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Natalya Is So Underrated, Hart Family Legacy, WWE Longevity, Bret Hart, The Dungeon, Tyson Kidd
Natalya Neidhart (@natbynature) is a professional wrestler with WWE. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet at her home in Tampa, FL to talk about her 16-year WWE career, what keeps her hungry, her favorite matches, training in the Hart family Dungeon in Calgary, her family memory of her father Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart, learning from her Uncle Bret Hart, how she met her husband TJ Wilson (Tyson Kidd), her memories of the night of TJ's spinal cord injury in 2015, their wrestling training center in Florida also called "The Dungeon", being in the best shape of her life and much more!
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Quote I'm thinking about:
"You just can't beat the person who never gives up." - Babe Ruth
"So last November, I had to have nose surgery I had a severely deviated septum, and my nose was off the joint. I didn't know about any of this until I had to get it fixed, a nose joint. So my nose was broken and it was off the joint. So I had to get my septum and my nose fixed. And when I did that, I had to take some time off from WWE, which for me, I've been in WWE for 16 and a half uninterrupted years. So that three months that I had off, I was like I've got this time off I really want to get laser focused and dialled in on my diet and my fitness and my health and just getting in the best shape of my life. You know, before I go back to work, TJ, he does intermittent fasting and so I started doing that and I don't eat anything past a certain time and then I don't start eating until later in the day the next day. So I have this like 16-hour window of not eating. Yes, I’m 16:8 so then I do my cardio and my most of my training for the most part I do it in the morning on an empty stomach and then I'm able to eat after that. It just worked for me, and everything's different for everyone. Different things work for different people. But for me, it really worked. And I would go to bed a little bit hungry and I would see results because I wasn't eating a lot at night. In the past I would get done with the show and I'd be really hungry and I would feel like okay, I want to go to McDonald's. I would just kind of let my hair down and you just start to kind of pick around at junk and you have some pizza and you have a glass of wine and so when you go to sleep right after that, it's just kind of you know, for me, it didn't work. And so I didn't realise like, For me, I'm five foot five I got up to like 172. Again, not a bad weight by any means, but I was like, Whoa, I can't believe like that was a little high for me. So I got this time off with my nose surgery I want to come back to work in the best shape of my life and I just got really dialled in and I love to work out it’s like a passion for me. I do Olympic training. John Cena’s coach Rob McIntyre. He runs Cena's gym that Cena has in Florida and it's kind of like an invite-only but when I started getting really serious about weightlifting and weight training, I learned how to do all those Olympic power lifts from Cena’s coach Rob and Rob trains, John, he's trained Claudio, he's trained Rusev, he's trained Windham, Roman, pretty much everybody, Big E. He's trained everybody. And he taught me about, like, taught me a lot about weight training. So as a woman, I can't stress enough how important it is to lift weights as much as it is to do cardio, if not more important."
"It's funny because TJ said the other day, we were at the dungeon. And TJ said, you're moving so well, you're moving so fast, and I feel so good. Like, I wake up knock on wood, wake up every single day pain-free and as a pro wrestler that's been wrestling since I was 18 years old, which for me, like I just love this so much that I feel like I've never taken a break really ever longer than three months. But to wake up from wrestling 20 years, 20 plus years, it's actually like a little over 22 years and wake up pain-free. It's because I am in such good shape and being lighter has helped me move better. I feel like I'm actually like hitting my stride which is crazy this deep into my career for a woman. No woman ever in the history of WWE has ever done that, has ever been there. As long as I have. Even Bret was in WWE for 14 years. So it's like, it's funny when I think about that. I'm like, I'm just so lucky. So lucky, so blessed."
"I just feel so good. That's the crazy thing is that, like people always say oh, when are you gonna wrap it up? When is it gonna be done? It's like, Listen, this is Hotel California. You can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave. Once you do this, like I'm a wrestler through and through like it'll never ever, ever, ever, ever leave me ever. It's a community. It's a family. It's a lifestyle. It's a way of life and it doesn't mean that I'll be competing forever but like, it's like, you know, when I saw Rey Mysterio, I was watching him in a match. I was live at a show and I went into the crowd and like put a hat on and watched him you know, I was incognito and I watched Rey perform live, it was in Mexico and he was wrestling Roman Reigns. And I was just like Rey is almost 50 And he is doing the best work of his career. He's so inspiring, his gear, his look his energy, his vibe, his ability to move around to make people feel something and granted he was in there with one of the greatest of all time Roman, but Rey is one of the greatest of all time. He just inspires me so much and like I'm you know, I'm not close to being done when I look at like what Rey's doing. I'm like Rey inspires me to want to do so much more and to also help people you know, because you look at who Rey's worked with and how much he's helped people even with Santos right now you know. I look up to so much as Ray, what he's done."
