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Mike Brown – former wrestling State Champion, Norwich University wrestling stand-out, WEC Featherweight Champion, former UFC Featherweight and current American Top Team coach – exudes prolific success resulting from a lifetime of hard work and discipline.
Sharing responsibility for the success of champions and contenders such as Douglas Lima, Jorge Masvidal, Joanna Jedrzejczyk, Dustin Poirier and Colby Covington as well as the entire American Top Team, Brown already built a near-unrivaled portfolio of individual success in combat sports prior to transitioning to full-time coach for the South Florida standout squad.
To date, Brown has achieved remarkable success as a wrestler, mixed martial artist and coach including:
COMBAT CAREER
1992 Class-A Wrestling State Champion (Maine / 112 pounds)
Fighters Only World MMA Awards Coach of the Year (2019)
Equal parts stoic and intense, Brown inspires the greatest results from his students as a result of his technical brilliance and investment in their success; a reserved and quiet disposition belied by his genuine enthusiasm for their victories. Brown shares his knowledge as one of the few coaches capable of leading an athlete to the pinnacle of the sport by experience alone – his aforementioned WEC championship including the initial victory over and defense against eventual UFC Hall of Fame member Urijah Faber – the highlight of a decorated amateur and mixed martial arts background.
Most recently sharing credit for Masvidal’s historic knockout of Ben Askren last month at UFC 239 or Covington’s supremely dominant performance over Robbie Lawler this past weekend at UFC On ESPN 5: Covington vs. Lawler, Mike Brown is simply a living legend within the mixed martial arts community. After such a successful transition post-fighting, expect Brown to be involved in the preparation of the sport’s best competitors and champions for several more decades ahead.
Brown recently took the time to speak about focus, leadership, success and wrestling.
ON WRESTLING
You learn through life: success is directly correlated with hard work. The harder you work, the more successful you’ll be. That’s what you learn with the sport; you see that from the beginning. You see the guy who really works the hardest – for the most part. It’s not always the case. But the harder you work, the more you succeed. So many people feel the same way about the sport in general. You learn so many great life-lessons from it.
It’s crazy to see how many UFC champions at least wrestled in high school, at the least. The percentages are very, very high; it’s interesting how high it is. Contenders, champions – it’s got to be 80-90% of them at least wrestled in high school, which is pretty crazy.
And I’m not sure what is it. I’m not sure if it’s the work ethic or also just starting learning the balance and coordination at an early age. I’ve this theory of it might be similar to a foreign language; you learn it as a child, you won’t have an accent. But if you try to learn a foreign language as an adult, you’re going to have an accent. And the same goes for wrestling, it’s like a deeper learning. This ability to get on top in a scramble is what you learn if you start it when you’re younger. It’s this theory I have and I think there’s something to it.
w/ Johnny Eblen
“Mike Brown is easily one of the best coaches I have ever been around. All-around a great dude, too! I remember before I even started my amateur career, Mike would work with me on my striking after practices. I was very green and new to the sport and he was one of the guys that really helped me get started in learning MMA. After a few months and winning my first amateur fight the coaches at ATT really saw how much potential I had. At the time, I had a full-time job and I was training after work. I remember mentioning to Mike that if I was able to train full-time I would, but I had rent and bills to pay. Mike said, ‘Quit your job, move in with me, and start training full-time.’ The next day, I quit my job.”
I can only speak from my experience, and with my experience wrestling helped me quite a bit. Just taught me hard work…. And maybe I was lucky; maybe I just had a really good coach or something like this. He instilled very, very hard work and was a great person and I just learned a lot from the guy. And I think it’s those years – those formative years – where you’re young and you’re malable and you’re developing as a young man. But it’s really life-changing. And you hear many, many people like this. Anywhere from these crazy celebrities who that might’ve wrestled in high school and how it might’ve formed them or changed them.
It’s something really positive, something you’ll enjoy. And something that requires focus and dedication and hard work and clean lifestyle. So it will force you to stay on-track. And maybe if you don’t have the best upbringing, it’s easy to stray off.
ON LEADERSHIP
I don’t think of myself as a leader or a strong leader. I don’t think that’s where my strengths reside as a coach. I’ve always been a bit of a fight fanatic. I’ve always been really interested in fighting – maybe obsessed – so I know a lot about it. I’ve been into it since the very beginning and I’ve studied it a lot. So I’ve got good ideas with technique and I’ve been around the game for a long time – so my strengths are more that.
I don’t think I’m a real social person… and usually a great leader is a little more social than I am. So I don’t think I’m the best leader at times. But I do have a good understanding of the game because I’ve been a bit of a fight fanatic and I’ve studied the sport a long time. I’m more of a hands-on coach. I’m not a good talker, but I have a good feeling for techniques and, “Maybe this might work” or won’t work; that type of thing.
