\u201cThe year that broke Daniel Makabe\u201d reached its final stop (insert some big ol\u2019 asterisks here!) at the main event of this year\u2019s SCI.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This was Daniel Makabe\u2019s retirement match*, with the self-admitted asterisk being that a match with Bryan Danielson would warrant a one-night-only comeback. It\u2019s the end of a retirement tour that took in matches with the likes of Zack Sabre Jr., Skayde, and Timothy Thacher, and an outing that ended up being more poignant than anyone could have expected going in.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re at the TWE Arena in Red Bank, Tennessee\u2026 commentary on IndependentWrestling.tv for this comes from Dylan Hales & John Mosley.<\/p>\n
Kevin Ku vs. Daniel Makabe<\/strong> We open with a handshake and a hug between the two as the feeling-out process saw them trade wristlocks, headlocks and escapes. Ku breaks via the ropes early on, but got caught with headscissors as he was forced to scoot his way to freedom, returning with a hammerlock\u2019d armbar as he looked to pop out Makabe\u2019s arm. Escaping, we\u2019ve got duelling heel hooks, which Ku kicked away from as we promptly broke into the striking portion of the match.<\/p>\n Shoves quickly escalated as a Big Unit punch knocked Ku on his rear end, but Makabe\u2019s caught and needs the ropes as Ku went right back to that Fujiwara armbar. Staying on it, Ku kicks out the arm and made that his target, stomping the wrist into the mat en route to a two-count, ahead of a sickening volley to the back.<\/p>\n Uppercuts follow to the arm as a Courting hold had Makabe down to a knee, only for him to escape and roll Ku down swiftly into a STF, switching positions to put himself between Ku and the ropes. Despite that, the hold\u2019s quickly broken, with Ku going back to the left arm and shoulder with kicks and chops. It\u2019s a bold strategy, and one that forced Makabe into the corner for respite.<\/p>\n Headbutting the wrist keeps Ku ahead as chops kept Makabe on a knee, only for him to duck under and hit an enziguiri en route to a Saito suplex for a two-count. Straight from the kick-out, Makabe\u2019s on Ku\u2019s arm, using his legs to help pin them behind Ku\u2019s back as the ropes came back into play, before the pair seemingly teased Makabe Locks.<\/p>\n Of course, it\u2019s Makabe who got his eponymous hold on first, but Ku\u2019s not weakened down enough and was able to slither back into the ropes for a break. Heading outside, Ku\u2019s unable to avoid a tope from Makabe, who came down hard on the floor and\u2026 oh my God, the blood. Within seconds, the red stuff\u2019s made a mark on the TWE Arena\u2019s floor, as Mose on commentary put it best. He was leaking. The proverbial crimson mask. A shot at the Muta scale.<\/p>\n Both men make it back inside, but the Tennessee crowd\u2019s firmly on Makabe\u2019s side as he and Ku trade shots, leading to a slap and virtually a cradle DDT from Ku for a near-fall. A roll-up from Makabe gets a two-count, but Ku\u2019s wise to the Makabe Lock at this point, evading it before scoring a PK as Makabe went for a forward roll – a maneuver he\u2019s used previously to set up for the Makabe Lock.<\/p>\n A cradle piledriver\u2019s next from Ku for a near-fall as the red stuff continued to pour\u2026 not helped by a Cobra twist that Makabe reversed, then switched up into a manjigatame. Strikes have Ku in the ropes ahead of a DEAN~~~~! Death Valley Driver that almost took home the win. Staying on Ku with a toe hold, Makabe\u2019s pushed off into the corner then rolled up\u2026 before a sheer-drop brainbuster almost got Ku the win, with only the ropes saving Makabe at the last second.<\/p>\n More kicks from Ku are caught as Makabe switched up into a leg-trapped German suplex. A follow-up from there ends as Ku crumpled to the mat, only to get pulled to his knees for another exchange of chops, ending with Makabe repeatedly stomping Ku\u2019s elbow into the mat. From there, we\u2019re getting some Garvin-ish stomps\u2026 before Ku was pulled up to a knee for one last Big Unit punch, and that\u2026 was that. Bloodied, beaten up, bruised\u2026 but Daniel Makabe went out on top.<\/p>\n Result: Daniel Makabe pinned Kevin Ku in 17:45 (****)<\/span><\/p>\n Post-match, Makabe got the pic for a farewell speech, which unfortunately was all but cannibalised by the audio production. During the speech, Makabe brought up how the day after this match was to have been the birthday of his friend Scott Henson, who sadly passed the day after they\u2019d met in a tag match about a month ago.<\/p>\n Part of the speech that did do the rounds was what I mentioned at the top of the review – that Makabe would never have another wrestling match, nor would he lace up his boots\u2026 unless it was to come out of retirement and face Bryan Danielson\u2026 and that match isn\u2019t entirely out of the realms of possibility, if you take Danielson\u2019s recent interviews at face value. For now though, this is it for Makabe. There\u2019s one more match in the can – a mystery bout taped at Vancouver\u2019s Lions Gate Dojo – which of course I\u2019ll be taking a look at once that drops.