Evan Tanner, great man, great fighter, and a legend. Today is the third anniversary of Tanner's untimely death. I could not find the video for Tanner-Terrell so i decided to showcase Tanner-Franklin.

Interesting note, at the end of the second round the announce team mentions that if Tanner won, Matt Hughes would have moved up to 185 and fought for the MW title.

First lets get some backround on Tanners victory over Dave Terrell:

Evan Tanner’s fight against David Terrell at UFC 51 (2/5/05) was actually his second shot at a UFC championship belt — four years earlier he faced Tito Ortiz for the light heavyweight title, but was knocked out via slam after just 32 seconds. After working up a 6-1 record in his next UFC fights and dropping down to middleweight, he was given the chance to fight David Terrell for the vacant middleweight championship. Despite Terrell hanging off his neck for a full 30 seconds during the match, Tanner was able to slip the guillotine attempt and move on top of Terrell, where he ground-and-pounded his way to victory.

And without further ado:

Evan Tanner (31-4)

NW: Dave Terrell, Robbie Lawler, Phil Baroni X2, Chris Haseman, Elvis Sinosic, Travis Fulton, Justin McCully, Ikuhisa Minowa, Heath Herring, Paul Buentello

NL: Heath Herring, Rich Franklin, Tito Ortiz

Rich Franklin (19-1)

NW: Evan Tanner, Jorge Rivera, Marvin Eastman, Ken Shamrock, Travis Fulton

NL: Lyoto Machida

ND:

via i238.photobucket.com

Below is the link to the fight, this style of video is not embeddable.

http://mma-geeks.com/2011/08/29/evan-tanner-vs-rich-franklin-fight-video-ufc-53/

Rest in Peace Big Guy.

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