Daniel Makabe 2018 Dive

I've been meaning to watch a bunch more Daniel Makabe, dig through more of his available 2018 work, and since I'm seeing him this weekend I figure now is as good a time as any to do that. I've not seen many of his opponents, know nothing about the Seattle indy scene, so let's dive in.

Daniel Makabe vs. "Big Cat" Scott Henson 3-2-1 Battle! 1/12/18

ER: Henson is a man who wears tiger tights, tiger singlet, tiger tail, wears fur on his arms and neck, and seems like I guy I would not like. I liked Jun Kasai, he wore a tail; I liked Felino, he dressed like a furry cat; I liked Monkey Magic Wakita, he didn't wear anything like that but you would assume he did based on his name. And this whole match felt like something really impressive that Makabe can hang his hat on. Even though this is my first time seeing Henson I can't actually see him having a better match with another area indy worker. These two have been matched up a bunch over the last half decade, and Makabe was great at feeding his offense and providing openings, and they worked a fairly long match (nearly 20 minutes) without it wearing out its welcome. Makabe controlled a lot with cool mat stuff, which adds up as I am an owner of a chubby cat, and I can totally push him around when he's lying around. My cat son has little mat game and panics when he's on his back. Makabe is really great at moving in and out of roll-ups (great victory roll) and submissions (dig that octopus he effortlessly applied in the ropes), always showing his work and not just heatlessly running through rehearsed sections, and it becomes kind of sick fun watching him take apart this man dressed as Rum Tum Tugger.

Makabe throws these great worked punches, awesome windup shots that are faultlessly worked and land in a sweet spot on the lower jaw, they have a cool battle over a snap stuffed piledriver with Makabe purposely letting Henson think he reversed out of it by slipping his arms free only to realize that was exactly what Makabe wanted him to do, or how Makabe purposely lets him slide out of a high backslide to get him into position for something worse; Makabe also plants him with a nice bridged German after a fight in the ropes, and we build to Henson's nice comeback. Henson has some decent offense: obviously you're going to get claw rakes (disappointing he doesn't do rabbit kicks as my cat son loves grabbing a toy in his paws and kicking it with his long feet), but he also throws some nice knees in the corner (with Makabe draped over the top rope), hits a big sitout powerbomb, an unexpected La Mistica, nice half nelson suplex (loved Makabe drunkenly reaching for the ropes after rolling through to his feet before finding he was just a bit too far away), and the crowd really gets into Henson. The end run had some awesome moments, my favorite being Henson unsheathing one of his arms from it's fur covering in a kind of Lawler strap down moment, only to take too long doing it; Makabe catches his chop, slams his arm to the mat and stomps it. After Makabe is mocking Henson's hurt arm to the crowd and to Henson himself, allowing Henson to grab Makabe's arm and hit a great single arm lariat. That was just one moment that made me appreciate Makabe finding cool ways to set up Henson for a big moment, there were plenty of other big bumps (backdrop to the floor leading to a near count out, big bump on the apron, missed upside down bump into the turnbuckles) that all logically lead to big Henson moments, just a really nicely laid out match. I don't know how many other Henson matches I'll be checking out, but this was a really nice pairing with some really clever moments all throughout, easily worthy of your 20 minutes.

Daniel Makabe vs. Artemis Spencer 3-2-1 Battle! 3/9/18

ER: This whole match was worked as a really frenetic sprint, and it had this unfocused quality that added to the match. Sometimes I say a match is unfocused if it feels like the guys in there had no actual real plan of how to work things out, so they just try a hodgepodge of indy matches and squish them all together. But for this match I think unfocused is a compliment, as it felt like both guys were working for a finish from the opening bell (opening chant?) and kept that up through the finish; the strategies and attacks were manic so you didn't get either of them going for one specific finish, so the unfocused nature benefitted the match as it felt like the whole thing could end at any time. They made good use of rope breaks so neither guy was hanging out in a submission for too long, and they did a great job of constantly butting up against each other to try to cancel each other out during the grappling. They end up in a bunch of cool tangles, like Spencer locking in a kneebar and then locking up Makabe's free leg, or the few cool scraps that resulted from blocked roll-ups (like a triangle out of a Makabe sunset flip) or knucklelocks, Makabe getting a hold loosened by digging his elbow into Spencer's thigh, Makabe always grinding his forearm on Spencer's chin during pinfalls. Makabe gets his arm worked over with some Fujiwaras (liked Spencer getting big leverage on it, bridging up his legs), and I loved how Makabe kept selling his arm throughout, loved how he still used his punch and great elbow as a blunt object with the hurt arm. The finish with a bunch of flipping knucklelock trickery ending with Makabe suckering him into an STF was killer. This match was super fun, almost like a scrambly version of a Hideki Suzuki match.