2019 was a fun year for me as a fan. I had decided to dive further into Independent Wrestling at the time and started to discover a lot of talent that I still admire to this day. One of the first wrestlers that I really latched onto was the winner of that year’s Scenic City Invitational: Daniel Makabe. On the surface, he may look like someone who you’d see frequenting your local cafe or flipping through rows of vinyl at a hole in the wall record shop. But once the bell rings and Daniel gets down to the mat, he is a technical master. To draw a comparison, I’d have to go outside of the bounds of pro wrestling and into the music world. Daniel reminds me of the late musician and producer Steve Albini. Makabe is someone who may not have the recognition of other grapplers in his field (New Japan’s Zach Sabre Jr. or AEW’s Daniel Garcia for example). But what he does have is a vast body of work with many well known and loved talents (AEW’s Eddie Kingston & Billie Starkz, Timothy Thatcher, and the aforementioned Zack Sabre Jr.).
Daniel Makabe got his start years ago in the world of Backyard Wrestling. A venue where other fan favorites, like New Japan’s Alex Zayne, and former Ring of Honor Television Champion Tony Deppen also got started. Delving into Makabe’s backyard past, you’ll find that he wasn’t always the technician that he presents himself as in the modern day.
When I was a backyard wrestler, I honestly had little to no desire to become a pro wrestler because I didn’t see a world where I would fit in/be given a platform to accomplish anything… But if you told 19 year old me, starting out at wrestling school about all of the things I would accomplish from 2017 onwards – I don’t think he would be able to comprehend the good majority of it.
Fast forward twenty years later, and after turning pro, Daniel Makabe is approaching the end of his wrestling career. The news broke during 2022’s Scenic City Invitational, where Daniel had announced that he was wrestling on limited time in the ring. With the walk down the road of retirement ahead, one begins to think of all that they’ve done and accomplished in their career.
…getting to meet & wrestle so many legends in this sport and being able to consider them my peers. Literal legends of various forms of mat wrestling – Yuki Ishikawa, Daisuke Ikeda, Negro Navarro, Skayde; Plus entirely too many other [fantastic] mat technicians to try and list. Not only getting to learn and work with them, but being mentioned with somewhat regularity by fans as being considered amongst them/the best in the world at the style never ceases to humble me.
Post pandemic I’ve had so many ups & down, the most impactful being a debilitating back injury flaring back up in the summer of 2022 that [rightfully] should have ended my career then & there. I’m forever thankful that I’ve been able to rehab enough (and have a patient enough wife) to make it this far and check off a couple of goals I had – to wrestle past my 20 year anniversary (Nov 2023) and to wrestle into my 40s (April 2024).
Amid all the retirement hype came a headline out of left field from a surprising source. While talking about Prestige Wrestling in an interview, All Elite Wrestling star “The American Dragon” Bryan Danielson directly mentioned Makabe as someone who’d be a “cool one” to wrestle. Surely for any wrestler it would be considered a high honor to receive such a compliment from undoubtedly one of the best wrestlers of the modern era.
That was something that caught me off guard big time, but was a really neat moment nonetheless. It was even wilder that I was sitting in the stands at a live AEW Collision show in Vancouver as it was happening, with my phone blowing up from various messages and people I knew in the crowd mentioning it to me. The only real disappointment that day was I had hoped to get to meet him backstage and thank him for the nod. And I guess since you asked me outright, I’ll officially put this in writing (as I’ve already told friends/people close to me) – wrestling Bryan Danielson is the only exception I will ever make to being retired as a pro wrestler, as of July 12th, 2024.
Over the course of the past few years, the Canadian Independent Wrestling scene has become much more visible to fans outside the country, and has become a scene fans should be watching. And Daniel himself has gotten to witness this evolution of the Canadian Independent scene firsthand over the course of his twenty years in wrestling.
The biggest change nowadays is there’s actually something resembling a “Canadian indie scene.” Prior to the last few years, it was a lot of smaller scenes existing independent of one another, mostly due to geography but also technology or lack thereof (social media, streaming, etc). Now more than ever, you’re seeing wrestlers from across the country being brought in to other Provinces to go up against the best those regions have to offer and in some cases, becoming regulars/champions in parts of the country they don’t even live in which almost never happened before 2020. Any kind of “Best in Canada” list from back in the day would have been mostly fantasy booking – now we’re actually getting to see the best of the best from across this country share rings together and that’s incredibly cool to me.
Of course, there is the end of the line; the coupe de grâce on this tour: The 2024 Scenic City Invitational. It’s a tournament Daniel has reached the Finals in twice before; and as I mentioned in the opening, a tournament he has won. This time around, he won’t be fighting for the SCI Trophy; instead, he will be fighting his last ever match. His opponent is one half of the best Tag Team in Independent Wrestling, and one hell of a singles competitor in his own right: Kevin Ku. This will be the second time ever these two have locked horns in a one-on-one contest; with the first being both my personal pick for Match of the Year for 2020, and one of my all time favorites.
After I missed out on SCI last year (the first tournament I had not been a part of since 2018), it became apparent to me how important that weekend was to me and how it made a world of sense to finish my career there.
[Kevin Ku is] one of my closest personal friends that I’ve made in the last decade of independent wrestling (ie since I started taking it seriously again). SUP was also the first promotion outside of the PNW to ever book me (in the fall of 2018) and I have a very strong bond to that promotion/scene & those people. I also love our first match with one another from Jan 2020 and think he’s improved exponentially since then and love the idea of building & improving upon what we did back then, 4+ years ago.
It’s my final professional wrestling match ever – I kind of feel like I have a blank canvas & endless palette in front of me. Of course I’m going to try and out wrestle him, but I’m also going to try and go toe to toe with him with strikes, big suplexes, etc. I’m going to wrestle him like I’ve never wrestled anyone before and at the same time, wrestle him like I’ve wrestled everyone before.
Of course, in interviewing Daniel once again, I couldn’t help myself in bringing up the topic of music. Any follower of Makabe’s Twitter will know that he throws out a seemingly endless stream of musical recommendations; from the known to the obscure. Hell, one of my favorite Hardcore bands: Mindforce came as a recommendation directly from the man himself. I had to indulge and ask what he’s listening to at the moment.
Claire Rousay is an ambient artist, I believe originally from Texas but now residing in California. I first was introduced to her by her 2021 LP “A Soft Focus” and it was easily one of my favourite releases that year. Earlier this year she released “sentiment” which mixes ambient guitars, synths & strings with found sound and distorted vocals; it truly sounds like nothing else I’ve ever heard. I also got to see her live in Seattle a few months ago and it was one of the most unique & truly inspiring live performances that I’ve seen in quite some time.
In the end, most wrestlers look to cement themselves in both the memories of fans and the sport. Some hope to be remembered for the accolades they stacked up while still competing in the ring. Other wrestlers look to let their athleticism speak for them; leaving behind years of exciting and memorable matches. Daniel Makabe, hopes to be remembered for something more humble:
Being myself. And hopefully inspiring others to do the same.
We at Top Rope Writing wish to thank Daniel Makabe for his time wrestling for our entertainment, and wish him luck as he makes his exit from the wrestling world. Again, Daniel’s final Professional Wrestling match will go down on Night 1 of the 2024 Scenic City Invitational on July 12th. You can follow Daniel Makabe on Twitter as he approaches his last chapter in Professional Wrestling.
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