I got the chance today to speak with Tim Credeur, the most recent fighter to be ousted from The Ultimate Fighter 7. In last night’s episode, we all saw Credeur drop a unanimous decision loss to finalist Jesse Taylor.
Tim had a bunch of thoughts regarding the fight itself, the show in general, his upcoming fight at the TUF finale show on June 21, and the upcoming fight between coaches Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and Forrest Griffin.
Paul Balsom: After waiting a long time, you finally got to see last night’s episode. What are some of your thoughts?
Tim Credeur: I thought the fight was… a lot better than I thought it was. I think from my vantage point in the fight, on the bottom eating elbows for fifteen minutes, that fight was pretty difficult and I thought it was a lot more one-sided. When I was watching the fight, I feel like I did a lot better than I thought I did. I threw pretty much every submission I knew, but it was tough. Training with a guy like Jesse, who’s big and strong, for six weeks, he knew a lot of my game by then. It was just tough to catch him in anything. I think the fight, all in all, was pretty exciting, and the show was pretty exciting. I think America got to get a firm understanding of Jesse Taylor and his intensity. But yeah, I enjoyed the whole time I was on the show; it was unbelievable. So, all in all, I think the season went much better than I thought it would.
PB:There was one scene in the show last night where you were telling Jesse how to defend the triangle, and you got a little bit of flack for that. After fighting him, would you take that back, or do you stand by what you did?
TC: Jesse is my friend, and I’m probably a better instructor than I am a fighter. If I see a friend of mine doing something wrong, I’m going to let him know. I’m going to give him my best advice on how to help him. It may be that that did backfire on me during the fight, but I don’t care. If I’m going to beat a guy, I want to beat a guy doing his best. I don’t want to beat a guy that keeps doing the same stupid stuff in practice everything then catch him with it. It sounds stupid because it is a six-figure contract with the UFC on the line, but my integrity can’t be bought. I’m going to be the guy I am regardless of any of that other stuff. I was friends with Jesse before, and I’m going be friends with Jesse for the rest of my life. So no, I don’t take it back. I didn’t really think about what I was saying, or what I was telling him at the time, but that’s just the kind of guy and the kind of coach that I am. I definitely don’t regret it, and I don’t take it back. During the fight, he did get out of a lot and he did manage to get out of a couple triangles, so maybe it backfired on me, but I don’t really care.
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