05.07.2006, 10:54
February 13, 1938
Los Angeles Times
Dave Levin, Back from Dead, Returns to Mat Soon
By Jack Singer
They said he was too nice to be a wrestler.
That was when "Dapper Dave" Levin, the Brooklyn butcher boy, who started by slicing hams and ended by wrestling with them, lay at death's door on a hospital cot in a New York hospital.
Suffering from hemoletic streptococcus, which may sound like a new wrestling hold, but is actually blood poisoning in its most vious stage, his strength ebbing, his mind wandering, Levin looked up at his doctor through clouded feverish eyes and smiled bravely: "How long before I'll be wrestling, Doc?"
Death Sentence
"Pretty soon, son, pretty soon," reassured the doctor and then he tip-toed over to the corner of the room where he conferred in a whispered huddle with his associates.
"He won't last the day," he said gravely. The medicos, like four stern judges pronouning the death sentence, nodded grimly. It was all over but the burial.
But Levin, the corpse, clung to that bare thread of life with all the strength and tenacity of one of his wrestling grips.
He was delirious for weeks. He was given two blood transfusions. He was confined to his hospital like a prisoner for three months, livign on liquids. From a strapping giant of 195 pounds, the muscle and sinew fell away until he resembled a thin skeleton of a man of bones and bare flesh.
But he lived.
Bad Dream
And now, as Dave Levin looks back, much as he would some horrible, unreal nightmare, he says:
"I guess I just wasn't good enough to due just yet and join Gotch and all those other good wrestlers."
Levin, the handsome butcher boy, didn't hold the championship long enough to capitalize on it. He won it from Ali Baba in June, 1936, and lost it to Dean Detton in September of the same year. An innocent rope burn on the back of his left leg, which became infected, sent him to the hospital in January.
"You're a very sick boy," said the doctor. "Do you know anyone who would be suitable for a blood transfusion?"
"Sure," Dave said brightly. "Call up Jake Pfeffer's office at the Hippodrome. He'll get somebody."
Friends Report
That afternoon, ten burly, hulking creatures with strangely cauliflowered ears that revealed their trade as well as if they had presented a business card, reported to the hospital. "We're here for dat transmusion business," they grunted laconically.
Oddly enough, Bobby Bruns, whom Levin had wrestled in his last match, was selected for the blood-giving operation.
Almost fully recovered, training on the rings and exercising his way back to health, Levin expects to return to the mat within three months.
"Wrestling took my health and my money," he says. "It owes me something now."
But he's still too nice to be a wrestler.
Los Angeles Times
Dave Levin, Back from Dead, Returns to Mat Soon
By Jack Singer
They said he was too nice to be a wrestler.
That was when "Dapper Dave" Levin, the Brooklyn butcher boy, who started by slicing hams and ended by wrestling with them, lay at death's door on a hospital cot in a New York hospital.
Suffering from hemoletic streptococcus, which may sound like a new wrestling hold, but is actually blood poisoning in its most vious stage, his strength ebbing, his mind wandering, Levin looked up at his doctor through clouded feverish eyes and smiled bravely: "How long before I'll be wrestling, Doc?"
Death Sentence
"Pretty soon, son, pretty soon," reassured the doctor and then he tip-toed over to the corner of the room where he conferred in a whispered huddle with his associates.
"He won't last the day," he said gravely. The medicos, like four stern judges pronouning the death sentence, nodded grimly. It was all over but the burial.
But Levin, the corpse, clung to that bare thread of life with all the strength and tenacity of one of his wrestling grips.
He was delirious for weeks. He was given two blood transfusions. He was confined to his hospital like a prisoner for three months, livign on liquids. From a strapping giant of 195 pounds, the muscle and sinew fell away until he resembled a thin skeleton of a man of bones and bare flesh.
But he lived.
Bad Dream
And now, as Dave Levin looks back, much as he would some horrible, unreal nightmare, he says:
"I guess I just wasn't good enough to due just yet and join Gotch and all those other good wrestlers."
Levin, the handsome butcher boy, didn't hold the championship long enough to capitalize on it. He won it from Ali Baba in June, 1936, and lost it to Dean Detton in September of the same year. An innocent rope burn on the back of his left leg, which became infected, sent him to the hospital in January.
"You're a very sick boy," said the doctor. "Do you know anyone who would be suitable for a blood transfusion?"
"Sure," Dave said brightly. "Call up Jake Pfeffer's office at the Hippodrome. He'll get somebody."
Friends Report
That afternoon, ten burly, hulking creatures with strangely cauliflowered ears that revealed their trade as well as if they had presented a business card, reported to the hospital. "We're here for dat transmusion business," they grunted laconically.
Oddly enough, Bobby Bruns, whom Levin had wrestled in his last match, was selected for the blood-giving operation.
Almost fully recovered, training on the rings and exercising his way back to health, Levin expects to return to the mat within three months.
"Wrestling took my health and my money," he says. "It owes me something now."
But he's still too nice to be a wrestler.