I'm listening to Your Old Droog as I stare at the block of text transcribed from my recent interview with The Wrestling Genius, Daniel Makabe. There's nothing particularly similar about them – Makabe is from the west coast of Canada, listens to and plays hardcore music, presumably doesn't wear a fancy gold watch and, most importantly to me, wrestles; Droog is from the east coast of the US, wears a fancy gold watch and most importantly to me, raps. They are worlds apart. But there's a through line between both of their outputs. They both create work – Makabe wrestling and Droog rapping – that speaks to a certain kind of fan. You might have to dig a bit and let their work breathe to get the most of it, but when you find the vein, it gets into you deep. That's not to say their stuff can't be enjoyed by a casual passerby, but they're both clearly Students of the Game, and as such their shit speaks to a certain kind of dedicated fan. They create for themselves – and if you like it, that's cool, join the party; there's a trove of treasures awaiting you. And if not, shut up and keep on moving. (Also, I've tried to get my brother, who likes wrestling and hip-hop, into both with less success than I would like.)

There's a reason I gravitated towards Makabe when I got properly into independent wrestling – and after talking to him, I'm pretty sure it's the thing I just mentioned. We might be deep into different kinds of music, but Makabe is a nerd like me and obviously, the vibe can be summed up with something from his music fandom. “Blake from Jawbreaker, in one of the years when he wasn't doing Jawbreaker and was swearing that there would never be a Jawbreaker reunion, did a band called Forgetters. They did a 7-inch and they did an LP, it came out in the early 2010s. The LP's okay, the 7-inch is really good though. The 7-inch has a song called “Too Small To Fail” and I always used that as a personal mantra and also as a business model or whatever,” says Makabe during our long-winding phone conversation. “I've never wanted to be a TV wrestler. I've never wanted to have a contract. I never really wanted this to be my job. I think it would take the fun out of it. And first and foremost, this is art for me.” Amen, brother.

“I don't love when people are like 'Pro wrestling is an art.' It is, but it's also sport. It's a weird hybrid of both. For me it's a very physical release and form of art. I wrestle primarily for myself. I want people to like my matches and I want the people who appreciate my style of wrestling to like the matches, but I wanna like my matches first and foremost. And I've never wanted to get to the point where I'm too big and I get a bunch of unwanted attention from those who aren't going to appreciate what I do, are gonna poke holes in things without getting the big picture. ‘Too Small to Fail’ has just always felt appropriate for me.” It's an ethos that has served Makabe well. His immense wrestling talents have taken him around the world since he first stepped into a homemade wrestling ring more than 20 years ago, never compromising his style.

Currently Makabe is on his retirement run – a run that is set to end early this summer, dubbed “2024: The Year Daniel Makabe Broke” – and the wrestling world he finds himself leaving is much different that one he entered. “I had my first pro match in 2003, but I had three pro matches and said, 'Pro wrestling sucks,'” recalls Makabe of those early days as an official professional wrestler. “Dude, it's so much cooler now. The fans are cooler. The people who run the shows are cooler. Everything is so much more inclusive. Like, I'm not a body guy, right? I just look like a nerdy indie-rock guy because that's what I am. But in 2003 they were like, 'This guy doesn't look like a wrestler. Fuck him.'” But this is 2024 and wrestling is a world where Daniel Makabe is more than welcome, as evidenced by the reception to many of this final string of matches, including an absolute clinic against legendary ring technician Zack Sabre Jr. for Prestige Wrestling this past April. “There's a lot of Zack Sabre Jr. fans who don't necessarily know me or have never given me a shot and I've seen a lot of them online being like, 'How have I never heard of this guy before? He went at with Sabre and had a kick-ass match.' So, I'm still making new fans along the way; and I'm still getting new haters along the way, but that's okay, there's less of those.”

The good folks of Prestige Wrestling have uploaded Makabe/Sabre Jr for the masses to enjoy! Watch it if you haven’t. This is can’t-miss graps.

