​​By Elias Cepeda 

UFC welterweight contender Matt Brown has not fought since losing to Donald Cerrone last December, but any follower of "The Immortal" can glean from his social media accounts that Brown has been grinding away daily in the gym.

Speaking exclusively with FloCombat, the Team Elevation member says that though he doesn't yet have his next bout agreement signed, he did speak with UFC officials last weekend in Las Vegas about getting back in the cage.
 
"I try to always make the most out of everything, so part of this past weekend where I went to the UFC fighters retreat was about me getting to talk with [UFC matchmaker] Sean [Shelby] and [UFC president] Dana [White] to get some ideas for my return," he reveals. "We did talk about some things. Nothing is inked yet or set in stone, but at least the idea is out there and we're talking about my next fight."
 
Brown seems eager to compete again, but after over 12 years of pro fighting, he has also begun to plan for what he'll do once he decides to step away from MMA competition. To Brown, his future is in coaching other elite fighters.
 
Fortunately for him, and for his Team Elevation stablemates, Brown is already heavily involved in coaching.

"I've been doing some coaching, one-on-one," he says. "I don't really find a lot of interest in coaching groups, at least in terms of professional fighters. I think there's a lot more value in one-on-one experience with a coach in MMA. Coaching a group of people who are just testing the waters or having fun in a Muay Thai class or jiu-jitsu class is a different thing.
 
"When we're talking about guys whose lives are on the line, though, I don't think the group setting is always the most valuable. That is a mistake a lot of people make. So, I try to work one-on-one with the guys."
 
Fighters under Brown's tutelage shouldn't expect any coddling, of course. In fact, the 36-year-old fighter is open about the challenges of working with elite athletes in the necessarily self-centered sport of fighting.
 
"What you end up with oftentimes when you teach a class of 10 fighters is, eight don't give a fu*k what you taught them," he chuckles. "One of them is probably taking it and running with it and will thank you for it, and the other didn't hear a word what you said or [is] they're visiting and trying to steal it and regurgitate it to their people back home.
 
"The point is, you might have one out of 10 fighters in a group setting who cares and will value what you teach. So, how about I just find that one guy and help him? There's been a lot of situations where I've helped guys a lot. I'm an open book and try to help guys as much as I can. But sometimes you might share words of wisdom that took 10 or 15 years of blood and sweat to learn, and then they minimize what you said to one word or one stupid phrase, like, 'Yeah, everyone does it their own way.' (laughs) So it's disheartening.
 
"I keep circling back to having a few guys who truly give a shit and who can benefit from your blood."

[instagram url="https://www.instagram.com/p/BTpOnr0Dxc-/?taken-by=iamtheimmortal" hide_caption="0"]
 
Brown doesn't blame the young fighters who are sometimes too self-centered or unappreciative of the pearls laid before them, though. After all, he knows what it is like to be in their shoes.
 
"I've actually approached a few guys and said, 'I see your talent and I'd like to help you,' and those end up being the worst ones. You put yourself out there and they take advantage," he begins. "Fighting is an inherently selfish sport. Looking at it from the coaching side now, I can see where I've been that guy so many times. So, I'm definitely not going to hate on guys for being like that--I'm just not going to help them. That's why it's been nice to see the other side of the sport, the coaching side. With this time I've had off I've been able to get out of the Matrix a little bit, be on the outside, looking in, play that video game a little bit."
 
Brown says that having to explain his knowledge and technique to others has also helped him sharpen his own understanding of the intricate sport.

"I can sift through my own brain and come away with what I need, but when I'm trying to relay that info to someone else, as to why it is the way it is, why this is the proper method, I realized that I jumped all over the place," he admits. "So coaching has helped me circle back and helped me organize my thoughts and answer a lot of questions I never had because they're asking them of me."
 
The fact that Brown is characteristically open and honest about the winding experience of coaching others should not be confused with a lack of enthusiasm for teaching, however. The ​The Ultimate Fighter veteran is certain that he wants to coach, full-time, when he hangs up his own gloves, and he has a clear and inspiring philosophy-driven vision for that second act of his MMA career.
 
