While the older tribe on Survivor: Nicaragua was losing a lot of challenges, Tyrone Davis seemed to be in a pretty good spot.  Having conceded leadership of the tribe to the ever-ambitious Marty, Tyrone was working hard in camp, performing well in challenges, and generally keeping his head down.  And then everything changed.  With an abrupt tribe shake-up, Tyrone found himself surrounded by undisciplined 'kids', all of whom perceived him as a physical and authoritative threat.  Here Tyrone talks about his time in the game and the apparent blindside that sent him packing.



Jeff Probst described your departure as the first blindside of the game.  Did you get blindsided by the vote?

Nah, that's TV.  It wasn't a blindside, I anticipated it.  In fact, I spoke to Eve about it when we made the switch, I said 'Eve, it's about numbers.  There's four of them and there's four of us remaining Espada members, and Holly and Dan are definitely going to go over to the other side.'  The kids were playing very aggressive and I was the biggest threat on my tribe.  But I didn't know they were that threatened, that they would do it so early.  In my opinion it wasn't the smartest move, but I anticipated it.

There was some tension when you were laying out the rules for your new tribe.  Did you sense the tension when you were out there?

They made it look like I was making a speech, I wasn't making a speech.  I talked to them and told them how we did things and asked how they did things, and we talked about how we could best do things collectively.  Of course, because they were kids they didn't think that far in advance, so they didn't have a way of doing things.  You know, it's a generational thing, in that they think about the here and now, they don't plan.  We had a technique, and a system down where we had a fire for several weeks straight, in spite of all the torrential downpour, and they only had a fire burning for four days.  They were amazed that we were able to do that.

Even after the tribe shakeup, Espada is still not voting out its weakest member, with you going home instead of Danny, for example.  Is that why they still can't seem to win anything?

I had some crazies on my tribe, man!  You can call it biased if you want, but I might have been the only sane one.  But what we were thinking was to go strong into challenges, and if you win challenges then you don't have to go to tribal council.  That was what we were thinking initially, but other factors come into play.  For the most part I was against Jimmy T getting voted out, because I thought he was a physical asset, but he was such a distraction.  Every time he came back to camp he was negative.  He became like a cancer on the tribe.  I was like 'Dude, slow down, relax.'  I think I was connecting with him, but you know, we had to act for the greater good.

So mental strength is as important as physical?

Exactly.  Case in point, how did crazy Holly end up being in the game longer than me?  She's a shoe thief!  But it's a balance.  She's still in the game because she's not a threat.  We had this debate, and the reason she stayed was because she was one of the only strong females we had on our team.

Looking at the other tribe, Marty seems to be fighting for control of that group.  Having played closely with him, do you think that's a smart course for him, or would he be better to sit back a bit?

He's over there with the kids, and they caught it quickly.  Somebody over there said he's arrogant because he told them he had the idol.  Him and Jimmy T are kind of one and the same.  They want to have control or think they have control or whatever the case may be.  They're just a little full of themselves.  But Marty, I think he'll do well in the game because he's conniving, and that's what it takes.  He's a pretty conniving dude.

Which individual players would you say benefited the most from the realignment of the tribes?

That's a good question.  I can really only speak to us old folks, cause that's who I dealt with.  I'd say I don't want Marty to win, because of who he is, but he has what it takes, from what I've seen.  He can probably get over on a couple of people with his whole style. 

Is there anything you would do differently?

It's a social game.  Different people have their different challenges, and for me that was probably it, the social game.  I went out of my way to connect, but I have a hard time being phony.  That's just not me.

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Survivor: Nicaragua airs Wednesdays at 8.00pm on Global.