![]() Tanner used his blogs to let people into his world and sometimes it wasn't pretty. I don't want to share those really." But Tanner said his beer-drinking days were over. "Yeah, those are things I'll write about in a book some day. "The last two years were a little bit more extreme than usual though."Īsked about the down times, he chuckled in an interview. "I've been a traveller my entire life, constantly on the move, searching for new adventures, seeking knowledge, looking for the truth of things," he wrote in a journal entry at the time. He decided to return to the real world after his boat, a 1939 Tahiti ketch sailboat, almost sank last fall down the coast of California. He didn't bother to shave for eight months. He toured the U.S., often on his 1999 Harley-Davidson Softail. Tanner lived life to the fullest during his fighting sabbatical. I decided I just really needed some time off," he told The Canadian Press in February prior to his comeback against Okami. "I had some things going on in my personal life right at that time and after I got that fight done. "If he's awake, there's fight in him," UFC commentator Joe Rogan said approvingly of Tanner during that fight.įour months after losing his title, he suffered a TKO at the hands of Montreal's David Loiseau, before submitting Justin Levens at UFC 59 in April 2006 and then quitting the sport. It was his second career loss to Franklin, but also a gutsy performance. His face was a bloody, swollen mess when the contest was finally called. Tanner felled Franklin with a right to the chin late in the first round, but was beaten up the rest of the bout. He lost the championship to Rich Franklin at UFC 53 in June 2005, at the wrong end of a fourth-round stoppage. The former light-heavyweight dropped down a division and went on to win the vacant 185-pound UFC middleweight title in February 2005 when he defeated David Terrell, surviving an early guillotine choke attempt to post a dominating win by putting the young gun Terrell on the ground at the fence and pounding away until the fight was stopped. Tanner, who started fighting as a pro in 1997, said he learned most of his fighting style from videos and "trial and error." Tough as nails, he rose up the MMA ladder. Tanner (34-8) lost to Kendall Grove and Japan's Yushin Okami in the two fights since his comeback. Any failure of gear out in the desert could cause a problem."Ī native of Amarillo, Texas, Tanner was a notorious free spirit who quit the sport for almost two years before returning in March. "I do plan on going back pretty far, so I did mention in one of my posts that I wanted to make sure to have good quality gear. I'm going fully geared up, and I'm planning on having some fun. This isn't a version of 'Into the Wild.' I'm not going out into the desert with a pair of shorts and a bowie knife, to try to live off the land. "So my plan is to go out to the desert, do some camping, ride the motorcycle, and shoot some guns. "I plan on going so deep into the desert, that any failure of my equipment, could cost me my life," he added.īut he said in a later entry that he would be well prepared. I began to imagine what might be found in the deep reaches of the untracked desert. It was motivated by my friend Sara's talk of treasure hunting and lost gold, and my own insatiable appetite for adventure and exploration. "The idea going into the desert came to me soon after I moved to Oceanside. "I'm hoping that very soon I'll be sitting out in the quiet of the desert beneath a deep blue midnight sky, listening to the calm desert breeze," Tanner wrote. ![]() His campsite was found Sunday and the body on Monday.Įvans, who had recently moved to California from Las Vegas, wrote about his planned motorcycle trip last month on his Spike TV blog. Moreno said Tanner left his Oceanside home last Wednesday and was officially reported missing Friday. ![]() You don't start thinking correctly and you start making mistakes." But if he was already feeling the effects of the heat, almost anything can happen. It didn't look like anything was wrong with it," Moreno said "We found his campsite and his bike (motorcycle) was parked at the campsite. Temperatures had reached 40-plus degrees over the weekend.įriends said they had received text messages from Tannner saying he was running out of water and was trying to walk back to his campsite. A preliminary coroner's report suggested the death was heat-related, Moreno said. Tanner's body was found Monday about five kilometres from his campsite in a remote area of the Palo Verdes Mountains, Imperial County Sheriff's Lieut. The former mixed martial arts champion was 37. Evan Tanner, fighter and free spirit, has been found dead on a California camping trip.
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