Evan Tanner: UFC Hall of Fame Material?

I say “Yes”

Yes he deserves it. Shamrock, Royce, Frye were all fighting amateurs in the begining of the ufc. Even was one of the first new generation pro mma fighters and he deserves to be in the hall of fame.
Get well soon Tanner!

Of course he deserves it.

The hall of fame is already tainted.
Dan Severn threw a fight with Travis Fulton
Royce gracie is a steroid user

Ken Shamrock was awesome
Randy Couture was and is awesome

Don Frye is not in the Hall of fame, but he should be

I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve it but shouldn’t the UFC first consider fighters like Don Frye; especially Mark Coleman, and even though he’s at war from a political stand point Frank Shamrocks fight carrer there makes him deserveing. If they go in first then sure Evan Tanner should get a spot.

I say “no”. 

Evan Tanner is a great fighter; there is no disputing that.  He always had great fights and he was always entertaining. 

But, I wouldn’t put him in the same boat as the guys who are already inducted. 

Shamrock, Gracie, and Severn are all pioneers of the sport.  Were they great fighters?  Sure, in their time they were.  But their biggest contributions were as pioneers and their name recognition.  Tanner doesn’t have that.

Hey, I’m a huge Tanner fan, as you might know based on my previous posts on this website.  But, he is nowhere near Hall of Fame material to me.

You have to keep the Hall of Fame lean, and not bloated with many fighters, otherwise it loses it’s credibility.  I think they should induct roughly 1 fighter a year into the Hall.  At that pace, I can never see a middle-weight champ with no successful title defenses getting into the hall.

As mentioned above, Don Frye isn’t in the Hall of Fame.  (The author meant Dan Severn, I’m assuming).

A list of current fighters that have already done enough to get into the Hall when they are done in the UFC…  Tito Ortiz, Matt Hughes, Chuck Liddell, and maybe thats it.

There are many fighters that are definitely good enough to be in the Hall (example: GSP, Penn, etc), but, they haven’t accomplished enough in the UFC yet for the honor.

“......Royce gracie is a steroid user

Ken Shamrock was awesome
.....”
Posted by giallo from DC/VA/MD on Oct 03, 2007 at 07:52 PM

wow… i stand in awe of your complete and udder ignorance,..... sorry, BUT I’M IN AWE!!!!!

It would be too easy to just say yes or no to Evan Tanner.  Here’s something to consider: when you think of Evan Tanner what is the first thing that comes to mind?  For everyone post-TUF it has to be the 30-second loss to Tito Ortiz.  Not to say that Tanner is not a talented fighter, but do his fights ever end up on Unleashed?  I have seen his last title win on Unleashed once.  If Tanner comes back and wins another belt then YES he is worthy of UFC HOF.  That would make him a 3-time champ.  Only Randy Couture has done that.  A 19-5 record with two title wins is very respectable. If Evan could come back and beat the winner of Franklin-Silva for the belt then I would say YES to being HOF material.

I would say that the Ortiz slam isn’t the biggest memory of those that started following the UFC after the debut of TUF. Sure it’s available on every youtube-type site out there but I don’t think Tanner has fought enough in the last two years for any of those type of fans to think about searching for it.

As far as Tanner being featured on UFC Unleashed, his fights against David Terrell, Robbie Lawler, David Loiseau, and Justin Levens have all been shown in the past year.

[in relation to Bill W’s comment]

Wait a sec…  He isn’t a 2 time champ, is he?  He is a one-time champ with zero title defenses, if I’m not mistaken.

I was mistaken about Tanner’s belts.  He held the middleweight title once and lost it to Franklin.  I thought his fight against Ortiz was when he lost his other belt.  Given that I should check my facts before making any sort of comments, I agree he is NOT HOF material.