The Harvard Review of Genetics published a groundbreaking study this week that directly connects premature hair loss to premature smile loss — and the discovery came thanks to DNA analysis of legendary sports-entertainer Shawn Michaels. 

The researchers discovered a direct link between losing one’s smile — as Michaels did when he hurt his knee and refused to drop the championship to Bret Hart in 1996 — and subsequently losing nearly all of the luscious, long, sandy-brown hair that makes them quiver, that drives the girls wild. 

The phenomenon has been named Hickenbottom Syndrome — named after its discoverers, Dr. Martin Hicken and Dr. Rauch Bottom — and strangely seems to afflict only one member of any given tag team (such as the Brain Busters, the Funk Brothers, The Rockers, Steve Austin and Dude Love, and so on). 

Finding one’s smile, however, does not seem to reverse the process of male pattern baldness or other forms of alopecia, but does reportedly make one much less of an insufferable prick backstage. 

The study demonstrates a connection to a similar condition known as Stipe Syndrome, which connects losing one’s hair to losing one’s religion.* 

*If you get that reference, you’re probably getting old. Get a colonoscopy, gramps.