Evan Tanner is a veteran of Mixed Martial Arts.  Now 37 years old, Tanner has been fighting for over a decade.  Coming off a loss, Tanner will fight in this Saturday's The Ultimate Fighter Finale at the Palms casino in Las Vegas.  Tanner will face-off against Kendall Grove, a highly-touted former winner of The Ultimate Fighter, who is also coming off a couple losses.  The bout is one of the main events for the evening, and one of the only ones not involving fighters from this season of The Ultimate Fighter.  Recently, we sat down and talked to Tanner, who discussed his time in the UFC, how he's preparing for his fight with Grove, and his thoughts on Kimbo Slice. 

Below you will find both the full transcript of the interview as well as the mp3 audio. 

This is Royce Yuen from BuddyTV and I'm here with Evan Tanner from the UFC.  How's it going Evan?

I'm doing great, how are you doing?


Not too bad, not too bad.  So Evan, how do you feel right now?  Are you ready for the fight against Kendall Grove, and how's training coming along?

Training's going great.  I'm feeling really good physically, I'm feeling in great shape.  I gained a little more physical size since the last fight.  I went into that one a little small, so I'm going in a little heavier.  Yeah, I'm feeling really good, I'm ready to go.  I've got some great training in, got to work with Brazilian top team down at Warrior Training Center down here in Vegas.  I got to work with those guys, got to work with Forest Griffin a little bit.  I had a great training camp.


What's your game plan going into the fight?  What do you think Grove might give you a little trouble with?

Kendall likes to stand up, he's got that reach advantage for sure, I've got to watch out for that.  He's got some long knees and punches, and he's supposed to be a pretty good celebrity, so I just got to watch out for those things.  Try not to stay up on the outside range where he can pick away at me with the punches and stuff.  Basically what I'm going to do is try to utilize my strength, my gift, which is closing the gap and getting a hold of somebody, getting them down.


Sure.  I'm just curious, do you have a different mind set going into a fight depending on whether your last fight was a win or a loss?  Do you prepare differently depending on what happened on your last fight?

No, I always prepare the same, when I can.  Some fights I've gone into with like ten days of training or start training until ten days out.  No, when I'm doing things right, when I don't have my head up my ass – those are the old days.  I'm training full time now, every fight I'm putting everything into it and every training session is hardcore endurance.


What are your thoughts on the EliteXC fights that were on CBS recently?  Is it frustrating for you to see a lower quality organization get so much hype, and what are your thoughts on Kimbo Slice?

That doesn't bother me.  All that stuff is short term.  In the long run, my whole approach to the sport has been long term.  When I first started there were guys that were louder than I were, they were talking more, they were getting more attention because they were just more colorful and louder and all that.  They were getting more attention, but my thought was I'm not going to be that way.  It's going to be a matter of long term.  I'm going to be a steady presence, I'm going to be there all the time.  These guys will be gone and I'll still be going.  That's when I'll earn the recognition and earn the respect. 

The same thing goes with this.  This company you're looking at, EliteXC, I think it's a great thing for the sport that they're on a national network.  It's great for the sport.  Who cares if they're getting a little more attention right now.  In the long run, I've been with the UFC for many years, and I always stuck with UFC because I knew that they were going to be the ones that turn the sport into what it is.  They've done some amazing things with it.  I think in the long run they're going to remain at the top.  These other companies coming up, that's great, it's great for the sport, and hopefully someone will come and get enough of a handle on it and they'll be real competition for the UFC.  Competition is always good, it makes it better for everybody.


Cool.  Is there anything outside of the upcoming fight that you'd like to talk about?  What are some of your goals for this year, what are some of the things that are coming up for you that you're really looking forward to and that you want your fans to know about?

The thing with fighting is you can't make long term plans.  Every step of your career hinges on the very next fight you have in line.  If I win this fight, of course there's going to be a big range of opportunities that open up.  If I lose the fight, that's going to steer me into a completely different direction.  My goal of course is to stay steady and consistent with my training, which I have been since last October, I've been training straight through.  In the past what I would have considered, like my competition stays training two a days and absolutely hardcore training getting ready for a fight, that's been my every day training now for the last nine months.  I want to maintain that, I want to win this fight, and see where I can go from there.


Yeah.  Cool.

Winning fights is the goal.  Eventually I want to earn my way back up to a title shot, but I've got a lot of catching up to do and a lot of work to do.


Sounds good.  Well hey Evan, again, appreciate your time.  From all of us at BuddyTV, we want to wish you the best of luck and we're definitely looking forward to the upcoming fight.

Hey, thanks a lot for talking with me, I appreciate it.

-Interview Conducted by Royce Yuen
(Image Courtesy of UFC)