Life in WWE can sometimes be a hair-raising experience
Sometimes in WWE, it can be hard to make the cut.
Over the course of sports entertainment history, WWE Superstars have sported some pretty interesting hairstyles. We have witnessed everything from spikes, curls and perms, to rainbows and rat tails. We've also seen Bianca Belair sport what looks like a giant whip growing out of the top of her head and use it as a weapon!
In a business where the will to be weird is usually rewarded, you start as close to an entertainer's brain as possible. And there aren't many things closer to his or her gray matter than their scalp. So sometimes, if you want to know what's inside their head, you should look to see what's on top of it.
In terms of your looks and your locks, they have to fit your character. A great case in point here would be The Legion of Doom. They popularized the weird mohawk cuts that accompanied their spiked shoulder pads and Road Warrior personas.
It represented an almost sadistic kind of freedom. In an era when punk rock had introduced lots of strangely shaved styles, the pair pulled it off tremendously. All while conquering the competition and obliterating opponents.
When you started watching #WWE who were the Tag Team Champions?
MINE: Legion of Doom https://t.co/OcNKmLDfti
Can you imagine Hawk or Animal with a mop top or a shag? Of course not. Their style was all about craziness and chaos, so they had to go to the ring looking like their barber was some guy with a weed whacker and a nervous condition.
Then, there are some chopped choices that aren't that good. The Rock, when he started out as Rocky Maivia, had some weird half sleeping cat/half whisk broom look. It was poofy, and it looked like if you turned him upside down, you could dust off your shelves with the top of his head.
Over the years, many WWE Hall of Famers have worn what would become a preferred look for both dastardly, arrogant villians and heroic 'pretty boys': It's called The Platinum Blonde.
Going back to legendary performers like Buddy Rogers and Gorgeous George, brightly bleached hair always exuded a certain confidence in one's manhood. If he was daring enough to go out in public with that hair, he's either so arrogant he doesn't care. Or he's so tough that he can afford to have quirks about his coifs.
In later years, WWE stars such as Superstar Billy Graham, Ric Flair, Greg Valentine and Dusty Rhodes all popularized the die-hard, dye job
This led to what was known as The Great Peroxide Shortage of the 1980's, and it forced many performers to turn to Sun-In as a lesser alternative. Those were tough times, indeed.
An accentuation of that blonde grooming was when a wrestler would also have (for whatever reason) a dark beard and eyebrows to go along with it. This is what's known as the 'dirty beach bum' look.
The Fabulous Ones, Rip Oliver, Eddie Gilbert and many southern grapplers rocked this light-on-top and dark-on-the-bottom look. But no one did it better or for longer than the Fabulous Freebird himself, longtime WWE Executive Michael 'P.S.' Hayes. It looks like he picked out this style 40 years ago and just stuck with it.
In recent years, cultural shifts have added some fresh, new looks. It's really upped the game in terms of the mane.
Bald heads were once typically found only on heel wrestlers. The stereotypical Nazis, maniacs, and escaped convicts of the time. Every bad baldy from George 'The Animal' Steele to Nikolai Volkoff was saving a ton of money on shampoo during this time.
By the 90’s, however, Steve Austin and Bill Goldberg were sporting bald heads as menacing heroes. This would inspire an era where nearly every male wrestling fan at least had a slight urge to shear off all his hair and grow a goatee.
In terms of chrome domes, perhaps no WWE Superstar has given a BIG BOOT to traditional looks more than a singular hairstyle hero - the Immortally Bald Hulk Hogan.
“You turn me on Toronto” - Hulk Hogan 1986 cc: @HulkHogan https://t.co/3547llPa1G
For decades, The Hulkster has been associated with what is known as The Skullet. It's where you have long hair in the back... and nothing in the front.
It looked really weird at first, but then Hogan's hair eventually grew on you.
Which now brings us to pro wrestling's most endearing and enduring hairstyle in history: the Mullet. Perhaps no other 'do represents the rise of WWE and the rock 'n' wrestling connection than those trailer park tails. If it happens to be tightly permed in the back. Well, that's just a bonus.
In the '80s, no four men better symbolized this versatile style than the teams of The Rock and Roll Express and The Midnight Express. These four men could fight in scaffold matches without a safety net, but they wouldn’t dare to go to the ring without a few sprays of Aqua Net.
It’s a look that has become so associated with 70's and 80's wrestlers that many of them still wear it to this day. And that's fine. Ricky Morton just wouldn't look right with a crew cut anyway.
That's just a short list of some of the wild styles from WWE and around the sports entertainment world. And while the list is too long to put it all down here, there's no doubting that many performers in pro wrestling have had some hair-raising experiences.
What are some of the strangest or most unusual hairstyles that you can remember in WWE? Please share your thoughts and memories in the comments section below.