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A Badge Of Honor Or Unsightly?

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By EDDIE DANIELS, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 4, 2008

TAMPA - Before Ultimate Fighting Championship legend Randy Couture entered the octagon to do battle in the world of MMA, his passion was wrestling.

He wrestled in high school in Washington, earning a state title as a senior. He wrestled in the Army and went on to become a three-time All-American at Oklahoma State. Add in a senior and two national Greco-Roman titles.

Couture doesn't have to pour out a single, eloquent narrative of his past endeavors, it's obvious. Take a peek at his ears. They're his wrestling calling card.

Each appendage is bloated with cauliflower ear, a condition that forms when the ears are repeatedly struck or if the skin is detached from the cartilage. Both conditions cause swelling. Blood pools - as a bruise would - and due to the poor circulation in the ears, the blood remains. If not drained while liquefied or removed when coagulated, the remnants harden to form cauliflower ear.

Instead of fretting over the possible side effects and the awkward looks, Couture, a two-time light heavyweight and a three-time heavyweight UFC champion, wears his ears as a badge of honor.

"In some countries, cauliflower ears get you to the front of the line," Couture said during an interview with The Seattle Times. "I could get them fixed, but there's a status thing to show you are a warrior."

Some believe as much, while others think the time of cauliflower ear has worn out its welcome.

Time For A Change

Despite the glory cauliflower ear brings to some, Mike Moyer, executive director of the National Wrestling Coaches Association, doesn't want high school or college wrestlers exalting the affliction.

Of the 2,148 national ear injuries reported between the 2005-06 and 2006-07 wrestling seasons to Ohio State's medical research department, Moyer has a feeling many of those were cauliflower ear - a clear point of frustration.

"In some cases, while some might believe it's somewhat of a badge of honor, there are many other people out there that see it as something that shouldn't happen to begin with," Moyer said. "One of the things we're trying to promote is we're trying to help young people reach their fullest human potential. Our wrestlers are going to go out in the business community and you're going to walk into different meetings and ... it's not a bad thing when we look like everybody else."

Mitchell wrestler Shea Taylor is not a believer in the look of cauliflower. Last February, he underwent a surgical procedure to remove it from one of his ears. The surgery required Taylor to miss the Sunshine Athletic Conference, district and regional tournaments, promptly ending his junior season.

"I didn't have that mentality," Taylor said, shaking his head. "I guess it's kind of like a black eye for some guys, they think it's cool. I don't want to be walking around with a deformity for the rest of my life."

Since the surgery, Taylor wears his headgear in practice, preventing the resurgence of cauliflower ear and that's exactly what people like Moyer want to hear - wrestlers willing to wear headgear not just in a bout, but in practice.

"The reason why wrestlers get these ... they only get it from not wearing their headgear or that their headgear doesn't fit right," said Tom Howard, a member of the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine. "There are two settings in which they have to wear their headgear: They wear it in practice and they wear it at meets. Referees have gotten very, very strict about stopping a match whenever the headgear has come off. So most of cauliflower ear is associated with noncompliance with headgear wearing in practice. That's really where it comes from."

Brandon coach Russ Cozart has remnants of cauliflower ear in both ears, which he has had drained in the past. It's somewhat of a family affair as his oldest son, Rocky, a sophomore wrestler at Michigan State, developed it in high school. Thus far, Joey Cozart, a Brandon sophomore, has avoided it.

"It's just weird," Russ Cozart said. "It's just a very weird injury that's kind of unique to rugby, which they don't have a helmet, boxing or wrestling.

"You got this guy with big, swollen-up ears and right away you can tell he was a wrestler or a boxer."

What's That You Say?

While cauliflower ear may prove to be unsightly to some and iconic to others, the one thing it can be is restrictive.

If the condition is severe enough, wrestlers can have a loss of hearing ability because the swelling can close off the ear canal.

It also keeps other elements of the ear from working properly.

"The major effect you see in the ear is it affects the ear's ability to gather sound for appropriate hearing and because of the scarring, you lose some of the normal contours of the ear and the contours in the ears all have a specific purpose of being able to gather sound so that we can hear," said Howard, director of the Sports Medicine Fellowship at Virginia Commonwealth University-Fairfax Family Practice Center, who had surgery on his ears before medical school to remove his case of cauliflower ear. "So when you lose those contours, in a very subtle fashion you lose a little bit of the ability to gather sound."

It's a frustrating topic for Ridgewood coach Pete Smith, who has been involved with wrestling since he was a freshman in 1973 at Lynnfield (Mass) High School. He wore his headgear then as well as his four years wrestling for Springfield (Mass.) College. To this day, he wears his headgear while coaching. He's never had cauliflower ear and was even teased by teammates for not having it.

"When I was growing up, I remember watching Dan Gable and Kenny Monday and all those guys," Smith said. "So you emulate those kind of guys. Dan Gable and Kenny Monday, they were my heroes growing up and they had cauliflower ear. I just decided I didn't want it."

Music to Moyer's ears.

Reporter Eddie Daniels can be

reached at (813) 948-4214 or

edaniels@tampatrib.com.

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