A Tribute to Evan Tanner

Check out this great article about Evan Tanner in February 2009 issue of Men’s Journel Magazine. It’s always good when mainstream magazine protrays Mixed Martial Art athlete in a positive light.

I will be posting some photos and articles about him in the next couple of days.

Tanner had one particular idea that he wanted to convey to the world, which he called “the power of one.” It’s the notion of small kindnesses, or as he later explained: “Your words and actions resonate out eternally, in a sense. It reaches one person, then two people, then four, and it expands out exponentially.”

Tanner felt he’d had a voice as a champion fighter and lost it when he started drinking full-time. So he started training again. He joined gyms in Oceanside and Las Vegas and set up a network of friends and fans he called Team Tanner. They were his sponsors, because he refused to wear the logo of any product he didn’t believe in or use himself. Instead of slogans for energy drinks and online casinos, his T-shirts bore the phrase “Believe in the Power of One.”
That astonished the mixed-martial-arts establishment. “I’d say, ‘Evan, these people want to give you free money.’ But nope,” says John Wood, a fighter and owner of Warrior Training Center, where Tanner worked himself back into shape. “He could have made a lot of money.”