University of Iowa Coach Tom Brands says non-wrestlers often stare at his cauliflower ears, asking if they’re a birth defect. “When you explain it the them, they’re very intrigued, and then when they grab it, they can’t believe it,” he says. “They laugh, they oooh and ahhh, they giggle.”
If you want a cauliflower ear, start by repeatedly smacking yourself upside the head. Small blood vessels in your outer ear will rupture, forming blood clots. Your ear will swell as the skin separates from the cartilage. “It hurts like hell,” says UI wrestler Dan Dennis, 23. “It’s really sensitive, it’s really touchy, real soft,” says the 133-pounder from Ingleside, Ill.
Matt Doyle, UI assistant athletic trainer, treats ears with ice to reduce swelling, following up with pressure. Proper treatment is essential to preventing infection. If your cauliflower ear continues to sprout, the damaged area will be drained with a needle and syringe. “The badge of honor is how many cc’s of fluid you get out,” Brands says.
Your cauliflower ear will bloom again if not treated with pressure quickly. Padding is taped, stapled or stitched to your ear to apply pressure. If you neglect the treatment, the fluid and damaged cartilage solidify. At this point wrestlers, who work out and compete year-round, often give up on treatment, preferring to sport hardened lumps for ears.
Now rub your fingers over an ear — don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt — there’s something hard under the skin. Brands will let you grab his ear as a testimonial. “Squeeze hard as you want,” he says. “Squeeze it hard.”
Doyle, who wrestled at Marshalltown High School and doesn't have cauliflower ears, acknowledges wrestlers ignore treatments. He’s the one-the-mat cauliflower ear expert, reporting on current treatments at a fall conference and helping produce a DVD showcasing cauliflower ear among UI wrestlers.
“Some wrestlers are a little dingy and actually want cauliflower ears, it’s kind of like it’s our trademark,” says Dan Gable, UI special assistant to the director of athletics and former wrestling coach. “However, you don’t really need them.”
Wrestlers like Gable carry on a tradition almost 2,500 years old. At the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, Greece, the mythic hero Hercules is depicted as an Olympic athlete, right down to his cauliflower ear.
In the practice room at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, having a cauliflower ear looks to be a prerequisite for stepping on the mats. “Almost everyone at this level has experienced at least one,” Doyle says.
“I'm not a big fan of it,” says Dennis, the 133-pounder. “But it comes with the territory.”
“They’re just part of the business,” says 21-year-old Matt Ballweg, a 157-pounder from Waverly. “You can just tell he’s a wrestler, he’s got those ears.”
“It defines who you are,” says 23-year-old Brent Metcalf, a 149-pounder from Davison, Mich. “It’s like a part of you.”
“It’s part of my history, it’s part of who I am,” says 32-year-old Doug Schwab, an assistant coach for the Hawkeyes. “We’re wrestlers, it’s who we are.”
Who has the worst-looking ear? At a team practice, Brands pauses to consider the question. “Steiner?” Mike Chapman, founder of the wrestling magazine WIN, agrees. “Terry Steiner had the big one. It looked like a doorknob.”
Steiner, coach of the United States Olympic women’s wrestling team in Colorado Springs, laughs at the honor. His ear may not be big as a doorknob, but, “If I put on a stocking cap it looks like I’ve got a golf ball on the side of my head,” the former Hawkeye wrestler says. “If I walk into a restaurant, people on my right side will be talking about my ear. It looks like a deformity.”
Cauliflower ears are not only good for picking wrestlers out of a crowd; you can also use them to scout opponents. If a wrestler’s right ear is mangled more than the left, that means his or her right hand is the power hand. When your opponent tries for a takedown, his or her head will be on your right side. “You’re standing in line at a tournament in Russia and you don’t know your opponents, look at their ears,” Brands says.
Wrestlers who compete internationally usually have the ugliest ears. International competition doesn’t require headgear, unlike collegiate and high school rules in the United States. Headgear not only protects ears but also prevents concussions.
Former UI wrestler Dan Glenn of Inver Grove Heights, Minn., a suburb of St. Paul, says he considered plastic surgery to repair his ears but decided to keep the look. “There never was a convenient time,” says Glenn, a three-time Big 10 champ and All-American. “The opinion that I got was it still going to be different, it won’t be like it used to be. It sounded like my cost-benefit ratio wasn’t going to be that great.” Today, as a pediatric dentist, Glenn says, “I tell my patients I was born on a different planet. Some of the moms kind of roll their eyes.”
Surgical repair may be needed if hearing is affected by swollen ear canals, says Dr. Grant Hamilton, UI clinical assistant professor in otolaryngology. A surgery may take as long as six hours and still not result in a normal-looking ear. “You literally have to abrade all of the skin off that calcified material and whittle it into the shape of an ear,” Hamilton says. Doctors use a drill with a cutting bit “and just carve it out,” says the head and neck surgeon.
Hamilton says wrestlers aren’t the best patients, and he understands the “badge of honor” mentality. “People get piercings, people get tattoos, people do all kinds of things to their bodies to identify with a certain group and that’s fine,” he says. “Wrestlers like to look like wrestlers.”
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