Evan Tanner: Do Something Unexpectedly Nice for Someone in Need

I wanted to point out some really good Evan Tanner posts I read today.

John Chandler has a very sweet piece on his experiences with Tanner and why he admired him.

Fightlinker has gone all out for their favorite fighter with reposts of all their Evan Tanner posts. This one from a Japanese fan has some great Japanese poetry that I think Evan would have identified with.

He also points us to this from Evan's good friend John Hayner on the Evan Tanner blog:

Evan would be very happy if people remembered him by doing something unexpectedly nice for someone who is in need.

But this one is especially good, it's a different angle but says some hard truths that I think need to be said:

Evan Tanner was a drunk and an alcoholic. Many of the pseudo-obituaries on other pages have decided to ignore this fact, but I’m including it because I think it’s probably one of the most defining characteristics of his personality. For the two years he spent away from the UFC he drank himself nearly to death. Then he came to the point where a decision had to be made, and he chose life. He chose a day to stop drinking, and he did it: he stopped drinking. He worked towards returning to the UFC and he did it. He returned to the UFC. Even through his losses I found inspiration, because Evan had gone as far down the path of self-destruction as one can, and had made it back to tell the tale. Those who ignore that facet of Evan’s existence for reasons of political correctness are in the wrong. We don’t care about Evan Tanner in spite of his shortcomings. We cared about him because of his shortcomings.

I would never try to pretend that I have gone through even a fraction of the alcoholism that Evan has put himself through, but I have dealt with issues of my own surrounding drinking. When you feel like you can’t function around other people without a few drinks in you, you begin to realize that alcohol is a crutch. But you just don’t care so long as it lubricates social situations to the point where dealing with people doesn’t feel painful and awkward despite your best efforts. That’s always been my issue, and I saw a slight reflection of myself in Evan Tanner as he paced around in the back areas of Freedom Fight.

I have no easy way to end this post. Evan Tanner died a meaningless death in the desert. He went out there for no better reason than any of his other fucking adventures. Waxing poetic, you could surmise that he went out there to find something that would help fill the void left by his drinking. Or fill the void that he drank to forget about. Whatever reason was behind his trip, the thing he found was death. And now we’re left with nothing more with our memories of him and more importantly what he meant to us. For some of you, that’s ‘nothing’. For me, it’s a bit more than I’m comfortable admitting.