"I think that because, and this is gonna sound crazy. But when I really think about it, because my career wasn't picture-perfect. And because it didn't work out exactly how I wanted it to in my head. It has driven me so much. Because when like it back in the day, you know, even when I was first starting when I was an FCW, it's like this for everybody. I want to be a champion, I want to have this I want to have that I want to win the Royal Rumble, I want to, you know, I want to have all these different titles. And I want to do this and I want to do that. And for me, because it didn't always work out perfectly, it's left me really, really hungry. And it's left me in a place in my life where I don't want to stop. I don't want to take it for granted. But I won't stop reaching for greatness because I feel like the second that you get comfortable, the second that you get complacent, the second that you stop fighting and the second that you stop trying is when it's over. And for me, I love what I do. I love the women that I work with I love and thrive on working with new talent. I feel like that's really one of my special niches. I love, love love working with new talent like when Charlotte Flair was first getting started, like I was I remember being presented with the opportunity by Triple H to work with her and I was like I want to do that. That sounds like so much fun. And you know it's funny that match we had Charlotte and I at TakeOver Triple H said you, you know you asked him what our time limit was I was like how long do we have? He's like you don't have a time limit. Just do what you want. And it was the first time, I think about that match was the first time in my career that somebody told me I didn't have a time limit. And it was like diving in with this new talent that like I had met Charlotte backstage and she and I had this like Heart to Heart together and she was just before she was Charlotte Flair. She was just Ashley and I know what it's like to just be Nattie before you become a WWE superstar. You're just like you're nervous and you're in these big you have these big shoes to fill like you know, the Hart family Ric Flair like you got these larger than life boots to fill and she just wanted to make her family proud and she was dealing with the loss of her brother and she was the super athletic girl but she just needed to kind of rein it in and I was so excited about working with somebody that was new and that just needed a chance, because it sparked a fire. You know what I mean? And I think and I look and strive for that all the time, whether it's me working with Xia Li on Main Event, whether it's me working with, against Charlotte Flair, whether it's me working with, you know, a brand new girl, whether it's me, I mean, I think about my match or the Aliyah. You know, when that was presented to me where she was gonna beat me in three seconds, I was like, What can we do to make a great story out of this so we can really help get Aliyah over because then if we get Aliyah over, we have another girl for our division, it just it's about making the division strong, where you can’t have a strong division with just one girl that strong. So I always saw myself as the kind of person that helped bridge the gap with that."
"He [Bret Hart] made my dad, he helped my dad so much. When I look at it, Bret always says, you know, Jim helped me come out of my shell and Jim helped me find my personality. But when my dad and Bret were going into the Hall of Fame. It's funny because I was very, very, very adamant. At one point it was approached, you know, it was, I was basically presented with the idea of my dad going in by himself. And I said, you know, I want my dad to go in with, I want my dad and Bret in there together as the Hart Foundation because that was my dad's favourite time in his career. That's when he had the most fun. That's when he was the most alive. That's when he just did his best work. And Bret just looked out for him so much. And they were just so close and such a well-oiled machine. And so as much as like, in that moment, Vince was like, we can put your dad in by himself. I was like, I want my dad and Bret together. I want them together because my dad would have wanted that. You know, and so that was really cool to be able to do that for my dad. It was something that he really I know he would have been so excited to be part of the Hall of Fame."
"My dad did not want me a part of wrestling at all. He was very like, against it. Because my dad at the time there were only a few women in it. And my grandfather Stu didn't train any girls down in the dungeon. And so my uncle is we're all brought up with this is just a man's world. Because back in the day in the 80s there wasn't a lot of you know, there was Wendy Richter there was sensational Sherri, there was just a few you know, Miss Elizabeth, but there wasn't really a lot of women wrestling so I wasn't overly encouraged by anybody in my family, especially the men to do it because it wasn't really seen as something for the women. And so for me, I had to break down that barrier even in my own family, like I want to do this and my dad was really afraid I was gonna get hurt, not just hurt physically, but like hurt emotionally because he's like, this is such a hard business. And then when I started to succeed, I went to Japan. and did my very first tour of Japan. That's where I met Becky Lynch actually, blew out my ACL and that's why my dad was like, he didn't want me doing it."
