Not many pegged Timothy Thatcher as going to a big company as his style on the Independent scene, and his lack of social media, had most believing he would remain a staple on smaller companies.
Thatcher signed with WWE in February 2020 and has enjoyed plenty of success in NXT as a featured player on the weekly show.
Speaking to Andrew Thompson of POST Wrestling, Daniel Makabe, who had a series of bouts against Thatcher at 3-2-1 BATTLE!, discussed Thatcher influence on him during their time in the ring together.
"Those are huge. They’re easily the most important and best series of matches I’ve ever had in my life. You know, the first one we mentioned was really kind of the catalyst of me getting out of the Northwest and people kind of starting to know the name. The second one was literally — they kind of happened in success of summer so July 2017, 2018, 2019. The first two were the regular kind of venue in Seattle. The third one was actually at The Showbox which it’s like a really famous concert venue in Seattle that like Nirvana and Pearl Jam and all these huge bands played back in the day. It’s like a big, 1,000 cap room and so getting to wrestle there was huge and I wrested Jonathan Gresham in that same room. But getting to have the final match with Tim Thatcher in that room was so important to me, and honestly, getting to work with him I think really helped me develop who I am as a wrestler now and putting more importance on things that I always kind of knew were important but now it’s sort of like, ‘Oh yeah, this is how I want to wrestle. This is who I’m going to be. This is how I’m going to stand out and be different and make my matches feel important,’ and I learned so much just from working with him," he said.
Speaking about Thatcher's success in NXT, Makabe said, “I’m very happy for him [Timothy Thatcher] for where he’s gone and I never in a million years would’ve expected Tim Thatcher to be on NXT, but honestly, you need guys like him. It all comes back to talking about in pandemic wrestling, you need guys who add that level of realism and who add that really hard and really snug [style] with their movements and with their holds and stuff, especially for working in front of small crowds or no crowd whatsoever and I just think he’s a throwback. He’s an easy person to boo or hate in modern wrestling and so, I think he’ll do well there. I just never expected to see it so, and I’m glad I got to wrestle him before he went on to bigger and better things.”
Thatcher was scheduled to face Tommaso Ciampa in the Fight Pit at NXT New Year's Evil, but was injured and unable to compete.
If you missed anything from NXT New Year's Evil, check out Fightful's full report on the show by clicking here.
You can watch the entire interview with Makabe in the video above.