On Saturday, June 1, Makabe's retirement run continues in Victoria, BC when he steps back into the ring at 365 Pro Wrestling with one of the hottest young wrestlers in the game today, Judas Icarus. It's a match rich with history and one that I personally campaigned to make happen. *pats self heartily on back* “It's a bookend, because my first match ever in Victoria was against Judas Icarus in May of 2019. It was at the Edelweiss Hall. There was maybe 40 people there. We had a kick-ass match and maybe 5 people appreciated how good it was,” laughs Makabe. “I wanted to have one last match with him regardless, because I’ve wrestled him three times now – once in Victoria, once in Seattle and once in Richmond. They’ve all been very good matches. They’ve all been different. He’s so good. It’s been two and half years since I wrestled him and he’s only gotten better. I like him personally as a human being too. It's fitting. He’s from the Island originally too so it’s got that connection to Vancouver Island, a connection to my first match ever in the city and it’s someone who I’ve had great matches with that I’m hoping to have one more great match with before I’m done.” On a card with a lot of great wrestling on it, Daniel Makabe vs Judas Icarus will be worth the price of the ticket alone for those that see it live.

If you have a chance to see Makabe in the ring before the summer is over, I highly suggest you take it. (Twitter is my favourite way to keep up with the matches of Daniel Makabe.) Makabe has his foot on the gas and is leaving everything in the ring over the next two months. “There's a documentary called 1991: The Year That Punk Broke about a tour that Sonic Youth, Nirvana and Dinosaur Jr did together of these festivals all across Europe. It's the summer before Nevermind comes out out in September of '91, after this series of shows. – I'm sure there's people who are like 'Eeeeh, Nirvana's not punk.' Nirvana is punk obviously, people. So is Sonic Youth and so is Dinosaur Jr. – Obviously punk had been flirting with the mainstream for the 15 prior years since '76 punk, but 1991 all of a sudden punk is the biggest thing in the world because of Nirvana. So 2024: The Year That Daniel Makabe Broke is not about me breaking out into the masses. It's about me literally breaking, physically breaking. Doing this as hard as I can, as best I can, while I still can. And if that means, much to my wife's chagrin, that I'm a mess for a little bit afterwards, that's what it's going to be.” Makabe is emphatic. “Because I need these matches to just kick ass, for me. I don't really care about you. I don't care if the fans like it, I need these to kick ass for my own benefit so I can look back and say that 2024 is one of the best years of wrestling that I ever had.” And when an artist is totally focused on what they need and not their audiences, that's when they often make their best stuff. Makabe is making some of his best stuff right now and I'm grateful for his time in allowing me to document just a little bit of it all. Also, he gave me one of the best rounds of the 5 Questions I've had in a long time. So let's get to it!

(*Editors note – This interview was massive and there WILL BE a part 2 soon. Eyes open.)

Doing something sinister to Arty Spence’s legs.

1. What's the first album you remember buying with your own money?
This is embarrassing. My first favourite band when I was 9 years old was Aerosmith. I loved Aerosmith. I saw at a Sam the Record Man – which we didn’t have many of, that’s more of an east coast chain – I didn’t go there a ton because I was an A&B Sound kind of guy. There are 600 CDs I’m looking at up there and you can thank A&B Sound for a good majority of them. I saw a cardboard cutout the then-new Aerosmith Get A Grip record, which had the cow with the pierced utter and the Aerosmith logo branded on it. And I thought that was the most punk rock thing ever as a 9 year old. In hindsight, yeah it’s really corny and cheesy and Aerosmith are a little problematic but I still love a lot of their music. Probably if you go through all of my albums – maybe if you count vinyl I have bands that I have deeper discographies of – but if we’re just talking CDs the band that I have the most albums of is definitely Aerosmith. They were all purchased by the time I was like 10 years old. I have not bought a new Aerosmith CD in 30 years. <laughs>

2. If you could spend the day with anyone live or dead, who would it be and what would you do?
One of my favourite guitar players ever and who for a period was really trying to mimic his style, which inadvertently led me to playing with the collective of people I play with now in bands, because I told them I wanted to a band that sounded like Botch. Which, good luck doing a band that sounds like Botch, ‘cause no one is as good a guitar player as Dave Knudson, who also plays in Minus the Bear. He’s one of the most unique guitar players on Earth, using both hands to touch but not in an Eddie Van Halen kinda way. He’s doing all these polyrhythms, but also finds a way to have actual heavy riffs mixed in there too. Botch were a hardcore band from Tacoma that were around in the 90’s/early 2000’s. They broke up in 2002 and subsequently got back together in 2023. I was at their third show back. They are playing their final show in June, I got tickets for it. One of my favourite bands ever that I never thought I would get to see because they broke up before I got to see them and then they weren’t a band for over 20 years. They got back together and they were amazing. I really like the first four Minus the Bear records as well. And he seems like a genuine, nice guy too. I think he had issues with alcohol abuse that he's kicked and has been clean for a long time. I’m someone who came from a family that had alcohol abuse issues. I’ve been straight-edge for 22 years, which makes it sound like I had alcohol abuse issues, I did not. <laughs> I had a parent who did. I can really appreciate that. He’s just such an inspiration to me as a guitar player and he’s a big Seattle Mariners fan, which I am as well. So yeah, there’s my answer. Dave Knudson from Botch and Minus the Bear.

