Once I Was a Champion Page #5

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He... he was kind of bouncing

around to some boxing gyms.

Curtis Crawford

was his boxing coach.

This is Tanner...

Evan Tanner's bag.

It's called his bag because

it's beat up to death, you know.

I was teaching him more of like,

you know,

a kind of an in-and-out style,

you know what I mean,

like, in and out, in and out,

you know, get in and get out,

get his punches in

and get out

and stuff like that.

You know, so we had

to work a little different.

And so Evan had two left feet.

You know, I was trying

to get his feet together.

He stumbled for a while.

You know what I mean?

So I'm trying to get him back and

forth, man, do stuff like this.

This is his rope here.

This is the same rope he used.

This is what Evan did every day.

Every day.

You know why?

I was trying to get him to work

beyond his two left feet.

Evan Tanner. On my way

for victory right here.

Tanner, how do you feel, baby?

Beginning of the battle.

The toughest thing

about Evan was his top game.

You know,

once he got on top of you,

you felt like he was 500 pounds,

throwing elbows down at you,

and you can't get him off.

Those are one of the things that

I tried to have him implement

in his fight,

in his title fight.

He goes, "Dave Terrell

was pretty dangerous. "

And I said, "you got

to watch out for that guy.

"He comes out explosive.

"And so what you want to do

is be careful

'cause he comes out...

he's gonna come out wild. "

That's what I told Evan

the first time.

I said, "this guy's gonna come

out wild when you fight him. "

The soul assassin,

David Terrell!

I'm trying to remember

what he said.

He's like, "I knew if I moved

around the ring

"and did nothing,

the crowd would start booing,

and it would cause him

to make a mistake. "

- Fighting out of Gresham, Oregon...

- Here we go.

Evan Tanner!

He beat...

he put it on David Terrell

two minutes into the fight,

just jumped on him.

You know, remember that?

Just, Bam, was on him

and just never came off and never

gave the kid a second to breathe.

And Evan... Evan is the wrong

person to have on top of you

when he starts throwing bombs, and he

just started elbowing and punching.

I just kept in his face,

"keep hitting him.

"Keep hitting him.

He doesn't like that.

He doesn't like that.

He's hurt, he's hurt. "

And I'm just screaming,

and ref jumped in

and stopped it, man, and I was

over the cage and picking him up.

We just kind of like, "hum. "

You know what I mean?

Like, relaxed.

Whew.

Big pressure off his shoulder.

It was nice, you

know, to have that.

The new UFC...

And finally Evan Tanner

gets his due.

And he is the middleweight

champion of the world.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Evan Tanner.

Yeah, it may sound crazy,

but this is the part

that makes me even more nervous

than even stepping out in the ring,

having to get up here and talk.

Got out there tonight,

things went my way.

That's great.

Won the fight.

I don't even know what to say

I'm so happy about that.

Definitely want to thank

all the fans.

You know, it's the fans that make

this... make this happen, you know,

so thanks, everybody.

The celebration

was like a big bang.

It was a nice, big party.

Dana white just guested for the

big party on down the stairs.

And he gave big hugs,

"hey, man, thanks, you know,

for all the help, you know," and we

just, you know, hung out like that.

He didn't really celebrate much.

When you go in and see a

fighter after a fight, okay,

whether they win,

they're either the type

that are just going crazy backstage,

you know, they're so pumped up,

or they lose, and they're

the exact opposite.

They're so angry or depressed,

and you never got either one of

those emotions out of... out of him.

Evan was, in our relationship,

he was very quiet.

He wasn't very emotional, I would say,

as far as telling me his feelings.

We never told each other

we loved each other.

For... for years, several...

I mean, 71/2 years.

And most people would look at

that and say, you know, "why?"

And he didn't have

to tell me, I guess.

I just knew.

That's just how he was.

He just didn't share his feelings

or emotions with words so much.

Even after, like, he won

the UFC world title,

you know, I was around him, and, you

know, he would say things like,

"what does that mean?

"That doesn't mean anything.

"What does it... who cares?

"You know, we're just

a tiny, little grain of sand

on a beach in this whole time. "

You know, that's how...

that's how he thought.

He was very intelligent, and

I think it was a strength,

but I think that also

was a weakness of his.

'Cause he... he liked

to overanalyze everything.

Like, "what does it all mean?"

You win the world title.

What are you doing?

You're going,

"yeah, I'm the champ. "

I mean, there is no low.

But even pretty much right after he

won it, he was just like, "so what?

What... so what?

What does it mean?"

Well, right there, you know

something's not right.

Evan got into drinking a lot,

and I think Evan always had.

You know, I think

when he left Amarillo

and came here in the first place,

he was trying to escape that

and kind of turn over

a new leaf.

He just never really cared

too much for Amarillo,

and I think a lot of it had to do

with... with him more than Amarillo

because, you know, he found the

same problems anywhere he went.

He just... I'd tell him, "you

just can't blame Amarillo.

"You know, you found

the same problems in Vegas

and California

and Oregon. "

Super hard to be an alcoholic

and be the champion of MMA.

I mean, it's just a testament

to how talented he was

and how much further he could

have gotten if he wasn't.

We were at a bar

called Gaspanic,

and, I don't know,

I guess I was probably

20, 30 feet

from him maybe, you know.

I'm sitting there watching him,

and he orders...

he lines up

these really big shooters

of patron Tequila and

about six of them.

And I thought, "oh, wow, cool,

he's buying us patron shooters. "

He wasn't buying 'em

for anybody but himself.

And I sat there

and literally watched him

drop all six patron shooters,

just boom, boom, boom.

He did... actually he did

all six of those,

and then I saw him... I think he did

another six maybe an hour later.

I never seen anything like it.

The amount of alcohol he put

down that night was scary.

This is before the fight, and, you

know, he went in there and won.

It wasn't like he seemed

affected by it.

He opened up a great deal,

you know.

Evan might have said... you know,

ten words up to that point,

you know what I mean, to me, maybe

a little bit more, you know.

But that night,

you know, he opened up,

he was grabbing guys

in headlocks, you know,

goofing,

he was a lot more relaxed.

You know what I mean?

For the most part,

when he was drinking,

he was actually kind

of the funnest to hang out with.

I don't know

if that's good to say,

but I don't want people to bullshit

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