Moustaches. Is there any more beloved part of sport? Just think of the likes of Merv Hughes, Robert Dipierdomenico, or Mitchell Johnson.
But for every moustache that screams “don’t judge me – love me”, it seems another sports star somewhere around the globe will put up something that makes you want to laugh, cry, or quickly dial triple zero.
Full disclosure, my own moustache-growing capabilities would belong in this select group, if I had anything on their level of sporting achievement. I may make fun, but these men and I are brothers, except they’re all incredibly successful, well-known and wealthy.
Well, that was a good way to boost my self-esteem. Without further ado, here’s the five worst sporting moustaches of all time.
This photo really is quite a mystery because it makes you ask a question which seems to have no answer. How can a man like Michael Jordan be so incredibly good at so many things – basketball, saving the looney tunes from monsters et cetera – while being this incredibly bad at having a moustache? It boggles the mind.
A champion swimmer, decidedly not a championship moustache grower, Michael Phelps looks more like a creepy guy from down at the trailer park when sporting this thing on his face. The fact shirtlessness is a part of his job more often that not does not help the look. He looks like the kind of guy who if he offered you a lift home you would tell him a friend is coming to pick you up.
A superstar of the court, Larry Bird was an incredible basketballer but it’s hard to imagine what was going through his mind when he first grew this moustache and then stuck with it. Maybe he was trying to get rid of that whole “sort of looks like your spinster aunt” thing he had going on but if anything this just makes that so, so much worse.
Definitely the lowest-profile member of this list, Ronny Cedeno is a special story. The Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop was a member of a struggling side in 2010 and as a way of trying to rebuild team morale the players had a moustache competition during the 2010 season hoping to bring a bit of fun back into the clubhouse.
Cedeno couldn’t grow a moustache, so he did the next best thing – grab a tube of eye-black and draw one on whenever required. Remarkably, he went out on field with this thing, and the Pirates snapped a 0-20 losing streak.
How? Were the opposition too busy starting at his face in bewilderment? We may never know.
Okay, purists – it’s not technically a moustache, but let’s step away from poking fun for a moment and get serious. If you’re not warning your kids about the Ronaldo forehead stache you’re not doing your job as a parent and/or member of the community.
I mean look at that thing. It’s like the reverse mullet bowlcut stache, a style of facial hair where all the parts are terrible and the sum of the parts is still somehow more terrible than that.
At first I thought it was the big cheery grin that made this one look so bad but then I pictured him with the forehead-stache and a big mopy frown and it just got even worse. Do yourself and a favour and don’t do the same.
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