<\/p>\n I guess this is the bit where I get all selfish, huh? Daniel Makabe was my favourite active wrestler – spurred on by that Timothy Thatcher series and a lot of ad hoc watching, as he played to the style of wrestling I\u2019ve always adored. Flash forward to the autumn of 2019, months after winning that year\u2019s SCI and a run in wXw\u2019s Ambition tournament in Toronto (going out in the semis to Timothy Thatcher), Makabe was announced for a tour of Europe. It\u2019d be another shot at the Ambition tournament, taking part in a Wildcard edition of the tournament\u2026 but first, a match at Inner Circle at the old wXw Wrestling Academy in Essen.<\/p>\n In the run-up to the tour, we\u2019d been chatting, mostly about football\u2026 which led to my managing to get a hold of a shirt for him. A personalised Sunderland shirt, adding to his ever-growing collection (at a time when they were about to have a documentary series on Netflix.) Never did I expect him to wear it in Germany, especially since the next day he was heading over to Brighton to do a couple of shows for Riptide\u2026 one I dove on when it dropped (a rounds match with Jordon Breaks), the other\u2026 a tag match with Chris Brookes against Rob Lias and Mad Kurt.<\/p>\n So you can probably imagine my surprise on the media balcony in Oberhausen, on Ambition Sunday, first round match against James Runyan, off comes the hoodie\u2026 and the familiar red and white stripes are there! Quickly followed by a loud boo from the Newcastle United supporting Martin Dean. North East football rivalries found their way to the Ruhrpott, via unexpected proxies!<\/p>\n As would be the way for Dan, there\u2019d be a parade of football shirts throughout his wXw tournament runs. The Chelsea shirt didn\u2019t exactly go down well either, while the Belgium top was neutral enough to not get hecklers\u2026 although the manner of the loss to A-Kid in that Ambition Wildcard generated playful needling from some quarters!<\/p>\n A speedy return to Germany in 2020 saw Makabe lift the Ambition trophy, capped off in a crowd-pleasing Ireland shirt, with victory over Chris Ridgeway coming hours after going out in the first round of 16 Carat Gold to Eddie Kingston, and just a day after teaming up with Ridgeway to take on Yuki Ishikawa and Daisuek Ikeda in Essen. Pre-pandemic, the European scene was quite heady, hey?<\/p>\n For a career that was largely based in the Pacific North West, Daniel Makabe\u2019s career sure took some wild turns, spurred on by a series with Timothy Thatcher. A career that could easily have remained in the Seattle area ended up being found by \u201csickos\u201d – and generating even more matches for that special section of the fanbase that appreciated every single second. And some matches that are still yet to see the light of day (PCW, we’re staring holes through you!)<\/p>\n Until Bryan picks up the phone, there’s nothing else to say other than: thank you, Daniel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cThe year that broke Daniel Makabe\u201d reached its final stop (insert some big ol\u2019 asterisks here!) at the main event of this year\u2019s SCI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":27968,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Match Review: Kevin Ku vs. Daniel Makabe (Scenic City Invitational 2024 - Night One, July 12, 2024) #SCI2024","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[692,6,689],"tags":[4174,3531,4045,4640,6950],"class_list":["post-27969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-random-reviews","category-reviews","category-us-indies","tag-daniel-makabe","tag-kevin-ku","tag-match-review","tag-scenic-city-invitational","tag-scenic-city-invitational-2024"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p73vbt-7h7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/backbodydrop.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/sci-sci2024-makabeku.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/backbodydrop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/backbodydrop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/backbodydrop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backbodydrop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backbodydrop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27969"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/backbodydrop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27972,"href":"https:\/\/backbodydrop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27969\/revisions\/27972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backbodydrop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/backbodydrop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backbodydrop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backbodydrop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nIt\u2019s happenstance that this took place on the tenth anniversary of Ku\u2019s first match in wrestling\u2026 and for those who look to the past, we\u2019ve got one prior singles meeting here, back in January 2020 as part of Southern Underground Pro\u2019s \u201cStay Cold.\u201d We covered it back then and let\u2019s just say parts of that review didn\u2019t age well. I mean, it\u2019s not every year a pandemic shuts down the world\u2026<\/p>\n