Messenger - Vol. 1, No. 1, Page 19
Fall 1991
Alumni Profile; Doing well by being bad

     Pro wrestler Scotty "The Body" Levy, Delaware '87, does not count
modesty among his many virtues.
     "Perfection personified--that's the cross I bear," he says,
grinning. "I'm probably the most popular, unpopular guy you'll ever
see. Women just love me, and their boyfriends hate it."
     The former heavyweight champion of the Pacific Northwest (PNW)
Wrestling Federation, Levy moved to Atlanta a few months ago to join
the Georgia All-Star wrestling team. But as recently as the spring
issue of Wrestling '91 magazine, he was rated fifth in the PNW region.
"Scotty the Body," the magazine notes, "has been a PNW force for
several years. Scotty, a fan favorite, recently started bringing a
loaded boot to the ring for his matches against The Grappler. In our
book, Scotty is simply a rulebreaker supported by the fans."
     "During the whole time I was the heavyweight champion, I fought a
lot of big stars--Billy Jack Ames, Rip Oliver, The Crippler, The
Grappler. I defeated them all and kept my title. Then I lost to some
schmoe named Curtis Thompson. I didn't really lose it, though. He
cheated. He didn't beat me; he pulled my tights off--something I would
never resort to. That ain't my style.
     "I was the heavyweight champion for six months, which is the
longest anyone's had it continuously in five or 10 years," Levy says.
"Then, I became the television champion."
     Besides wrestling five to seven times a week, Levy also co-hosted
a television wrestling show in Portland, Ore., on Saturday nights. "It
was the highest-rated show in its time slot, and that's basically
attributable to me," he says. "The minute I started co-hosting, it
became the highest-rated show and it never slipped a point in the
ratings."
     Along with co-hosting wrestling on television, Levy  parlayed his
celebrity status in Portland into a sideline as a spokesperson for
local advertisers.
     "I did one for a mobile home dealer that was a good commercial,"
Levy says. "At the end, I throw some mealymouthed competitor through a
door. Then I look at the camera and say, 'If you buy one of our mobile
homes, I won't pile-drive your dog and I won't date your daughter.' A
lot of parents are scared of that," he says, laughing. "My commercial
got more response than any commercial ever aired on that station. It's
all true."
     Although he won two Florida state wrestling championships in high
school, Levy didn't wrestle as an undergraduate at Delaware. Instead
he concentrated on body building--winning major body-building titles
in Florida and New Jersey--while studying criminal justice at the
University. During his summers off, Levy worked as a Chippendale's
go-go dancer in New York.
     "I thought about becoming a private investigator or working for
the FBI, DEA or maybe even the CIA down the line," Levy says. "But I
was recruited to become a professional wrestler by Larry Sharpe at the
Monster Factory in New Jersey. He saw me and thought I had a lot of
potential, so we talked, and I forsook my criminal justice career for
a life of pain, agony and the blues. Luckily, there's a lot more money
than pain or agony."
     Levy says the next logical step in his career is to move from
regional competition into one of the national wrestling circuits--the
National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) or the World Wrestling Federation
(WWF).
     "I've done everything there is to do in wrestling, except for
(winning titles in) the NWA and the WWF," Levy says. "No one has done
what I've done in just two years in professional wrestling." And he'll
get to the top of the wrestling heap, he says, without cleaning up his
act.
     "Sure, I'm considered a bad guy," Levy acknowledges. "But it's
more jealousy than anything. I'm rich, I'm good-looking and I'm built.
It's a combination that's hard for people to like. Everybody wants to
be like me."