Natalya Speaks About Her Father, Total Divas, & What To Expect At SummerSlam
Natalya spoke with ET Canada about her upcoming match with WWE RAW Women's Champion Becky Lynch, wearing her father Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart's jacket at SummerSlam 2018, and a little bit about Total Divas.
Natalya is the first-ever third-generation female wrestler in the world, which she's proud of that fact. She does though understand that everyone's journey is different, like her SummerSlam opponent Becky Lynch's journey.
"It's awesome," Natalya said. "It's something I obviously didn't choose but because I am a third-generation superstar in WWE, I'm so proud of it. I think about my lineage and everybody's journey is different. Even going into SummerSlam Becky [Lynch]'s journey is very different. She fought hard to get here, she had some roadblocks ?which we all do. But everybody's journey is different and I respect everyone's journey. But for me, my dream was always to get to WWE. Once I set my mind to wanting to be a WWE superstar and wanting to be a female wrestler, I just knew that I could make it happen. I never doubted that for one second that I wasn't gonna make it here."
During SummerSlam 2018 Natalya came out wearing one of her father's jackets in honor of him. His service was just one day before the event.
"It was hard because my dad's service was a day before SummerSlam," Natalya revealed. "To be able to go 'OK. I'm gonna get ready to get on a plane and go to work and do this,' it was a big thing for me. But I knew that I was doing it for my dad because if people saw me wearing my dad's jacket they would think of my dad. And I felt like what would my dad want? Would he want me to be home and crying on the couch or would he want me to be with my friends, my WWE family, and my WWE Universe family? We wanted to be celebrating him and life keeps going. We just have to keep moving forward. It was hard but it was awesome and I'm grateful that everybody was so loving and understanding."
When asked about what fans can expect from SummerSlam, Natalya simply stated that her winning the RAW Women's title from Becky Lynch is something to expect on Sunday night.
"You're going to see a new RAW women's champion on Sunday when I make Becky Lynch tap out to a sharpshooter," she said. "And it's just going to be so great because Becky Lynch is arguable one of the greatest female superstars in the history of WWE. She's had the most incredible run of almost anyone I've ever seen in WWE, man or woman. It's going to be unbelievable to be able to beat her in my home country and to take home gold in Canada."
Natalya revealed in the interview, that a lot of moms who watch Total Divas started taking their kids to WWE events. The moms would come to the events dressed as Nikki and Brie Bella.
"I think it really brought a great spotlight to women's wrestling because a lot of people that watch Total Divas never watched WWE before," she explained. And I've met so many people that have said 'Because of Total Divas I brought my family to a live event.' Moms make a lot of decisions for the household and a lot of moms that were watching our show were also becoming huge wrestling fans. The moms were coming to events dressed up like Nikki and Brie Bella because of the show. That's where I feel like we brought a really big spotlight from Total Divas to WWE.
Natalya also spoke about her friendship with the Bella Twins and what makes her excited about SummerSlam each year. To read the whole interview, please click here.