Xtreme Couture grappling coach Neil Melanson says he wants to train Rashad Evans

So Rashad Evans, a world-class fighter and former light heavyweight champion, leaves his longtime home in New Mexico at Greg Jackson's MMA and goes in search of a new gym.

What, you thought there weren't going to be elite training teams lining up to coach him?

"Suga" has stated his desire to go the nomad route, calling in favors in order to bounce around various camps to strengthen his game, at least in preparation for his upcoming title shot against Jon Jones.

He'll also likely be a major part of Marcus Aureilo's new Imperial Athletics squad based down in Florida, training with the likes of Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva.

However, there is one coach, Neil Melanson, on a high profile team, Xtreme Couture, that thinks he can take Rashad's already elite skill-set and accentuate it by turning him into a finisher.

"We're trying to get Rashad to come here (to Xtreme Couture)," Melanson told Steve Cofield (via MMA Fix). "We got some people asking him to come out here. I know he's in Denver right now but it's just because I've always been wanting to get my hands on him for a while. And I look up to Greg Jackson but what's Greg gonna do? He's got Jones. ... I've been wanting to train with Rashad for a while just because I feel like my style of coaching is perfect for him because he's a wrestler and I have a lot of experience with these wrestlers here and I think I can help him. He's really good already but I would like to see him finish and I know he can finish on the ground and I think maybe I can help that."

Despite working his way back to a title shot after a crushing loss to Lyoto Machida at UFC 98, Evans has come under fire as of late for his recent performances against Thiago Silva and Quinton Jackson, respectively.

In both fights, Rashad controlled the action but let both men hang around too long and was nearly knocked out in the later rounds.

Melanson believes he can harness the former champions already excellent game to avoid issues like that in the future, something he'll especially need when he takes on the dynamic and hard-to-handle "Bones" later this year.

Anyone think it would serve Evans best interests to make his way to Las Vegas to to take direction from the fellas down at Xtreme Couture?