He was a man who walked between two worlds — not heaven and hell, but babyface and madman. One night, he’d be the square-jawed hero, a lighthouse in the storm of villains. The next, he’d emerge from the shadows with his face painted like a nightmare, twitching and snarling, answering to names like “Purple Haze” or “Maniac Mark Lewin.” Wrestling never knew quite what to do with him. And maybe that’s the point.
Mark Lewin was born March 16, 1937, in Buffalo, New York — one of three wrestling Lewin brothers, though he was the only one with a soul that seemed torn in two. If his brothers Donn and Ted were hammers in the ring, Lewin was a scalpel — slicing through expectations and bleeding charisma.
He debuted in 1953, just 16 years old, trained by his brother-in-law Danny McShain, who was built like a prison guard and had the temperament of a junkyard dog. Lewin was thrown into the business like a stray cat into a bar fight — no time to find your legs, just keep swinging or get swallowed.
At first, Lewin looked like wrestling’s next matinee idol. He was tall, chiseled, with the kind of 1950s hair that looked like it was combed with a switchblade. Alongside Don Curtis, he became part of a squeaky-clean tag team that filled houses from Chicago to the Garden. Women screamed, kids saluted, and promoters cashed checks.
Then he cracked.
Maybe it was the grind. Maybe it was the booze, the bruises, or just something twisted in his marrow. But Lewin began experimenting with a darker persona. In 1963, the smiling poster boy grew fangs. “Maniac Mark Lewin” was born — and wrestling got weirder, better, and a hell of a lot scarier.
He didn’t just flip a switch — he shattered the fuse box. This wasn’t a heel turn; it was a transformation. Eyes wide and vacant, arms twitching like a seismograph during a tremor, Lewin looked like a man possessed by ten bad dreams and a bottle of mescal. He screamed in tongues, bit ropes, and seemed to bleed from his pores. He didn’t wrestle you — he exorcised you.
He was the Purple Haze before Hendrix picked up a guitar. And when the ’80s came knocking — with cocaine in one hand and kayfabe in the other — Lewin was right there in the mix, summoned into Kevin Sullivan’s Satanic Circus in Florida. He wasn’t the ringleader, but he was the monster in the cage — a primordial thing who walked barefoot, screamed at the moon, and choked babyfaces like they owed him money.
Before that, he roamed Australia and New Zealand like some barefoot prophet of pain. He and King Curtis Iaukea became a tag team that made Aussie fans chant and shiver in equal parts. They were two wild men — all bone, blood, and ceremony — stomping through promotions like tribal warriors in a concrete jungle.
Lewin made it to wrestling’s first Pay-Per-View, Starrcade 1983, where he and Sullivan beat the stuffing out of Scott McGhee and Johnny Weaver. It wasn’t pretty — it was theater in a war zone. Lewin wasn’t built for polished storytelling or flippy-do acrobatics. He was the unscripted horror scene at the center of a soap opera. The moment you stopped laughing and started checking the exits.
Some fans never knew what to make of him. He didn’t fit the mold — he melted it down and smeared it across his chest. He wasn’t The Sheik, but he feuded with him in Detroit and matched him scream for scream. He wasn’t Terry Funk, but he carried the same kind of fever in his blood. You didn’t wrestle Lewin. You survived him.
Through the ‘60s and ‘70s, Lewin also worked in Vancouver, where he put the Pacific Coast title around his waist — twice — and tangled with legends like Gene Kiniski and Bulldog Bob Brown. He wore belts, sure. But belts never really mattered to Lewin. They looked good on the posters. But he didn’t need gold to be dangerous — just a ring, a spotlight, and a little gasoline.
He was a journeyman and a wild card, a wrestler’s wrestler who was never quite at home anywhere — probably because he lived best in chaos. He wasn’t about money or fame. He was about electricity. Some men want legacy. Lewin just wanted to make you believe.
And despite it all — despite the purple face paint and barefoot promos and rants that sounded like transmissions from another galaxy — Lewin could wrestle. He could work the mat, sell with finesse, and lock you in a headlock that felt like your childhood trauma. For every freak-out, there was finesse. For every spasm, there was a sequence. He was a contradiction in boots. When he had them on.
He wrestled for everyone — Big Time Wrestling, World Class, Maple Leaf, Florida. If there was a ring, Lewin stepped into it. And usually bled in it. Or made someone else bleed.
His resume is a hall of fame highlight reel dipped in LSD:
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U.S. Tag Team Champion (Northeast) with Don Curtis.
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Multiple reigns with the NWA Brass Knuckles Championship in Texas — because of course he had the brass knucks belt.
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Two-time IWA World Heavyweight Champ in Australia.
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And if you were dumb enough to challenge him in Florida during his Purple Haze years, you probably woke up in a puddle wondering why your kneecaps were whispering.
He booked shows in Australia. He wrestled in Singapore, New Zealand, Guam, Puerto Rico — a global wildman who walked the Earth like Kane in Kung Fu, if Kane had done mushrooms in a graveyard.
He retired in 1988. Kind of. Because in 2003, like some elder horror from a Lovecraft paperback, he emerged again, working with Eddie Jr. and Thomas Farhat to start up All World Wrestling League/Big Time Wrestling. Like a junkie returning to the needle, Lewin couldn’t stay away. Wrestling was his sickness. And his sanctuary.
In 2009, he was inducted into the Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame with Don Curtis. In 2017, he made the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame. Long overdue. Because while others played the role, Lewin was the role — bleeding authenticity in a sea of cardboard cutouts.
Now in his late 80s, Lewin isn’t remembered the way Hogan or Flair is. He didn’t headline WrestleMania or star in Saturday morning cartoons. He was never polished. But he didn’t need polish. He was rawhide and nerve endings, a fever dream in the flesh.
Mark Lewin wasn’t here to be your hero. He was here to be your haunting. And some nights, when the lights are low and the promos echo just right, you can still hear him in the distance — snarling through the purple haze.