“He is a man that leads by example. He has a great mind for combat. Stay out of his front headlock if you know what’s good for you.” – King Muhammed Lawal
ON FOCUS
When you are fighting, I don’t think you have much of a choice; you’re pretty present at the time. Your adrenaline is one hundred percent flowing… it would be pretty impressive if your mind was wandering during that time period. I don’t think you’ve got much of a choice. Most people are pretty present at that time. But I guess during training and stuff, that’s when your mind can wander.
What I’m doing right now: I enjoy what I’m doing. I’ve always really been fascinated with fighting and mixed martial arts. I’ve been a fanatic since the beginning. I happened to grow up wrestling also, so I had a little head start. I was doing that even before the sport existed. I’ve just had a lot of time, experience – maybe more than some because I was in it since the beginning. And also, really had a really deep passion. Right away when I first saw it, I was blown away and in love with the sport. So that all helps.
If you love what you do, your mind’s not working – it’s just always on it. Always exploring that view and thinking about it. Trying to get new ideas and working around the clock. That’s when your best work is done: when it’s just non-stop. But that’s just what you do if it’s what you love – it’s not much work, you know? You’re doing what you love.
w/ Brad Pickett
“Mike Brown has been a great friend, trainer and coach throughout my career. He is truly a one-in-a-million coach.” – Brad Pickett
ON SELF-AWARENESS
For me, this has been like a real long, slow evolution. This is not something I jumped into; this is something that was such a long, slow progression that I didn’t feel like, “Oh wow. This is so new and different.” I grew up wrestling, then the sport came around and I started doing submission grappling tournaments for several years before I went into MMA – which I was more than ready. So I was already very ready for it; I had been training five or six years so I was pretty ready. Then I started fighting at a lower level… So it was such a long, slow, gradual progression for me; it wasn’t like I went from zero to a hundred.
So the lessons I would get would be from early-age wrestling. It would go back more to you learn about hard work and dedication and you will have a great reward.
ON VICTORY
I can’t say I wasn’t happy and didn’t celebrate, because it did take a while to get there. But I’ve an appreciation for the people who – when you win a fight, it’s not an over-celebration because if you trained hard, you should think you’re going to win; it shouldn’t be a big surprise, you know? I mean, sure if it was a really big fight – a world title or something and it maybe is going to change your life forever – OK, I get it. But when it’s just another fight…
Sometimes people have this crazy celebration, I always find that interesting. It’s almost like they didn’t expect they were going to win. You would think if you were prepared and believed in yourself, you wouldn’t be that surprised. I always find that funny. I like it better when somebody expects that they’re going to win and aren’t too crazy about it. They act like they won the lottery – maybe it was a big surprise to them. You can take it in stride: this is what they’ve envisioned and have already seen in their mind before.
w/ Charles Rosa
“Mike Brown meant so much to the success in my career and still does… Mike puts in the work just like the fighters do and treats your upcoming fight as it was his own… Gives you confidence going into the fight knowing your coach worked as hard as you did! Mike loves the fight game and puts his heart and soul into it. Much respect, honored to have such a legend in my corner.” – Charles Rosa
ON IN-CAMP v. OFF-CAMP TRAINING
Intensity is going to pick up, more sparring to get your timing and things like this. Obviously conditioning: you’ve got to get in tip-top shape and be ready to go hard for three or five rounds.
Also, studying some film of your opponent; seeing if they have some dangerous areas that you’ve got to be aware of and stay out of trouble – if they’re really strong at wrestling or whatever it might be – prepare accordingly. That’s the big one. That’s it.
ON PERSONAL EVOLUTION
I’m improving all the time. I’m learning a lot from the fighters. I’m lucky that we’re at such a good team where we have so many elite athletes and it snowballs where we get more and more elite athlete all the time with great ideas and great technique and different styles of fighting from literally all around the world. Our gym is the most transient MMA gym in the world. We get people from everywhere; there’s a very open-door policy, too. So that means we get ideas from everywhere; people from all over the world are bringing their styles and techniques. I get to also pick ideas from them; we’re all mosaics of our coaches and our training partners. I’m improving all the time from our fighters; many of them are super-elite and could be coaches now or when they retire, so I feel like I’m improving all the time technically and mentally.
If you’re the best guy in your gym, you probably get a lot of focus from coaches from wherever you’re at; so they get all these ideas from wherever they’re at. It’s just constant and it’s always coming. It’s pretty cool, man. I haven’t traveled a lot to a lot of gyms for a long time, but I’m lucky enough where we get a lot of people at our gym to get different ideas and perspective. It’s tough; it’s a shame where sometimes you’re at a really small gym, you only have a couple of pro fighters and sometimes you’ve got to make that move where you’re in a place with many, many pros. It’s just a fact of life sometimes.
Matteo Urella is a freelance artist born and raised outside of Boston, Massachusetts. His original PROfiles interview series has been featured in Sports Illustrated and TaeKwonDo Times Magazine while his critically-acclaimed book Machetes Dipped In Rum: The Oral History of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony has been featured in Cuepoint and Ambrosia For Heads. He is a regular contributor to Weekly Rap Gods, Vanyaland and is the East Coast Correspondent for Boxeo Mundial.