"I do want to coach when I retire. The way I kind of look at it, I've developed so much during this time I've taken off to coach. I don't feel like I've taken a day off because I'm helping the other guys," he says. "Basically, I'm never going to retire. The only difference will be that when we walk up that cage, he will be the one to physically walk in while I stand on the outside. But I'll go through the identical camp with him, I'll grind with him. He may cut a little more weight than me because I'm not cutting 10 pounds of water weight if I'm not fighting (laughs), but all the other things will be identical.
 
"I'm going to make sure I'm involved as much as I can be in every aspect with them so that when he walks in the cage he's not by himself. Physically he'll be the one walking in the cage, but spiritually and mentally we are not splitting ways. I will feel what he feels."
 
Brown will put that philosophy and plan into place very soon with one of the finalists for the current season of The Ultimate Fighter. 

"I obviously can't say who it is, but one of the finalists of this season of TUF is coming out here and is going to do a full camp with me," he says. "I'm going to be his head coach. There's no reason I can't do every single thing he does. He'll just get paid a little more (laughs)."
 
Brown sees his coaching role as one qualified to teach details after a long fight career, one where he leads by his own effort on the mats, and one where he helps tie together every aspect of his fighter's preparation so he doesn't walk into the ring with a disparate bucket of skills with no real strategy or connection. Brown sees a real need for specialists in MMA, but maintains that they need to be brought together and overseen by a real head coach.
 
"There is never going to be someone who understands jiu-jitsu like a world champ in jiu-jitsu, so people need their jiu-jitsu coaches, and that goes for all the disciplines we train," he explains. "When we're trying to get world-class at so many different things we need people dedicated to those different components. The problem right now is that with specialists in so many areas, most fighters don't get it tied into one another well enough.
 
"There are different personalities, different levels of education, different intensities and volumes of workouts, filling different needs, but are all these efforts plugging into the proper and specific needs of that one fighter for this one upcoming fight? Fighters need one person looking over top to say, 'Here are the holes,' and, 'Let's build on this.' There are sometimes so many different coaches talking and giving input into a fighter but no one to organize and clarify it all. That's where I can excel.


​(Photo Credit: Tom Szczerbowski-USA TODAY Sports) 
 
"As a head coach I may not necessarily be a world champion in any one particular aspect but I understand all aspects. I understand peaking for competition, being prepped properly for competition. I understand strength and conditioning. That's one of the parts I most enjoy reading about and implementing."
 
There are, of course, plenty of coaches in MMA right now who claim the title of "head coach," arguing they are qualified to fulfill the role of overseer that Brown describes. The fighter cautions his peers against handing over their development and careers to so-called head coaches who don't actually know what it is like to be in the trenches with them.
 
"I wrote a post this morning about how there are so many coaches out there right now telling you how to put everything together, what approach to take, what to do, how to eat, how to train. They're telling you how to navigate the waters," Brown begins, softly, before allowing his voice to rise. "But so many of those guys are sitting in boats when they're talking to you. I'm the guy in the water with you."
 
Being a fighter before coaching others how to fight, he seems to be saying, is as much as a requisite as it is for a piano teacher to have played piano before taking on students, or -- as Matt Serra famously spoke of -- as necessary for a swimming instructor to have actually jumped in the pool at some point in their life. Working with his students for as long as he is physically able to doesn't just make Brown uniquely qualified to coach MMA, he says it also gives him a peace and confidence on fight night that those coaches in boats can never have.
 
"Going back to this TUF finalist who will be doing his camp up here, I'm going to grind with him and do so much of his camp with him that I'm not going to be nervous when I go out there for the fight with him," Brown said. "There is not a single thing I'm going to worry about. That's how I am as a fighter, so it is how I want to be as a coach. The only way to not worry when you make the walk, the one single way is to do the hard work. You have to grind and die with them.
 
"Those who have anxiety when coaching don't know what their fighter did during camp. Maybe their fighter lied to them. After all, we're all going to 10 different gyms a week to get our work in. So, there's all these things coaches are ultimately afraid of. I'm going to take that out. If you go to another coach, I'm going there with you. I'm going to grind out and oversee everything with you. I'm willing to die with my fighter."