3. When’s the last time you did something for the first time?
Oh god. That’s an interesting question. I’m getting married on May 18, but I’m technically already married. We got married in January because she’s American and we’re working on the immigration process for her to come to Canada, so we decided to get a head start on it and not wait for the actual wedding. The application process is awful, don’t ever get married to someone from not this country <laughs> because it’s not fun. We probably aren’t going to formally file our application until well after our May wedding. The January wedding was kind of in vain, but yeah, I got married for the first time in January and hopefully last. So far things are really nice. I was never married to the idea of marriage as a young person. “I could get married, I guess. I could have children, I guess.” Now it’s like “I can definitely get married, I’m definitely not having children.” She feels the same way, so that’s good. And being married is just nice. It’s nice – and not in a subservient way, a derogatory or antiquated way – but it’s nice to be like, “I have a wife.” “Hello, my wife.” But is it possible to have a conversation or refer to her as my wife without her coming back at me with the stupid Borat quote? No. It’s not possible. <laughs> He kind of ruined wives for everyone.

Daniel Makabe is known to have an intense hatred for the arms of his opponents.

4. What’s the last thing that made you cry, happy or sad tears?
I cry all the time. How open do I want to be with you right now…I cry about the future. I cry about the unknown. I cry about death. I cry about the thought of not being with my wife at some point because one of us will die before the other one. I cried yesterday in the grocery store. I’m crying right now as I answer this question.

5. I went and had a look at some of the opponents you've had over the few years and picked a few that jumped out to me. Just give me your first thoughts when you hear their name.
Hoodfoot – Hoodfoot's the man. That match is awesome, I love that match. That ended up being my last match in Nashville for a promotion called Southern Underground Pro (SUP) that was the first promotion outside the Northwest to ever book me. They brought me down for a show in 2018. That community, that scene, the Southeast in general, but SUP had such an awesome vibe. Wrestling Hoodfoot was so sick. There are people who you meet in independent wrestling that make you think, “If I wasn't a pro wrestler, there's no way in hell I would ever encounter this person.” But sometimes you meet these people are they are just the best. I would never meet this person in my day-to-day life but I'm glad I did because they're a genuinely interesting and good human being. If you're in the room with Hoodfoot he commands the room. He's a great story-teller. He's so funny and earnest. It was such a blast wrestling with him. It was a match I asked for because everyone was like, “Technical wrestler. Technical wrestler. We book him against other technical wrestlers.” And I said, “Book me against people who can fight! Yeah, I'm a technical wrestler but that's a lot of the roots of fighting – submission and wrestling.” I think that's interesting. It makes for dynamic and unique matches. That's one of my favourite matches, absolutely.

JAIDEN – JAIDEN's such a good kid. I started wrestling on shows with him when he was 17 or 18 maybe. He started when he was really, really young. I created a list of people that I've wrestled two times or more – it was interesting to figure who's got the most amount – and there's a couple 5-timers on there. Tim Thatcher is a 5-timer and JAIDEN is also a 5-timer. Right before the pandemic we had a series of matches with each other that I really, really liked in Portland. We were supposed to run it back a couple times but it kept getting pushed back or cancelled due to covid and my back injury flaring up. So we finally got to run it back this last December, one last time. He's improved since I last wrestled him. He's really come into his own with this character. He has so many people behind him. Children love him. Portland loves him. He's just so easy to work with. He'd tell you that I push him out of his comfort zone a little bit because I come to the table with all these ideas. “You could do this, this and this.” And he'll go “I've never thought of it like that.” Part of it is because, you know, I wanna do it! I wanna take it. I wanna be a part of those moments and I need the right opponent to do that kind of stuff. He's a really good kid and I really like being around him.

