Nelson had the hair, but they weren't metal at all.
Most of the 80's metal bands get lumped together as hair metal or butt rock or whatever. There were definitely stylistic differences between some of them. Def Leppard goes back a little earlier, to the late 70's, and of course were from the UK whereas LA was the epicenter of 80's metal. Cinderella's second album went in a bit of a bluesy direction. Poison was definitely very schlocky, but I still liked some of their songs.
Some bands clearly were not a part of the same scene/sound. Speed metal and thrash was something different altogether. Judas Priest wasn't really in the same mold as most of the other 80's stuff.
Now Winger you can bash as much as you want. Warrant was pretty cheesy.