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Professional wrestling has never been short of colourful characters and just the wonderful name of Izzy Van Dutz was enough to make him one of the most colourful. The dramatic resurgence of professional wrestling in the 1930s left promoters with a major headache, where to find sufficient wrestlers to meet demand. Their solution, and one replicated thirty years later by Paul Lincoln, was to make use of a combination of evergreen professionals who had made a name for themselves twenty years earlier, import aged or inexperience or overseas wrestlers and develop local talent of mixed ability, often creating colourful personalities for a bit of added attraction.
Izzy Van Dutz falls into the latter category. Izzy was billed as a Dutch champion, but although he may have had Dutch ancestry he only needed to open his mouth to confirm he was London through and through.
Eddie Rose told us: “In November 1963, I wrote an article for The Wrestler magazine about the history of the King’s Hall at Belle Vue, “The Greatest Tradition in Wrestling”. I had access to the archives at Belle Vue and interviewed Wright Mallinson, the time keeper at the King’s Hall for over thirty years at that time. One of his best memories was of Izzy van Dutz, a top attraction, and whose catch-phrase “How d’ya like-a-that?” to a hapless opponent usually brought the house down. Sounds as if he was a precursor of Leon Arras with his ‘How about that then, referee?’ “
Izzy was one of the many Atholl Oakeley creations. He was a top of the bill worker for Oakeley in the 1930s, though we’ve never heard anyone say that he was a top wrestler. The man had bags of personality, and in the wrestling business we all know how important that is. Oakeley was a master at creating larger than life personalities with legendary stories to support their persona. In 1936, at the start of the Spanish Civil War posters even proclaimed that Izzy had “Just escaped from Spain,” which we find rather suspect as he had been wrestling the best in Britain in Britain for the previous four years. On another occasion it was claimed that he had visited America but had to leave after three matches because “The Yanks refused to fight him.”
Izzy appeared on the British wrestling scene in 1932. He started out as an Oakeley man, opposing other Oakeley regulars like Carver Doone, Norman the Butcher and Oakeley himself. As a crowd pleaser his services were taken up by other promoters and he worked throughout Britain during the 1930s. We can find no evidence of him working overseas.
During his career the dastardly Izzy wrestled every big name of the period from Athol Oakeley to World Champion Jack Sherry and Golden Boy Mike Marino. Indeed, Oakeley said it was Izzy Van Dutz that finally ended his career, through a shoulder injury. Most definitely rooted in the pre war years Izzy’s career continued post war and our final recorded appearance is 1952, at Bury St Edmunds against Don Stedman.
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