Bryan Keith – Bryan Keith, god he's so good too! I'm really lucky I got to wrestle Bryan Keith when I did. It was right before he blew up, I wrestled him at SOS in Tacoma. They told me they wanted to book it, “Oh yes! Absolutely.” I was so excited when it got to happen. It's one that I think sneaky goes under the radar. Occasionally I'll get people popping up, “Oh, I didn't realize you wrestled Bryan Keith. When did that happen?” I guess it was about two years ago now. Again, really genuine guy. Really nice guy. Easy to work with but he's also a real nerd for this stuff as well. He's a guy I can throw a bunch of semi-obscure Japanese names and promotions at and say, “Let's do this thing kinda like these guys,” and he goes, “Yep. Totally get it.” When people are real deep fans and have been for a long time and I can throw obscure references at them and they're totally down, those are some of my favourite opponents. They're the easiest people to work with. I wish I got to wrestle him more. I'm so happy he has the success he does now. I'm glad I got to wrestle him at least once. He's the coolest guy in the room.

The good folks of SOS put this match up on YouTube. PLEASE WATCH IT. IT’S SO GOOD.

Vinnie Massaro – Vince is someone who, when I started tape trading, was breaking out in the California indies and I was watching a lot of those tapes back in the day, appreciating his work. He's someone kind of similar to me, having a bit of a resurgence in the last three or four years, because of streaming and whatever. It's like, Vinnie is still going and Vinnie is still good! I feel like I've got a lot of young people here in the Northwest who I like to work with and I hope have learned from me – I don't want to project that but it feels like that's the case. And he definitely has that kind of community around him in northern California as well, where there's a lot of really good up and coming wrestlers that are learning under Vinnie Massaro and consequently he's having some of the best matches of his life. He was so easy to work with and I knew he would be. He showed up and we literally put together the match in five minutes. “We'll do this, this and this. Great. See ya there.” That's when it's like, “Oh yeah, maybe I am good at this. Maybe this really is fun.” Wrestling can sometimes be stressful. If you're working with people who are brand new, you don't know what their level is or exactly how they work. But then I get together with someone like Vinnie and it's, “Oh, he works just like me. This is easy. This is fun.”

Trish Adora – Whoa. Trish and I had been talking for years and years and had never met before the day we wrestled. She said some really nice things about me on a podcast – The Black Wrasslin’ Podcast – and they were like, “What’s a piece of art, a match that really inspires you?” She said “Daniel Makabe vs Timothy Thatcher.” They were like, “Oooookay.” They had no fucking clue who I am obviously. A friend of mine said, “Do you know Trish Adora is shouting you out on this podcast?” Well, no, I don’t know what this podcast is. <laughs> Subsequently after that we started talking. Whenever I could, if I was watching a match of hers, I’d give her some feedback. She’s just a genuine, nice human being. I knew the day would come where we’d finally meet and it would just be nice. It was and it was easy to work with her. She’s really good but in the grand scheme of things, she’s still kind of new at this. She took direction really well. I think she was really excited to get to wrestle with me and I was very excited to wrestle her. I saw her again like two weeks later in Portland – she was on the same show where I wrested Zack Sabre Jr.. Honestly, my wife who loves Zack Sabre Jr. and Trish Adora, those were the two most excited people in the room for me and Sabre. She was so excited for me and Sabre. I’m so thankful that she’s having success and again, I’m glad. We were supposed to wrestle twice before and both times got cancelled. I’m glad it happened once. It might end up being my last ever match in Vancouver.

Necks and shoulders are also not safe when Makabe is in the ring. Photo by Ben Rollo.

6. Your guest question comes from someone you're very familiar with, the Professional, Travis Williams. (Pictured above being twisted up) What is the best or most influential piece of advice you’ve been given?
I’m gonna blow the quote. There’s a band I really like called Self Defense Family. They kind of don’t exist now, or exist in a kind of limbo. They used to have a blog they would update – they’d talk about shows and upcoming releases but they’d also take user-submitted questions and answer them. I had always wanted to be in a real band and I hadn’t been because wrestling kind of took over a lot of my 20s and into my early 30s. Then I managed to do wrestling and music at the same time, even though wrestling really took over my life in my late 30s. Kind of the first serious band I was in, in my late 20s, before our first show I asked a question on the Self Defense blog saying “I’m playing the first real show with a band I’ve ever played, what’s some advice for me?” The gist of it, I’m going to blow it, but it was something along the lines of “Failure isn’t real. It’s just kind of a conceit that we just battle in our own heads. You’re doing something and that has purpose.” I kind of remember they ended whatever the more verbose version of what I just said with “You can’t fail because failure doesn’t exist.” They didn’t answer the question until like a month after the show, but that always stuck with me.