Tito Ortiz and Kris McCray Recap TUF 11 Episodes 1 & 2
By Dave Carpinello
The Ultimate Fighter Season 11‘s Kris McCray (Team Ortiz) will be doing a Weekly Q&A for the Readers of PDG. Kris will give his answers to your questions weekly beginning on April 12th. Kris is the son of a military father and he was raised in Germany, where he excelled on the soccer field and garnered All-Europe honors in high school. In 1999, McCray moved permanently to the United States, where he has served parts of 8 years (6 active, 2 inactive) as a member of the US Army Reserve, while also finding time to earn his Associates Degree in Social Studies from Northern Virginia Community College.
As a special this week, Kris is joined by his coach Tito Ortiz who gives his thoughts on the first two episodes of this season.
Tito Ortiz
The first two shows have been awesome, although it is funny how they cut and edit the footage. So far everything has been positive for the most part, the only thing Chuck Liddell has to talk shit about is me and that is just fine. It’s all about the guys on the show and my goal was to make those fighters the best as I possibly could. These guys are getting the best coaching in the world and I am giving them my heart and soul.
You saw on the last episode when Clayton McKinney lost that we came together and went over the mistakes that he made in his fight so that we could turn that loss into a learning experience and hopefully he will never get caught in a triangle choke again. I remember when Guy Metzger caught me in a guillotine choke and I was so furious and disappointed about losing that I learned how to escape the guillotine choke and I have not been caught again since then. You have to always try to make yourself better and as a coach on the Ultimate Fighter that is what I am trying to do with these guys. At the end of the day, it is not about me or Liddell, it is about helping these guys become future world champions. Three or four years down the road these guys will be the future of mixed martial arts. These are some of the best 185lb prospects I have been around and hopefully you guys will get to see them win out the rest of the season but I guess you’ll just have to watch the episodes to find out what happens.
After the selection process on the last episode I was very happy with my picks because of the exciting fights they put on during the elimination fights. My team has done the best they could so far through the first two episodes and as a coach that is all I can ask for. Without giving anything away, I think that this is going to be the most exciting season of the Ultimate Fighter to date.
Kris McCray
1. Was there anything (other than winning) that stood out from your fight to get onto the Ultimate Fighter?
Kris McCray – It was a fast fight and so it is hard to really tell what exactly went down, two punches, 2 kicks and that throw that hurt his shoulder. I knew when I got into the house that I still needed to work on everything.
2. What did you think of the new TUF house when you got there for the first time?
Kris McCray – I thought it was a lot cooler than my apartment and the refrigerator was very full and that made me happy. The house had a pool table, a shuffleboard table and a ton of cool pictures on the wall. It was a lot to take in at first and so after I got my room, I just kinda walked around for a bit.
3. When you got picked by Tito Ortiz, what did you think of your coaches and your team?
Kris McCray – I thought it was cool that Tito picked me, I had seen him coach before and I knew he was a good coach and his style was similar to mine. I knew that it would only be an improvement on what I was already doing in my training. I thought we had an outstanding team after the picks were made, everyone of us had finished our elimination fights quickly and I actually think that is why Chuck Liddell didn’t pick any of us… because he didn’t get to see everything we were capable of because of the short fights. I definitely think that we had the better team to start the season.
4. The styles of training shown on episode 2 were obviously different; what did you think of how Tito ran his practices?
Kris McCray – It was good, Tito was really intense and pushed us the whole time. Nothing beats a coach that pushes you hard and gets in your face to let you know what you are doing wrong and help you fix it. A really good example of that is when he pulled McKinney to the side after his loss and worked with him. I thought that was really cool.
5. You guys got to smash the Chuck Liddell piñata, how much fun was that?
Kris McCray – It was cool but I was hoping there would be a $5, $10 or $20 bill in there but it was all ones. It was a good way to break the ice though after having some tough practices. Everybody on our team was able to chill a little bit so it was all good.
6. What was your immediate reaction after your team lost the first fight?
Kris McCray – I have known Kyle Noke for awhile and I even did some training with him down in Albuquerque, New Mexico so I knew he was tough. I knew that McKinney had a tough fight going in and it was a good match-up strategy on Liddell’s behalf. I wasn’t really upset at the outcome because McKinney definitely left everything he had out in the cage. He tried hard but the result didn’t favor our team and I wasn’t happy but at that time I was thinking that we would get that win back in the next fight.
7. Did you guys have much interaction with Dana White when the filming first started?
Kris McCray – He just kinda of came in from time to time like a ghost and then he was gone. Nobody made any sudden movements when he was there at the beginning.
8. Was there anything that happened on the show in the first 2 episodes that didn’t make it to TV?
Kris McCray – Not really, there was some talking back and forth during practices that they didn’t use where people were talking about what would happen if someone in the house pulled any pranks. That is why we did the air horns in the middle of the night; we were trying to call people’s bluffs.
9. What is the Minority Report?
Kris McCray – It got started down in Albuquerque with myself and a couple of other guys. We always did our own thing at practices so we started calling ourselves the Minority Report and it just kinda carried over to the TUF house in Las Vegas. It was Tavares, Noke, Yager and me and we just kept with it because we were different than the other guys in the house. We were the MR.
Thanks for the questions, I wanted to add that it is weird listening to myself on the show and I really needed a haircut, after a week I was screaming for a barber. I also want to thank my sponsors Ranger Up, Assassin Industries, Fighterlink, Carnal Dammage and Ultimate VIP International. Send in your questions and enjoy this week’s episode.
You can submit your questions for Kris by sending them to admin@punchdrunkgamer.com and he will answer them each week following the next show on Spike TV! You can also find more information on Kris McCray at http://krismccray.com/.
This weeks TUF 11 Q&A and recap were sponsored by www.PunishmentAthletics.com
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