Natalya is a mentor in the WWE, and she loves it.
Natalya has been in WWE for over a decade and at 40 years old, she is now one of the longest reigning veterans in the locker room. She has multiple championships to her name and also has the most wins in the WWE women’s division. Natalya sat down to talk with Faction 919 to speak about her illustrious career and spoke on competing in many different eras.
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.
– Natalya via Faction 919
Natalya also spoke about being a mentor in the Women’s locker room and how some females look to her for advice.
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.
– Natalya via Faction 919
Natalya is still active in the WWE today and surely has a bonafide spot in the WWE Hall Of Fame.
H/T Fightful
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