‘Survivor: Cagayan’ exit interview: Cliff Robinson on blindside, move he didn’t make

We were pretty excited to see Cliff Robinson on “Survivor: Cagayan,” mostly because he seemed like more than just your average “famous person on a reality TV show.” He had an understanding of how to play the game, seemed pretty likable, and was a great team player. The only reason he became such a threat was because he was almost too good for his own good. Nobody wanted to compete with him at the merge, and he was also such a social threat since he was such an influential guy. This is what happens when you are a former NBA All-Star with all sorts of great life experience.

Cliff brought all of this to his exit interview with us today, as we went in-depth about anything and everything that took place with him prior to his elimination on the show Wednesday night. We’d say that there are spoilers ahead, but at this point you’re already reading.

CarterMatt – So let’s start by just getting this out of the way. Tony flipped on you! How do you feel about that?

Cliff Robinson – When you first get voted off, you definitely have some feelings for the people. But after you sit back and analyze everything and understand that it’s a game and those things happen, you just have to accept it.

You had said before the game that you were going to hide the full extent of your playing career. So did Woo totally just come in and blow up your spot?

Lindsey had an idea, but Woo kind of came in and blew it up. At that point, I thought it was better to just come clean.

And I guess at that point you really didn’t have another choice…

I didn’t have another choice. It was either to come clean or look like I liar from the beginning. I wanted to establish some trust with my tribemates.

In moving forward from that moment [when you are found out], how do you move forward the rest of the game and try to play it? What arguments do you use to sway people, since you’re obviously a big threat for being so strong and successful.

The game is constantly evolving and changing. You have the big game, and then you have the small game, and then you have the smaller game. Going in I wanted to help my tribe win challenges, put people at ease when it comes to my height and being a professional athlete. I was able to establish those two things, but I wasn’t able to play that last card I wanted to play, which is ‘you want to take me to the end, because who would want to vote for me?’.

That was literally what I was going to ask next? Was that even something that came up as a conversation for anyone out there?

That was my next move, and I didn’t want to play that card yet because we were still in a big game where you need strong people to win challenges. That’s one thing I regret is that I didn’t put that out there a little sooner.

Let’s talk immunity idols here for a second. Did you have any idea that Tony had one?

You know, I knew that he had been looking for it really hard, and when you go out there … I have to give credit to Tony, because he was able to find clues and keep himself in the hunt for the idol. But when you’re out there on the beach and you look around for where the idol could be, it’s literally impossible to try to locate it without a clue.

So the last thing that I want to touch on here is this: How did you feel about the other members of your tribe trying to throw the challenge to get rid of you? Did you just find out about that last week?

I just found out last week. I got to give Sarah credit for trying to make that happen. You got to make big moves in the game to put yourself in a better position, and she tried to do that. But it didn’t work out; I was able to foil their plans. (Laughs.)

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