Top 7 Wrestling Hairstyles

We all know that Pro Wrestling Illustrated recently released their 2020 edition of the Women’s 100. Bayley was on top of the list for the first time, and she was understandably excited about it. So excited, in fact, that she decided to make an adjustment to her current hairstyle:

I’m usually a very humble human being but @WWEBigE said that I should flaunt how I am the number 1 wrestler in all the land!!!!!! Above all the rest!!!!! Consistently the best!!!So I would like to dedicate this cut to you, EEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!! Damn I am so good. @OfficialPWI pic.twitter.com/JlMjx3WnYa

— Bayley (@itsBayleyWWE) November 30, 2020

Pretty cool, right? It got me thinking about how important hair is to a wrestler’s presentation. Most wrestlers fall into a certain number of styles, though we’ve certainly seen more colors in recent years. I thought it would be fun to rank the seven most magnificent wrestling hairstyles, so here we are.

Those who know me well will note the irony of me ranking hairstyles when my own hair isn’t all that impressive. I will respond with the fact that I haven’t had any wrestling matches and I’ve been talking about those for years. So why can’t I rank hair, huh?

7. Dreadlocks

I just missed out on seeing the British Bulldogs run live as it happened. By the time I started watching the WWF, the Bulldogs were bouncing aroung Japan & Western Canada. Dynamite Kid was on his way out of things, so Davey Boy Smith returned to the WWF as a single. He stood out to me upon his return for a couple of reasons. One of them: his dreadlocks!

Not to get too racial, but I’d never seen a white person with dreadlocks at that point. It stood out! Some wrestlers still wear them today, probably because they looked up to ol’ Davey Boy.

6. Bull Nakano

One of the greatest female wrestlers ever(not to mention my all-time favorite female wrestler),Bull Nakano as the WWF Women's Champion back in 1994 pic.twitter.com/qzIuJD1F1F

— Rasslin' History 101 (@WrestlingIsKing) November 29, 2020

I don’t know what to call Bull’s hairstyle, but it definitely stood out from the pack and made her memorable for reasons other than her stellar matches. The more unique the better, and nobody was doing what Bull was doing at the time. In later years, Scotty 2 Hotty & Enzo Amore would try to do similar hairstyles, but it wasn’t quite the same.

5. The Mullet

Business up front, party in the back! While the mullet was associated with various rock stars back in the 1970s & 80s, in the 21st century it’s mostly been associated with rednecks & hockey players. Back in the 90s, two wrestlers in particular became known for their mullet. One, as shown above, was Mike Awesome. Awesome gets overlooked these days, but back in the late 90s he was pretty great at beating the crap out of his opponents and hitting all sorts of powerbomb variations. Of course, Eddie Guerrero also sported a mean mullet for most of his wrestling career. He would cut it shorter in the last few years of his life, but the mullet had one heck of a run on multiple continents.

4. Shaved

OK, some of you might dispute this one, considering that no hair is actually involved. But it’s a fact that some wrestlers just got over better with a shaved head than without. Steve Austin did perfectly fine as a Hollywood Blond, or as Stunning Steve with the long flowing locks. Once he shaved his head & became Stone Cold, he was on the road to mega-stardom. Stone Cold wouldn’t have worked with long blonde hair. He had to be bald.

Do you think Goldberg gets over the same way he did in WCW with a full head of hair? Of course not. Kurt Angle was very wise to go shaved once the male pattern baldness kicked in. Let’s not forget about Bad News Brown. And now guys like Triple H & Shawn Michaels do it in their older years because most of their long locks have fallen out.

3. The Pompadour

There are two pompadours that have stood the test of time and helped get their wearers to another level. The first, of course, was the Honky Tonk Man. If you’re going to portray an Elvis impersonator on worldwide television, you better have the hairstyle to back it up. Honky Tonk did, and his beautiful locks were a key component of making that character work for many years.

The second? Duh, Vince McMahon! We wondered for years if that was his actual hair or not. Color commentators like Jesse Ventura & Jerry Lawler would often accuse Vince of wearing a toupee. Nah, it was actually his real hair. Vince’s hair was so iconic that his hair vs. hair match against Donald Trump did a huge PPV number for WrestleMania 23.

2. Bleached Blond

As far back as anybody can remember, pompous pretty boy heels have been bleaching their hair blond. It became popularized in the 1950s by Gorgeous George & Nature Boy Buddy Rogers. Something about the light hair helped them come off as sissified snobs that needed to get their butts kicked by the fans’ favorite wrestlers. Once those two got over on a major level, every heel in the business ripped off their gimmicks. There were several Gorgeous Georges and more Nature Boys than you can shake a stick at, all with bleach blond hair & fancyboy kind of attire. Not to mention all the Beautifuls, Hollywood Blondes, Superstars, Fabulous Ones and so on.

There was one great side effect from all these bad guys going blond. When they would inevitably get busted open during a big match, their light hair would get stained red. Much better visually than somebody with dark hair getting cut open. Bobby Heenan made a career out of this in the early 1970s, he was on a great deal more magazine covers than somebody in his spot would have gotten otherwise.

1. The Road Warrior Mohawks

I always wanted a mohawk when I was a kid. They looked so cool! My mom was all like “nope, not happening”, and I suffered through childhood with regular ol’ boring hair. Then I got to college, and surely then it would be mohawk time! Nah, by that point the male pattern baldness was already kinda kicking in. Wouldn’t have worked.

They definitely worked in pro wrestling. No better than with the Legion of Doom, the Road Warriors. It was Hawk’s idea. He would get two mohawks on the sides of his head, and Animal would get one in the middle, so if you combined their mohawks you’d get a full head of hair. It was one of the many pieces of the Road Warrior presentation that made them stand out from everybody else in the business.

Both Hawk & Animal had phases where they got away from the mohawk. They just weren’t the same. The mohawk was too big a part of their identity to stay away for too long.

Thanks for reading! Hit me up on Twitter with any thoughts, concerns or suggestions!