"Once I really started to prove myself to my dad, he was like my biggest cheerleader. In his office before he passed away, like his office just had like pictures of us, you know, my sisters and I everywhere and like, every wrestling thing I ever did was like on the walls, my action figures and his action figures and Bret's action figures. And he really celebrated that so much. He became like my biggest fan, yeah, he became my biggest, biggest biggest fan."
"Bray Wyatt, before he made his return back to WWE. Last year he approached us about training and coming to work in the dungeon. And so we kept it all extremely private because if somebody doesn't want to be filmed, or they don't want to, we don't post about it. So it can, you know, can be very private, but he was so excited to like get in the ring and like he was giving everybody promo advice and he was in there like just you could just feel him get excited about it. And it's funny because he said to me, when he was in our at the dungeon, he's like Natty, I want to do something for you guys. Like what can I buy for you? He was so giving, you know, and he was like, I want to do something I want to buy something for the school. And I said Windham, you don't have to buy anything. I was like you just coming here and you giving advice is just everything. Because he would go around after he would be in the ring. He would go around every single person that was there. And again, it's it's usually you know, between 10 and 15 people. And he embodied what TJ and I want our dungeon to be, it's just where you give back. It's just all about giving back. It's about helping people. It's about helping people from every walk of life and Windham was giving everybody advice and saying, you know, what, if you said it like this, or what if you did that, like this? Or what if you did, he was like, so he was just so giving, that's what the dungeon is, the dungeon is about us giving back."
"He can't do anything that would require him to take a bump. So he can show little techniques, and TJ is like a wrestling savant. I think in the same way that like Daniel Bryan did. He sees the industry in wrestling and everything like he could ask him about a finish from a Bret Hart match. That's very obscure, he'll be able to tell you, he could tell you any single girl's move set. He could. He could, if you if you said, TJ, when did I have that match? Who was it against what arena what town, he's like that with moves too. He just knows how to dissect it, pick it apart. He was working with Nia Jax on something. And he was just helping her figure out exactly how to do it so that it was just perfect technique. And I was like, I didn't even know TJ ever knew about that move. And he's just so gifted, and he's so good, but he just can't bump. And that's the thing when you have an injury, like what TJ had, where it's a C1 injury, and not everybody's familiar with what a C1 injury is. But it is where TJ broke his neck was at the base of his brain. So it's where like the brain and the spinal cord meet. So it's a very, very vulnerable area. And the actual medical term for that injury is called The Hang Man fracture. So when people say, Oh, TJ, you know, we want to see you get back in the ring. And they see that he is very healthy, and he is in very great shape. Because he had a C1 injury with a C1 C2 fusion, he just can't take a bump. And he has to be very careful. So he can't ever come back to wrestling. I mean, he can do stuff, you know, he can do stuff, but he can't take a bump. It would be really dangerous."
"It's funny because I didn't even know I had a Guinness World Record until one day I was tagged in something with Randy Orton. And it was like the most, I can't remember whether it was the most wins of the most pay-per-views or something. And I sent Randy a text like Randy did you know that we have a Guinness World Record and then Rey Mysterio got one too for the most SmackDown matches. I said, Rey, we both have the most SmackDown matches and then all of a sudden, I just kept getting them and I was like, damn, I'll take it. There's one that they're looking into because a fan on Twitter pointed out to me that I have the most submission wins of any man or woman in WWE history, and I was like I have more wins than Bret Hart? Well, submissions because TJ pointed out the wrestling savant that TJ is he's like Bret didn't always win with the Sharpshooter. He's like you've won a lot of matches with the Sharpshooter. But Bret won a lot of his matches with roll-ups and quick pins and things. So I was like, damn it, I'll take it another world record. I'll take it. But it's fun. I mean, at the end of the day like it's cool what my world records are really for. It's just having worked a lot. I worked a lot. I haven't really had a break in almost 17 years. I had an ankle injury where I had surgery and I was out for three weeks. I was out for three I had surgery and I was out for three weeks and TJ goes Natty you just had surgery three weeks ago and I was like Dr. Andrews Clinic says that I'm like ready to go. I want to get back in the ring. So I took three weeks off after having surgery on an ankle injury but in January I'll have been signed by WWE for almost 17 years and I've had three months off in 17 years."
“An amazing family, security and my health.”
