the floor with a trash bag with newspaper in it for a pillow.
I was truly worried about him, and his mental state and actually didn't know if he was going to make it.
I'm not telling any one here that Evan and I were the best of friends, we were not...like a lot of people I actually started talking to Evan when he first started his myspace page back like 3yrs ago or so.
I talked to Evan a lot via myspace when he didn't seem to have a lot of people in his life to talk to at the time. I was just getting ready to move out to Cali and work for Ken Pavia and mmaagents.com as an on staff photographer and web consultant. I told Evan and extended a hand to get him to come to Huntington Beach when I got there and talked to Ken and Ken offered to fly him out and get him some gym time with Tito and Razor.
I talked to Evan and preached to him about he needed to get a website and start looking at getting back on his feet. I offered to put a website together for him, but he really could have cared less at the time. I remember coming to the UG and seeing tons and tons of negative threads...countless threads about what a total fuck up he was...and people saying stuff like, just write him off he will never be a contender again, or in the UFC. Why can't the guy put down the beer can...wow, read his blogs he is really out there..freaking lost his mind.
Some UGer's just laughed and when he started posting the blogs on myspace they would laugh more and talk shit about what a loser he was and with all his talent why couldn't he get his shit together...what a waiste of space on the planet and human existance.
Then when he started posting the CRAAAAAZY pictures on his myspace blogs they too would end up here for the masses to decimate. Some threads from his fans were all in good fun...with the romoshops, but some people were just their negative self.
There were always a few posters in each thread that always said WAR TANNER and were always rooting for him, no matter how out there and crazy he seemed at the time.
I wasn't even registered here...I just lurked and read..didn't really have anything to say or post, but to myself when I would read those, I would say to myself. WAR TANNER
The truth is, most, the majority of people did not get Tanner. I remember actually seeing Into the Wild the first time and saying...wow, that is a lot like Evan Tanner.
Evan Tanner was probably one in billion human beings...he was a different kind and a different breed. Evan and I talked a lot because we both come from the same place...we have the same roots...we ran the same streets and crossed paths many times as kids. We were born in the same hospital.
That's how we got to really talking so much on myspace, when I contacted him and asked him a few questions about Amarillo. I claim Lubbock, TX as my home town, but was born in Amarrillo...and stayed there every summer with my grandmother and actually lived with her and went to school there for a year, but mostly grew up in, or around Lubbock.
When I contacted Evan on myspace and hit him with some questions about this and that...we became instant myspace buddies and really started messaging a lot.
Him and I are a lot a like in some aspects...when I write I ramble. I write books, so we both wrote books back and forth to each other.
We actually stayed up all night many nights, just emailing long ass winded messages back and forth on myspace. Talking about Amarillo when we were kids. The local city swimming pool in Amarillo that we both hung out at during the summer. The dog pound that was about a half a mile from the pool that fouled the air when they turned on the incinerators and the wind was blowing towards to the pool...to the thing we really laughed about the most was Toot n Totum...and only someone from Amarillo would even know what a Toot n Totem is.
Tanner and I had pretty much lost touch...I moved to Huntington Beach, started working for MMAagents...got busy with my new life and stopped talking to him as much, and then none. I kept up and would check his myspace from time to time just to see what he was up to and read his latest blogs. His blogs were the best..I wish I could re-read his old first myspace blogs again. I just knew he was back on track and they was cool.
Then out of the blue I checked his myspace page a week or so ago and saw he had moved to Cali...I sent him a message and told him one day I want a HD Nightrain like his blah blah...and my Harley is in the shop getting a bunch of custom work done to it, but when I get it out ...I should come down to Oceanside and we should take a ride. He informed me he was getting ready to take a camping trip and told me when he gets back if my bike was out of the shop to come down and we would go ride.
I just left it at that and didn't think another thing about it...didn't read his blog about the trip or even know he had a blog on spike.
Then the other night I could not sleep..went to bed around 11am woke up at 2:30am could not go back to sleep for anything decided to get up and thought..wow, I didn't check the UG all day yesterday.
Hit the front page and see. Evan Tanner it's confirmed..and I was like wtf??
I've spent the last few days just soaking it all in and not saying anything, or posting anything, but I'm posting this as my own way to deal with it and just to say my peace.
It did not surprise me...I never figured Tanner to live until old age. His spirit was just to restless...people wired that way very rarely ever do.
Evan did not commit suicide, but with that being said I can understand where a young immature kid/fighter like War Machine could jump to that conclusion...so, WM has a lot of growing up to do that is obvious, but the useless UG burndown is no better.
I didn't think it was warranted when you did it to Tanner, and I don't think it is warranted now to WM.
Lets just kill the negativity all around. WM is a young dumb passionate kid...I was that same kid when I was his age and so I can relate.
last but not least
WAR TANNER
thnx UG for letting me say my peace
RAV
WAR TANNER
WAR TANNER
ive had the picture with me and evan at UFC 45 as my desktop background ever since the tragic day and will continue to leave it up.
I don't really care who reads this or who responds to the post...this is a readers post..if you don't like long drawn out forum posts then don't read it.
This post was more for myself and my own thoughts than anyone here.
Cool post, thanks for sharing.
WAR TANNER
WAR TANNER ALWAYS