Tanner, the way of the fighter

“Before the UFC, you’d hear of other people being fighters - like ‘Underground Street Fighting’ - and getting paid for it, and you’d be like ‘whoa’, with a sense of awe.” Evan Tanner.

After taking two years off, a biggest challenge for Tanner was simply stepping in again, despite the opponent. Outside of the ring, this writer rides motorcycle, goes out surfing and loves to travel. Which is what he liked to do: make some money to go on ‘vacations’ traveling, drinking and chasing women.

Former UFC middleweight champion in the mid 90’s, Tanner had clear in his mind that he needed some time off from the fighting: “I’ve been fighting for 8 or 9 years straight, combined with some personal problems and distractions that make you want to put fighting aside.”

Evan Tanner looked at this as yet another chance to straighten out his life: he got out of drinking, back in shape. Tanner was very confident he could catch up after two years. Right now he is thinking about making some money for his retirement and admits he was really rusty after all this time out. He pictures himself as an older and wiser human being.

Tanner chuckled and said: “I always thought of myself as the poet, the writer, or the philosopher – I never thought of myself as a fighter, but here I am. I always had an idea of the flow of my life, but not exactly what I would be doing day to day and fighting definitely wasn’t something I thought I’d be doing.”

The 37 year-old former champion fights as the main event this Saturday against Kendall Grove, who needs to win and in order to accomplish this, Kendall moved out of Las Vegas to Hawaii after suffering being embarrassed in front of everybody. Kendall admits he needed that in his career as a wake up call. Grove’s plan is to set the pace and use his range, while sticking to his jab, using his angles and energy to remain up; if he goes down, he will try to get up and continue with his plan.

Experienced Tanner does not look down on ‘DaSpyder’: “Kendall Grove is going to be dangerous, for him is a do or die situation.”

Tanner also acknowledges facing the same situation: “most likely the loser is going to be out of UFC; both are going to be bringing it. He has his reach advantage and young guys are always hungry.”

Preparing for the fight, Tanner knows ‘DaSpyder’ will use the reach advantage and that height is going to be awkward to deal with. The philosopher looks at Kendal as a younger guy who represents the new fighting evolution. He commented from studying the weaknesses in the videos that: “looking at the videos, KG, from what I can tell, he doesn't like pressure. He likes to be out there dancing, more laid back. That is something he always looks forward to do.”

In regards to this new generation of fighters the biggest difference Tanner finds with someone he would have fought 10 or 11 years ago is their toughness: “today's fighters are much more well rounded, had the opportunity to work a lot more, but there is this core toughness that a lot of them seem to lack. Lot of those older guys, were just hard core mean dudes that will just get in there and go. Deep core meanness they lack.”

Being the main event, he doesn’t think about things like that, he thinks about winning this fight and not living out of past glory. For the fight, he pictures himself as winning, using heavy massive ground and making something happen.

Tanner has been in the gym for nine months, getting back in shape, feeling good and finally figuring all of it: “If I win this fight, I’m gonna take a little time off and then I’m gonna get back in and try to fine tune my game some more. The longer I stay in the sport, the more I learn and the more I realize that I don’t know anything. I’m just getting started trying to figure all of this out. I’ve been in this sport 11 years and I’m just amazed at what I don’t know. I learn something new in practice every day, and I’m like ‘that’s a basic concept, how did I ever get along without knowing that? But things unfold as they’re meant to be, so all I have to do is go along for the ride and be prepared as I can for whatever comes up.”