I’m not sure about the rest of you, but I’m personally a fan of Evan Tanner. Yeah you remember him, used to be the Middleweight UFC champ. Well, Evan’s been out of the fight game since last April when he defeated Justin Levens at UFC 59. Since then, he hasn’t fought once and has pretty much been under the radar. From time to time, I’ve made a few posts about Evan’s current status and a possible return that he was rumored to make.

For those that haven’t been following Evan’s life away from the UFC, I’ll try to get you up-to-speed quickly. Evan took some trips across the US and has been hard at work setting up what he refers to as a “foundation.” I’ll let Evan describe it in his own words (I’ve shortened it somewhat):

THE ORIGINAL VISION

This is the original vision.

I have a house in Oregon. It sits on a hill in Troutdale just outside the mouth of the Columbia River Gorge. There are high bluffs to the east, and the Columbia River Valley opens up to the west. A small historic highway runs through the quaint downtown area at the bottom of the hill, and continues on across the old steel bridge just to the east….

The house has been sitting empty for almost a year. There is a story behind that, but I’ll tell it later. The reason I described the location in such detail is because I think it would be a great place to set up a home for disadvantaged athletes, and youth at risk. I envision using the Mixed Martial Arts to help provide them opportunity and direction.

I want to set up a team with the focus being these disadvantaged athletes, and young men at risk. I want to use the house to provide a home. I’m looking at clearing out some walls and building small cubicles, just enough room for a cot, a nightstand, and a place to put a gear bag and some clothes. I think I might be able to fit about twenty guys in the house. We would live together eat together, and train together. It would be a team, but in a sense it would be a band of brothers, a family….

The fighters will receive free room and board, free gym access, and free coaching and management. But here will be a very strict set of rules all will be required to follow, including myself.

• No alcohol in the house, and no drugs period.
• No skipping work outs. We will train a minimum of two times a day five days a week.
• No fighting anywhere except in the ring.
• We all eat the same training diet.
• No cars allowed. We all walk as one. We use public transportation. That will help keep us humble.
• We will do a full day of community service once a week.
• Twenty percent of all the fighter’s purses will be donated back to the house. If they are attending any
• of the local colleges or universities, they are exempt from this rule.
• We will live by the three strike rule.

I have this vision of the garage door opening, and twenty guys in gray sweats running out. They set off down the hill in single file to the little downtown area at the bottom. There they turn east and run towards the Sandy River. They cross on the old steel bridge and continue north to the Lewis and Clark State Park. There the real work out begins. They climb the trail to the top of the bluff at the back of the park. There they take a break as they sit high above watching the sun rising over the valley, and the town coming to life. Then it’s back to the house for breakfast, and a rest. That’s the morning run.

Well, Evan’s foundation is almost ready to start and he recently opened up a website at www.evantanner.net Evan really is doing a good thing here and its great to see an athlete with a passion to help out others.

But, back to the point of this post “Evan Tanner Back to Normal”.

Evan went from this:

To this:

To this:

And finally to this:

It’s good to see Evan back to training and hopefully his “fight club” style MMA house works out well. Evan still has one fight left on his UFC contract and it looks like we may see him fight some time before the end of 2007. It would be nice to see Tanner be able to reap some of the rewards of the current UFC popularity since he is one of the main UFC veterans still left (Evan made his UFC debut at UFC 18 in 1999). If you have a few minutes, take some time and check out Evan’s new site and maybe drop a few dollars his way to help out with his foundation.