Natalya recently spoke with Darren Stone for an in-depth, tell-all interview covering her legendary career as a veteran WWE Superstar and a locker room mentor to all in the women’s division.
During the discussion, the women’s wrestling legend discussed her thoughts on competing in multiple eras on the biggest stage in pro wrestling and sports entertainment, as well as her status as a locker room leader and mentor to the women in WWE.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where she touches on these topics with her thoughts.
On her thoughts on competing in multiple eras in WWE: “I’m very lucky that I’ve had the experience and the career that I’ve had, having grown up in the industry and having done so much in the industry. I started WWE right when the Attitude Era was just going away. All of the sudden it was like this Ugly Duckling phase, I don’t wanna say the Divas Division was an Ugly Duckling phase, but we were just transitioning from this really bad-ass Attitude Era to all of the sudden being told that we weren’t allowed to be called women wrestlers or superstars or anything, we had to be called divas. It wasn’t necessarily a bad term, you know Beyoncé and Diana Ross and J-Lo, those are women that are loved to be called divas. It was a very unique time where women’s wrestling wasn’t celebrated. We weren’t there yet. The company wasn’t there yet, they didn’t really want women’s wrestling yet. For me, that was tough because my strengths were really in the ring. So, I kind of came into the company at an awkward phase.”
On how she has a good relationship with a lot of the girls in the locker room due to her tenure and experience: “Then saw the Women’s Evolution in WWE many years later. About seven years after I got hired, we all of the sudden saw that [women were beginning to be celebrated]. They want women who know what they’re doing, they want women that can wrestle. We saw a lot of that at NXT where we saw the rise of Sasha Banks, Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, and Bayley just to name a few. Women’s wrestling was really being celebrated. So for me, I think a lot of the women look to me as a sounding board or somebody that they can turn to because I’ve just been through so much in the company [including] the good, the bad, and everything in between. I feel like they know that I’m reliable, solid, and dependable and that they can get good advice from me. I’m always very honored and flattered by that.”
Watch the complete Natalya interview with Darren Stone via the YouTube video player embedded below. H/T to Fightful.com for transcribing the above quotes.
