Tanner, According to Those Who Knew Him Best

His Final Fights

Tanner left Las Vegas for Oceanside, Calif., where he had planned to train at The Compound MMA & Fitness after his traveling concluded.

Claudia Ortega, co-owner of the gym, had reached out to Tanner through the Internet: That was one of those things that moved me about him, was that we knew he was struggling with alcohol and I have a son who’s an addict and an alcoholic. I wanted to reach out to him and offer any assistance we could offer. When somebody is in the midst of that, it really has to be them that pulls themselves up, but sometimes they just need a hand, you know? A warm place to fall sometimes or a place where they’re just not judged. I learned with my own experience that sometimes that makes all the difference.

John Hayner, Tanner’s agent: Moving to Oceanside for a person like Evan was perfect. His apartment is right across from the beach. It’s beautiful. He was surfing and having a good time. He was in a really good state of mind. Las Vegas was too shallow for him. His soul was drying out there and he was suffocating. I told him six months ago, “You gotta get out of here. It’s a good town for MMA, but it’s not a good town for you.” And that’s when he started looking around.

He decided to get sober to change his life. Changing that whole lifestyle was hard for him, and it was hard on his health. In his last fight against Kendall (Grove), he did not feel normal. He felt like he just didn’t have the energy, and supposedly there was a side effect to coming off alcohol like that … which leaves you fatigued. He was really trying to get through that.

Part of the deal about going and doing these cleansing rituals was to get rid of these side effects. About two months before the Okami fight, he said, “Look, I have to get off this,” and he went cold turkey. He trained and trained. After he lost, he was just sitting there and said the hardest thing in his entire life that he ever had to do was that night after the fight, was not go back to the bottle. And he didn’t.

His Death

Deana Epperson: I said, “There’s no way Tanner’s gonna die in the desert. Are you kidding me?” He had to go out like James Dean. He just had to do it. I don’t even think he knew he was gonna, but if he would have lived till 80 and died of old age, that would have shocked me. I figured he was gonna drown surfing or have been eaten by a shark. That’s how Tanner would have gone out, but I’m completely flabbergasted that as bright as he is, that he would go out to the desert without enough gas.

Paul Buentello: I always thought Evan would disappear into the mountains and never come back. He always liked nature and being alone.

Matt Lindland: He was a warrior. He was a tough guy who did everything on his own. I think that was the death of him. I’m not really sure if he thought he was invincible, or if he was just kind of waiting for this to happen.

Jason Leigh: We had a lot of talks about everything from religion to suicide. Even when he was in his darkest hole, he would never take his own life. He had me worried a few times, but he’d be the guy that would get to the bottom of the pit and crawl back up to the top of the mountain. He was too much of a competitor in life to give up that easy.

John Hayner: Evan did not kill himself. Evan did not go out in the hopes of doing a one-way ticket. He brought two guns out with him for target practice. They were not found with his body. His body was found over two miles away from the campsite without the guns. In no way, shape or form did he kill himself. He got in over his head, and exposure to the elements killed him.

I was at Evan’s house yesterday. Up until yesterday, I thought he was just off the radar, which he does. He’ll go off the radar. At his house, the UPS guy showed up with a helmet Evan had just bought. He was still ordering things on the Internet before he went on his camping trip. He was planning on coming back.


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Loretta Hunt was the primary reporter on this story. Brian Knapp, Mike Sloan & Joe Hall contributed. Send feedback to [email protected]