If I asked you to think of a typical sadistic wrestler that you were always a little afraid of, you’d probably picture a big, bald wrestler. A thick body with a chrome dome, maybe with a moustache or goatee, is the archetype for the pro wrestling villain. This is why, when you see some bald angry-looking guys getting in the ring, you immediately think: “Heels are here!”
Let’s admit it — and no offense to you bald guys out there — bald is bad-ass. Bald is a little scary. A bald head is just out there exposed, shiny and proud, and the baldy could care less what you think about it. When they wanted a big scary guy for Brad Pitt to slay at the beginning of the movie “Troy,” they went with the bald wrestling heel look:
Maybe some bald guy is actually a big sissy, but we generally assume he’s tough, pain tolerant, a bit sadistic and punishing if his head is hairless. Why is that?
They say baldness is a result of an excess supply of testosterone in the body (DHT to be specific), and testosterone is linked to virility and aggression and strength, so maybe we think of bald guys as big, tough bad-asses because of their high testosterone levels. Maybe it’s because a long, pretty, tousled mop of hair is associated with youth, purity, and beauty, so baldness is associated with the opposite.
A bald scalp makes us think of a gargoyle, an alien, a serial killer. A bald pate looks more like a skull, and therefore resembles a skeleton. The bald head is the ultimate in Badassitude.
It’s actually hard to pull off a heel gimmick if you have a stylish Abercrombie & Fitch haircut. When a wrestler turns from good to evil, he might shave it all off to symbolize his change in philosophy and to strike some fear in the audience. He can’t easily change the shape of his body, but he can majorly alter his hair in under five minutes.
It’s easy to believe that bald guys hate guys with hair too, out of jealousy. This jealousy manifests in the painful attacks and punishing abuse the baldies inflict on the good-hair guys in the ring.
The bald villain look, in pro wrestling as well as other shows and movies, goes back almost to the invention of film and cameras, and has become a cliche for big, ugly, manly, and mean.
One of the most bad-ass looking tag teams in the last decade had to be the Shane Twins, who also wrestled in the WWE as the Gymini. They had that hot look-alike Twin thing going on (which I mentioned in an earlier post is a great thing to behold) and they were bald and thick, the classic pro villain look. Wish they could’ve stuck around longer! Let’s take a look at these two bald bad-asses whipping it up on hairy Joey Ryan:
