We’ve all heard of the age-old fighting technique where you slap someone’s ear so hard with an open palm that it ruptures their eardrum. But would that actually work and how come no one does it in MMA?

In this video from BJJ black belt and self-defense expert Stephen Kesting, he breaks down the ‘ear slap’ technique and gets to the bottom of whether it would actually be effective in a real-life self-defense situation.

According to Kesting, MMA fighter Genki Sudo did get his eardrum ruptured during a fight in Pancrase from a similar technique. But other than that, there are no real examples, especially in high-level MMA, of this technique being used effectively and slaps are allowed under the Unified Rules of mixed martial arts. So why wouldn’t professional MMA fighters, who dedicate their lives to perfecting their craft, use something like this if it works and it’s in the rules? One distinct possibility is because the technique is BS.

As Kesting further points out in the video, striking someone’s ear during a fight is not necessarily a bad thing and you can definitely hurt someone with it, but it is still not ideally where you should be focusing your strikes to land. The jawline or even a bit behind the ear are both better spots to hit someone.

Check out the video to see Kesting break down this technique and explain why it’s almost certainly BS.

This type of ‘magical’ trick, and pressure point Dim Mak-type nonsense are all bullchit, while getting slapped hard in the ear may definitely hurt, thinking it’s going to instantly incapacitate someone is silly. You will never see it work on a video of a street fight, or in a mixed rules fight.Why? Because it’s all just hearsay, a fable.